“One second I’m standing in line for my coffee, and the next she has me walking a million miles away with it in this damn humidity to see you.” Brady motioned around the room. “I had no idea in hell where you lived, and I know she knew that. But she just kept talking and walking, and suddenly we’re on your porch and my truck is at the café. She had to have drugged me, right?” He shook his head and took a long sip of his coffee. He made a face. “And now I can’t enjoy my coffee. I’m just too damn hot.”

Sloane tilted her head, waiting to hear the rest of the explanation. Brady, however, started looking around the room instead.

“What is happening?” she finally broke out, throwing her hands wide. “Why are you here? Where are we supposed to be in two hours and why?”

“Like I said, that woman is what happened.” He moved unapologetically to the fireplace and eyed a framed picture on the mantel. Sloane slapped his hand down as he went to pick it up. She jumped between it and him.

“I thought about it a lot and decided I was going to tell her that us dating was a joke,” she hurried. “Not make plans as a couple with her.”

“I figured that’s what you were going to do, but I also figured you hadn’t been online yet today.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and shook it. “Half the reason I needed this fancy sugared coffee was to give me the energy to ignore the messages I’m getting.”

A sinking feeling started to pull Sloane’s stomach down. She abandoned her attempt at a position of power and fast-walked to her bedroom. Judging by the heavy footfalls behind her, Brady followed. He kept quiet as she went to the nightstand and flipped her phone over. That sinking feeling managed to go through the floorboards.

“Thirty-two text messages…” she deadpanned. “And five missed calls.”

“Take a look at your social media. I had a lot of friend requests…and a few too many ‘thirsty’ direct messages.” He took another pull of his coffee. Then sighed. “Some woman called me ‘daddy.’”

Sloane wasn’t even going to look. No way. She’d already turned off her social media notifications on her phone the day the blog had gone viral. And she’d done that for one reason and one reason alone.

It stressed her the hell out.

Sure, she was a social person to an extent. Her jobs required it, first of all. Secondly? Well, she talked to people, and that counted, right?

But the onslaught from people she grew up with to people she barely knew to strangers? It had been too much. She needed to breathe. A hard feat if she stayed trapped in her phone.