They agreed on a time, and Sloane walked him, stiffly and slowly, to the front door. Her mind wandered to the aloe beneath her brother’s sink and then to calling Emma over for the movie party. She’d been avoiding her best friend just a little bit. Lying to Emma wasn’t as hard as lying to Callum, but that didn’t mean she was a fan of it.

Yet, telling Emma the truth?

Well, that truth felt weirdly worse than admitting their lie.

It made no sense, and Sloane needed to accept her emotions were just trolling her. She’d gone from a mostly quiet life to The Girl Who Said Nothing, who ate in gardens and boated with the Robertsons. It was a lot to handle.

And you’re just going to have to get better at it. Take a page out of Brady’s book. He’s clearly a pro at this.

It was the tiniest of mental pep talks, but it did enough. She pulled on a smile she hoped sold how absolutely fine she was with their arrangement, their future, and their eventual demise.

Fake it till you make it.

“So tomorrow at six thirty,” she confirmed. “I’ll bring my handy-dandy notebook of ideas for everything we need and try to come up with a few more by then. We can also make some posts to the ’gram and talk up the bar on Facebook.”

Brady nodded. “I’ll work on a list of ideas, too. Though I’ll probably have a handy-dandy bar napkin instead of a notebook.”

“Anything will work as long as the words juggling, singing, and dancing aren’t on it. That goes for the party and the parade, too, not just the pageant.”

“Roger that.”

Before Sloane could shut the door behind him, since the conversation had clearly found its close, Brady did something that completely scrambled her thoughts all over again.

Like they were back on the beach, Brady kissed her. Kissed her real good. Going to have to tell my vibrator about this good.

For a second, she forgot a lot of things. Like she was sunburned, for one, and the reality that the man who was making her weak in the knees wouldn’t be coming back with her to Nashville, for another. That Brady was a one-time deal and she was getting caught up in a sham of her own making.

That she should probably step away and remind them both that he didn’t have to put on a show when no one was watching.

But then the kiss was over and Brady left like he’d finished their normal, nightly routine.

Aloe’s definitely not going to help with this heat.

…

“Well, shit.”

Brady didn’t realize what he’d done until he was driving from his apartment to the bar two hours later. There he’d been during the whole damn two hours, oblivious to the fact he’d kissed Sloane.