“You saw? That’s it?You’re not panicking?”
Brendan Marco never seems to get rattled. His ability to hide his emotions—if he hasanyemotions—is Olympic-level. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that he’s as rock solid as a marble statue, but what I can’t understand is why he isn’t bothered by this more.
“One of us panicking is enough. I’ll be there in five minutes to pick you up for your parents’ house.” Then he hangs up, leaving me staring at the phone.
Gabriella leans against the counter, arms crossed, a smile tugging at her lips. “Look at it this way, at least now you don’t have to figure out how to tell your family.”
FIVE
Brendan
As I pull into a parking spot, I’m already pondering how to undo the damage from my mother’s Facebook post. I barely check social media these days. Once I started working for the Crushers, it seemed safer to stay offline. Sports fans are like the weather: they love you when you’re winning and want to trade you when you’re not.
I don’t even make it inside the coffee shop before Scarlett bursts out the back door, still looking as panicked as she sounded on the phone. She climbs into my SUV, clutching what appears to be half a dozen sticky notes and a large, white tote bag. Before she even slams the door, she’s already sticking the notes to my dash. “Okay, we need a plan before we get to my parents’ place, so I wrote everything down.”
“Hello to you, too,” I say, looking over my shoulder at her. “How was your day, Rossi?”
She turns to me with an impatient frown. “Listen, we don’t have time for small talk. Because, spoiler alert: my day was not good, thanks to Isabella Marco’s oversharing. You need to put your mother on a Facebook timeout or something.”
“Like I could ever control my mother’s internet habits,” I mutter under my breath. “Asking my mom to stay off social mediais like asking water to stop being wet. Besides, who’s really on Facebook anymore? Isn’t that where people go to argue with their high school classmates about politics?”
“Everyone’s on Facebook, Brendan.”
“I’m not. If you want to make news in this town, the best way is to get pulled over by the cops. Everybody will drive by and take pictures. Or worse, record it on their dash cams. People love gossiping aboutthat.”
“You think getting pulled over is worse than your relative asking when the wedding is? People are going to start expecting us to register at Target and pick out matching pajamas.”
“My family would never register at Target,” I shoot back, which only prompts an eye roll from Scarlett.
“The point is,” she says with a sigh. “We need a strategy.”
“A strategy.” I pull my SUV onto Main Street, trying to ignore Scarlett’s soft, rose fragrance. It’s hard to even think when she smells this good. Why is it hockey players always smell like sweat and funky socks, but Scarlett smells amazing after working a twelve-hour shift? If they made a candle that smelled like her, I would burn it down to the last drop.
“Earth to Brendan.” She snaps her fingers in front of my face, yanking me back to the present. “Were you going to tell me your strategy?”
“Right.Is it really that bad if your family finds out on Facebook? We were going to tell them tonight anyway.”
“Yes, it is. It totally changes our approach. We’ll need to act like a couple.”
“But I thought that’s what we already planned? Telling them we were going to the wedding together so…”
“Nooooo,” she interrupts, clamping her eyes shut and shaking her head.
Maybe it’s because I’m a man—and in stereotypical, male fashion, I like to get to the point. Why beat around the bush? My whole plan for tonight was simple: small talk, dinner, then ourdating announcement. After that, my work was done.Mission accomplished.
Scarlett lifts a finger, like a teacher about to explain a very important lesson. “Tonight was supposed to be about dropping hints. I wanted to let my parentsthinksomething was happening without actuallysayingit. It’s a slow reveal.”
“Huh?” She’s speaking in some sort of relationship code. “Why wouldn’t we just tell them? That seems pretty straightforward.”
She cocks an eyebrow. “Says the guy who told his mom I was his wedding date before asking me.”
“Fair point. But for the record, Rossi, I’ve apologized for that.Multiple times.” I slide on my sunglasses as we head down Walnut Street. “So, what kind of hints?”
She plucks one of the sticky notes from the dashboard and holds it up. “That’s why I made a list calledWays to tell your parents you’re dating, without telling them you’re dating.”
“You made a list.” It’s not a question—it’s an observation about her fundamental approach to life, which clearly still involves mass quantities of sticky notes in all shades of the rainbow.
“I make a list for everything. Random thoughts. Brain dumps. YouTube channels I’ll probably never watch, recipes I’ll never make, and videos with dancing grandmas.” She gestures to her purse, which appears to be a sticky-note storage facility. “Organization is how I prevent my life from collapsing.”