Page 72 of Hand Picked
“No big,” Aiden agreed gratefully.
I felt Webb’s body tense against mine.
Over the past three weeks, Amanda had been late for spelling bee practice pickup once because she’d had to stay late at work, and she’d missed a hockey practice due to an issue with her car.
I knew this because Webb had made no secret of his unhappiness both times. He worried that she wasn’t taking the judge’s warnings seriously and that it was a precursor to more seriously flaky or endangering behavior down the line.
I wasn’t sure I agreed.
When Amanda had come to pick Aiden up after practice, her pretty face had been flushed and anxious. She’d gotten a job as an office manager for a Realtor in Keltyville, she’d said, and her boss had needed her to finish a project before she left. She’d apologized profusely.
If I had a nickel for every time a parent had told me a similar story over the years, I’d have been directing my home repairs from my private Caribbean island. Heck, even Drew Sunday had been late for pickup once. And it was a sad truth that sometimes bad luck hit just when you were trying to make a good impression.
When I’d tried to bring that up to Webb, though, he’d told me I didn’t know Amanda. I didn’t know their situation. And he was right.
I’d wanted to point out that I’d love for him tosharethat story… but I wasn’t sure how much to push. For all that he talked about letting Hollowans help you, he wasn’t too great at practicing what he preached. And we weren’t actually boyfriends, even if sometimes it felt like—
“Oh, yeah! Turn that speaker up, Murray!” Knox yelled out of a third-floor window.
I blinked… and then chuckled as I recognized the sound of “Sweet Caroline” filling the air.
“Webb, you just feel free to serenade yourboyfriend, brother!” Knox continued challengingly. “Give him a twirl for us, too, why don’t you? Show Luke your dance moves. Give the people what they want.”
“Heck yeah! We came for the show!” Helena Fortnum said with a wink, looking up from a bite of pasta salad.
Even Katey Valcourt, the least likely Webb-and-Luke fan on the planet, cupped her hand around her mouth and yelled, “Sing it!”
Webb directed a narrow-eyed glare toward the attic, but when he looked back at me, his mouth twitched into a smile. “Shall we?”
“What?” I frowned. “Shall we what? N-no. You’re not gonna—”
Oh, God, but then he did.
And, holy mother of monkeys, there were many, many things Webb did well, but singing was not one.
“Stop,” I laughed, trying to cover his mouth with my free hand. “Oh God, hush. You’re scarring your son. Aiden, cover your ears. What are you doing with your hips. Oh my stars. Webb!”
Webb pulled my hand away from his face and sang even louder, until Aiden nearly collapsed with giggles.
“Pardon us for a second, bud. I feel like Luke is questioning my dance skills.” Webb tugged me away from Aiden, then pulled me into a kind of rhythmless shuffle right there on the gravel driveway, where the primary “moves” seemed to be shaking his shoulders up and down like he was getting ready for a boxing match and then spinning us in a circle. I was dizzy and breathless with laughter while the whole town cheered.
Yeah, there were definitely moments when this relationship felt real.
In fact, I was having a hard time reminding myself that it wasn’t.
“You showed him, Webb!” Marco called.
Chrissy Duarte wolf whistled.
Sheriff Carver yelled, “That dance hasgotto be a safety violation of some kind, Sunday! Pretty sure you just struck me blind.”
“This is Genevieve York-Muller with Hand-Fast Watch, at the scene of a historic scroll-checking event!”
Webb and I rocked to a stop and stared at each other with wide eyes for a second. “Webb?”
“Yeah, babe.”
“Please tell me that Genevieve’s cameraman didn’t just take a video of us dancing.”
