Page 31 of Wedding or Not

“I’m not sure anyone is actually made for that kind of exposure. I would hate it. So it’s just as well. Right?”

I nod. “Right. I guess I’m relieved, really.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah.” I smile at her, my stomach still twisting with conflicted nerves. “Wes said he thinks⁠—”

I cut off my words when the man himself appears beside our table. I didn’t even know he’d come in.

Natalie is facing the door. She should have told me.

Her covert smile tells me she failed to inform me on purpose.

Wes’s eyebrows arch high. “Wes said what?”

I swallow, trying not to reveal how excited I am as he pulls a chair from another table and sits down at ours. Trying to make my brain work, I say, “You said…”

I have no idea what I was going to say.

Wes has his normal black coffee, and he lets his laptop bag slide to the floor. “I guess that means you were talking bad about me.”

He doesn’t appear annoyed or offended. His eyes look like they’re laughing.

“I was not talking bad about you! We were talking about how the interest is dying down, and I was just saying you thought by the end of next year, we should be out of debt.”

“Oh yeah. It’s looking that way. Unless we have more than ten percent cancelations, we should be in good shape by the end of next year. It would be nice to get ahead, but we’re so much better off than we were last month. If this is the only boost we get, it still saved us. It’s a miracle.”

My brewing worries calm again at the confidence in his voice. “I think so too. But it feels so much like a miracle I’m half expecting it to be snatched away.”

Wes is meeting my eyes like he’s really hearing me, really caring about what I say. “I think it always feels that way when good things come out of the blue, but there’s no reason to expect it. Have we had a bunch more cancelations?” He turns toward Natalie with the question.

“No. I mean, there are definitely some, but we’re not even close to ten percent. And not everyone on the wait list was serious, I’m finding, but enough are that this year is still fully booked. We knew the interest would subside. It always does on social media.”

“Exactly.” Wes has turned back to me, and he reaches over to cover my hand on the table with his big, warm one. “We’ve done good. We can get out of debt, and we won’t have to sell the wildflower fields. Focus on that and not on your manufactured sense of responsibility.”

I feel better. A lot better. But because it needs doing, I roll my eyes at him. “What does my sense of responsibility have to do with this?”

“You’re sitting there stewing over the fact that you can’t hold the world’s attention forever even though that’s a nearly impossible task that even the biggest celebrities can’t manage.”

He’s somehow managed to identify and put into words the source of my churning.

Natalie snorts. “He’s right. No wonder you’ve been so jittery lately. It’s fine, Ella. We’ve done enough. And if you want to call this quits right now, everyone will be fully on board.” She looks toward Wes. “Right?”

“Right.” Since I’ve dropped my head, he gently lifts my chin so he can see my face. “You want to put an end to this right now?”

“We have the date planned on Wednesday.”

“We don’t have to go.”

“I was kind of looking forward to seeing the musical.”

He lets out a huff of amusement. “Then you can go with one of your sisters instead of me.”

I glance over at Natalie. She appears amused, as if she’s enjoying watching my interaction with Wes, but at my look she shrugs. “It’s fine with me. The Plan might have been a masterwork of genius, but there’s no reason we have to continue it if you’re ready to stop.”

After a brief internal debate, I make my decision. “Let’s go on the date Wednesday. Since it’s in DC, there will be a lot more people around to see us. If that doesn’t rekindle interest, we’ll call it.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Wes glances at his watch. “I guess I’ve got to work.”