Page 17 of Wedding or Not

We do a great job.

I’m sure it’s convincing.

I give him a poke like I’m blaming him for the scene.

He pulls away until he’s out of poking range.

I took my sweater off earlier since the sun is warm, but now I decide to put it back on. I get tangled up in the sleeves—this time not preplanned—and Wes reluctantly reaches over to help straighten it out and pull it up onto my shoulders.

Our eyes meet, and I give him a discreet nod.

We’ve done enough.

We provided more social media fodder.

So now we can leave.

“How long do you think all these crazies are going to be following us?” Wes asks as he maneuvers his way out of the makeshift parking lot on a grassy field and onto the road.

“There’s no telling. But social media is fickle, so they’re going to find something else to care about soon, I’m sure.”

“Hopefully not too soon.”

“I know. I figure if we can at least get the rest of the year scheduled out with events at the new higher prices, we’ll be okay.”

“Yes. That should be enough to pay down the debt to manageable levels. If we can start filling out next year, that will be even better.”

“We might be able to. Natalie’s been working her butt off with all the tours and showings, and she said most of them end up scheduling an event. We’re already booking late summer for smaller events, and we’ve got at least one wedding every weekend until winter.”

“Good. Surely we can hold on to attention for a couple more weeks and fill out the rest of this year’s schedule.”

“And Natalie said once interest wanes, we can announce our engagement and she thinks she can get some influencers and magazines to cover the wedding-prep stuff. She’s pretty sure we can hold on to the publicity for at least three months.”

“It will have to be a whirlwind engagement to have it move so fast.”

“Yeah, but that could be romantic. We’ve known each other all our lives, so people might think it’s realistic. And honestly, who cares if some people are dubious? We need their attention. We don’t need them all to adore us.”

“True.” He shrugs. “I guess we’ll see. I’m starving. You want to stop at Leo’s for burgers?”

“Sure. I’m hungry too.”

Leo’s is a hole-in-the-wall restaurant on the side of the road we’re taking home. The decor and ambiance are rather gritty, but the food has always been good as long as you choose one of three meals.

As we’re eating our burgers and fries half an hour later, Natalie sends me a link.

It’s a recently posted reel that’s already going viral. As I watch the eight seconds of edited video, I snicker.

“Show me.”

I hand him my phone so he can see the nicely arranged quick cuts of him pulling up my sweater on three different occasions (including this afternoon at the flea market), set to a cute, trendy love song.

“Where do people even find the time for this nonsense?”

“They’re just having fun. It’s a kind of communal entertainment.”

“Except it’s not real community. It just feels that way.”

“Maybe. But it doesn’t matter for our purposes. The more people post silly things like that about us, the better. It’s like they’re shipping a couple from a TV show.”