Page 62 of Faking It with the Firefighter

Blair approached with her latte in hand, manicured pinky finger extended. “I hope you’re ready to put these muscles to good use.” She squeezed my arm and gave me a little winkbefore walking away. “The rest of the wedding party will be here soon, and I’ve got the perfect job for you, Abigail,” she said, continuing toward the guest room.

Abigail looked at me. “Job? How did I get roped into this?”

“That would be my fault,” I said, taking her hand and pulling her in. “You don’t need to help out. You’ve done enough.”

She looked back as Donny and Blair disappeared down the hall. “You’ve got that right.”

“But it would be a good excuse to hang out together.” I pulled her in close, touching my nose to hers.

“I suppose I have a little time before my showing this afternoon.”

“Lucky me,” I said and kissed her softly.

“Enough of that, guys, we’ve got work to do,” Blair commanded from down the hall.

Soon,Blair had us standing at the ceremony space outside at the Botanical Gardens, just beyond Abigail’s back property line. The arbors and seating had been delivered, and it was up to us to bring it all together for the wedding tomorrow.

Blair commanded her role as the bride, standing in front of us, referencing her tablet notes as she spoke. “Now, remember, people, this wedding is going to be streamed to over two point four million followers. Everything needs to pop. I want everything perfectly symmetrical. And since I’m going to be getting ready at Abigail’s, it makes the most sense for me to enter from her backyard. So we’ll be setting up another arbor right in frontof her back fence. Thank God Rex cleaned up the yard this week.” She gave Abigail a pointed glance.

Abigail, to her credit, simply took a deep breath and painted a serene smile on her face. “He’s the best,” she agreed.

The saccharine-sweet tone of Abigail’s voice told me she was probably playing the fake girlfriend. But I’d seen the look on her face earlier, and I knew we were headed toward something real. I laced my fingers with hers and pecked a kiss on the back of it. She smiled at me in the warm autumn sun.

“Let’s get to work!” Drill Sergeant Blair yelled.

And get to work we did.

The guys and I set up the two rustic wood arbors opposite one another, and the women began wrapping them in a light, gauzy fabric. Donny and I watched them as we set up the folding chairs.

“Do you think we need to hold off on decorating like that?” He nodded to the head of the altar, where gauzy fabric had been bunched and draped artfully. “What if it rains?”

“Unlikely. We’ve been having a pretty dry season this year.”

Donny nodded. “Good.”

I watched Abigail lift onto her toes as she draped the arbor with translucent fabric. Her shirt rucked up just enough to see a sliver of her skin. She glanced over at me, caught me staring, and gave me a funny look before marching over to me.

“I thought we were going to hang out,” Abigail said with her hands on her hips. “They’ve got us separated.”

I nodded. “You’re right. Why don’t you help me set out the aisle runner?”

She rubbed her hands together. “Yippee.”

“You’re such a trooper.” I laughed and put my arm around her shoulders.

You’d think laying down a simple aisle runner would take five minutes, but after twenty minutes, Abigail and I were still trying to figure out how to secure the linen fabric to the ground. I rolled out a section, and Abigail sat down in the middle of it while I used the useless plastic pins Donny provided to try to get the aisle secured to the dry soil.

Abigail stood, then laughed when my pins went flying and the linen fabric whipped up into her face. Batting it down, she arched her brows at me. “Whose idea was this thing?”

I glanced up the aisle toward the bride, who was sitting in one of the chairs checking things off on her tablet, one leg crossed over the other with her foot bouncing up and down. The wind ruffled her hair, and she flicked it over her shoulder with a casual hand.

Looking back at Abigail, I caught her fighting against the wind to get her hair wrangled into a messy bun. A smile curled my lips. The woman wouldn’t even back down against Mother Nature. You had to admire her for it.

Once her hair was tied, she grabbed the linen aisle fabric and rolled it up while I gathered the plastic pins. I looked at them and shook my head. “I think we’re going to have to nail this thing to the ground. I’m going to need to get some tools,” I said.

“Well, don’t bother using mine since they suck,” she joked, but the sharp glance she threw me told me she wasn’t totally over that whole thing.

I pulled her in by the hand and gave her a kiss. “Your tools don’t suck. I’ll go get them and we can finish up here.”

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