Page 33 of Nate Hayes

The part that scared me most was how fast it was all happening. I’d barely caught my breath from the last mess in my life. Sure, I had broken up with Dereck two years ago, but getting him out of my life was hard. But with Nate… it didn’t feel messy. It felt right.

Still, I’d seen what I thought was love before, and it went wrong. I’d lived through it. So, while my heart flipped every time he smiled at me, my brain kept yelling, “Be careful, you need to slow down.”

I took a deep breath and rubbed my palms on my dress. I’d already said yes. I was going.

And if I chickened out now, Pancake would probably follow Nate to the barbecue without me.

There was a knock on the door. I jumped, then peeked out the window. Speak of the devil. Nate stood on the porch, holding a paper bag and wearing a sheepish grin.

I opened the door, and Pancake bleated behind me like she was annoyed I beat her to it.

“I brought you a peach pie,” he said, holding it out. “Axel said women like pie. I wasn’t sure what kind, so I got the kind I liked.”

I stared at him, fighting a smile. “Are you bribing me to show up tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Is it working?”

I think it is. Don’t even look at my pie, Pancake.

He looked down at the goat, then back at me. “She can lick the plate.”

“Deal.”

He handed me the pie, and our fingers brushed. My heart did that stupid flutter again.

I wasn’t sure what tomorrow would bring. But I had a dress, a goat, and a man who brought pie to my porch.

And for the first time in a long time… I was hopeful.

17

Nate

The smell of grilled ribs and fresh cornbread hit me the second I stepped into Max’s backyard. Tessa had the picnic tables decked out in red-checkered cloths, and someone—probably Axel had already opened the cooler and was handing out beers like it was a mission.

“You sure she’s coming?” Max asked, flipping a burger with one hand while cradling a bottle of barbecue sauce in the other.

“Yeah,” I said, glancing down the long gravel driveway for the fifth time. “She said she’d be here.”

He smirked. “You’ve only checked your phone twelve times in ten minutes. You wanna go sit on the porch and stare at the horizon like a golden retriever?”

“I might,” I said, but the words barely left my mouth before I saw her.

Willa stepped out of her old pickup in that flowy sundress—the one that did dangerous things to my heart—and standing proudly in the bed of the truck like she owned the world was Pancake the goat, leashless, of course.

Axel nearly choked on his beer. “You brought a dateanda goat?”

“Damn right I did,” I said, already heading her way.

She smiled at me like I was the only person here, and hell, if that didn’t feel good.

“You made it,” I said, taking the pie tin from her hands.

“Pancake insisted,” she said, then added under her breath, “And I didn’t want to spend the whole day wondering what it would’ve been like if I’d said no.”

I leaned in. “You look beautiful.”

She looked away shyly. “You clean up okay too, grease monkey.”

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