Missy was the picture of southern sympathy. She shook her head and tsked. “Bless you,” she surmised. She dropped one hand but had the other fastened to Sloane’s like they were Velcroed. “Well, why don’t we get you settled in with a nice peach Bellini or just a mimosa? Maybe a sweet tea, if that’s more you?”

Though she was curious about the Bellini, Sloane decided to err on the side of caution. Plus, it had been a hot minute since she’d had a glass of true Alabama sweet tea. Though Nashville had tried. “Sweet tea sounds great.”

They settled in around a long table with eight chairs. Brady sat at one of the ends and smiled slyly at her. He looked like he’d just become king for the day.

Missy acknowledged Brady, and before long, everyone had made introductions to everyone else. The woman in polka dots was Arnesha King, a town council member, and quiet. She didn’t say a word as Missy and Ruby ping-ponged opinions back and forth about if they had gone viral, how they’d be feeling.

Sloane grinned and bore it.

Brady drank his Bellini.

Maybe this won’t be that bad, Sloane dared to think. Maybe they’ll just talk at me instead of with me.

She took her own sip of her drink and delighted in how sinfully sweet it was as the conversational tide started to wash over her. She wondered where Marcus and his bride-to-be were. The Robertsons, with the exception of their father, who never seemed to attend garden events, were a social package deal. Surely Marcus would show up with fiancée in tow.

How would she feel when she saw them together? Sloane wondered. What she told Brady was true. It wasn’t like she was pining over Marcus anymore, in secret or otherwise, but seeing him in person at the bar? Well, that had felt weird. Probably because she knew a lot that he didn’t, right?

Would it feel even stranger to see him with the woman he planned on marrying? The near-perfect Felicity Fairchild in all her glory?

Would she feel jealous?

Would she be self-conscious?

Would her old feelings of first love try to sway her back to thinking about him nonstop?

Sloane looked at Brady. His eyes were more green than hazel, she decided. A forest filled with trees in full bloom during the spring.

He could destroy her if he wanted. All he had to do was give Marcus’s name out, and that would be that. Carol, the town, and the internet would gobble her up. The Girl Who Said Nothing would become the pathetic creeper who had said the wrong thing.

Yet he hadn’t sold her out.

And she had a sneaking suspicion that part of why he’d offered to help her was because he was genuinely being nice.