Again, the girls shared a look. They didn't say anything, but their expressions said it all. They thought I was full of shit.
To whoever wanted to hear it, I announced, "I just like her, that's all."
Arden said, "You wanna know what I think? I think it's lust and love." She gave Brody a wistful smile. "Sometimes, they go hand-in-hand, you know?"
Brody moved closer to Arden and wrapped an arm around her waist. He pulled her close and whispered something into her ear. She gave a soft giggle, as if he'd suggested slipping into the pantry for a quickie.
When I looked to Mason, he and Cami were doing the same thing.
Just shoot me now.
I told the whole lot of them, "You need to go."
Arden said, "But I haven't even made coffee."
"Good," I said. "You can hit the shop down the street. Their coffee's way better than mine, anyway."
"Fine," she grumbled. "But I know you're just making an excuse."
"No kidding," I said. "I need to make a phone call."
Cami looked to Arden and said, "I bet he's gonna call her." She said "her" like Mina was a long-lost sister.
Arden nodded. "I bet you're right."
I didn't bother pointing out that I'd said as much only a few moments ago.
Arden looked back to me and asked, "So, when do we get to meet her?" Before I could answer, she gave a little gasp of excitement. She looked to Cami and said, "If they get really serious, maybe she could stand in the wedding."
I didn't ask which wedding, because for all I knew, they meant both weddings. Good thing I hadn't eaten the pancakes, or I'd be chucking them back up again.
When the four of them finally left, I grabbed my cell phone and started thinking in terms of damage-control.
Step one – warn Mina.
Chapter 57
Mina
It took weeks before my parents stopped looking at me funny – my dad, in particular.
It didn't help that Ginger and Emory had both shared that first National Dirt story on every one of their social media accounts, which meant that practically everyone in the county was now speculating on whether or not I'd had sex with Chase Blastoviak in the barn of the fairgrounds.
And yes, "wondering" was the right word to describe it, because I never confirmed or denied. Instead, whenever anyone was rude enough to ask, I politely explained that I'd given Chase a tour of the whole barn, which naturally included the hayloft.
And to those who asked about my own disheveled condition in that photo, I'd pointed out that haylofts are not tidy places. And to anyone who further pressed the issue, I'd merely suggested they get their mind out of the gutter.
Meanwhile, my parents had done pretty much the same thing whenever the topic came up in their social circles, even if my mom had done it a lot more cheerfully than my dad.
Regardless, I knew exactly what everyone thought, which was probably justified, considering that their worst suspicions were actually true. But that didn't make the situation any less embarrassing.
On the upside, Chase had been perfectly wonderful from start to finish. Not only had he warned me about the story before anyone in my family had seen it, he'd also made a show of acting offended for my sake whenever anyone brought it up in front of him.
Already, nearly two months had passed since the incident in the barn, and the story was finally dying down.
Or maybe I'd simply stopped obsessing over it, which wasn't as hard as you'd think, considering how busy I'd been, especially over the last few weeks.
Busy and blissful.
By now, the campaign was in full swing, and I'd been enjoying every minute of it with the most amazing guy I'd ever met.
And yes, I did mean Chase Blastoviak.
Our weekends were packed with festivals, with the two us sometimes attending three or four in a single weekend. Considering that the festivals were located all over the Midwest, this involved a lot of travel.
And lots of hotel rooms.
Technically, I always had my own.
In reality, I was shacked up with you-know-who.
We did most of our traveling by car, because so many of the festivals were in rural areas without nearby airports, which meant that it was often quicker to simply drive from festival to festival rather than travel by air.
Chase and I always drove together, which gave us long, leisurely hours to get to know each other even better – and without the glare of the ever-growing spotlight.
On the promotional front, Chase and I weren't the only ones driving from place to place. As part of the campaign blitz, a full film crew was traveling along the same roads, documenting every festival we visited.
According to Chase, some of the footage would be used for the upcoming season of Blast, the remodeling show starring him and his brothers. But a lot more of the footage was being posted now on various social media sites, which also featured ads from Blast Tools that matched the whole festival look and feel.
As a result, the campaign was growing more popular with every passing weekend.
We were generating a ton of positive publicity for Blast Tools and the festivals along with an embarrassing amount of publicity for ourselves.
Weeks ago, we'd made the joint decision to go public with our relationship – not because either one of us were eager for the spotlight, but rather because it would've been ten times more complicated to pretend that our relationship was all business.
As a result, photos of us together were plastered all over the internet – images of us riding the Ferris Wheel, sharing cotton candy, holding hands down the midway, or stealing away for not-so-secret kisses.
There was only one hitch in the otherwise perfect campaign. The hitch had a name, and it was one that I'd come to dread hearing.
Angelique Delmonico.
She was proving to be more persistent than a hog after a truffle – or as Chase put it, a hog after somebody's liver.
Lately, Chase and I had
