Page 51 of Keep On Loving You

“Hey, Jess.” Kat slowly walked toward them. “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

Ah. That’s what it was. The expression on Kat’s face was jealousy.

He couldn’t help but grin, but the grin quickly fell away when Jess spoke up. “Andy and I are actually?—”

“On a date.” He looked quickly at Jess, who had not hid her shock well. She blinked a few times, and must have seen something in Andy’s expression that alerted her to the fact that he did not want Kat to see the real estate brochures.

Although, when he turned back to Kat and saw the look on her face, he realized that his backup story was far worse.

“I mean, it’s not a datedate.” Even to his own ears, he sounded like an asshole. Could he not have come up with any better excuse? “It’s just that your sister really wanted me to…”

Jess stopped him with a hand to his arm. “It was just a coffee.” She winked and quickly swept up the papers before Kat could see them. “I’ll give you a call.” She smiled at Kat. “It was nice to see you, Kat. I’ll need to book an appointment with you when your wrist is feeling better.”

“For sure. Give the shop a call, and the girls can book you in.” Kat lifted her bad hand that was out of the cast and now in a brace. “But I’ve actually taken some time off to deal with some family things, so if you can’t get in to see me, Carla and Alison are great.”

“Sounds good. Thanks.” Jess gave them each another wave and then she was gone.

“I’m gonna see if Dad will get us ice cream,” Meri declared. “Auntie Kat said we could have some.”

Andy tore his gaze away from Kat to look at the little girl. “Well, if Auntie Kat said so, I’m sure he won’t be able to say no.”

“That’s what I think.” Meri nodded smugly and took off running for the back room where Craig was working.

He knew they didn’t have long before Craig would join them, so Andy moved quickly to close the space between them. He knew it was risky, but he reached for her cheek and cupped it gently. “It wasn’t a date, Kat.”

“It’s fine if it was, Andy. We’re not together or anything. This is casual, remember? We agreed. Happy for right now.” She shook her head free from his touch.

He was really starting to hate those words. Still, she was right.

And he hated it.

Chapter Eighteen

They’d been hikingfor hours, and Kat was starting to think they might not ever get to the peak. Not for the first time, she cursed herself for not training enough. She was an idiot to think she could do such a challenging hike without more training.

Kat spotted a fallen log and sat heavily on it. “I think I made a mistake, Andy.” Her shoulders sagged in defeat, and she let her head drop forward. “I can’t do this. It’s too hard.”

“You can.”

She heard him move to stand in front of her but refused to look up.

“And it’s not.”

“It is.”

He chuckled. “Whine about it if you need to, but I’m not letting you turn back. No way.”

With a sigh of frustration, she lifted her head. “You’re very annoying, you know?”

“I know.” He laughed again. “And that’s why you love me.”

Her heart skipped with his word choice, but the grin on his face told her that he didn’t mean it. Not likethat.And that was her own damn fault for insisting that whatever it was they were doing wasn’t serious. If she could take back that moment in the Sugar Shack, she would. Especially after the last few weeks they’d spent together with him in her apartment.

But when she’d seen Jess sitting with Andy like that, so cozy and intimate, she’d panicked. And when he said they were on adate…Well, that pretty much sealed it for her. There was no way she was going to be made a fool of. Especially considering it was true. They were never supposed to be anything more than casual. Nothing long-term would ever work.

No matter how much she wanted it to.

“Right,” she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster in her currently exhausted state. “I’m beginning to regret having you as my partner in all this chaos.”

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