“Yes, now.” She made a shooing motion. “Off you go.”
“But I... we’re in the middle of...”
“Emily.” Mia’s voice was firm, but her eyes were soft. “Go.”
I looked around the table. Every single one of them nodded. Poppy actually pointed toward the door.
“Okay.” I scrambled out of the booth, my heart racing. “Okay, I’m going.”
“Finally!” Hannah called after me as I pushed through the door.
The afternoon sun hit my face as I burst onto the sidewalk, Mia’s keys clutched tight in my hand. My mind spun with a thousand different ways to say the three words that suddenly felt like the most important ones I’d ever speak.
I loved Cam Rockford.
I unlocked Mia’s car and slid into the driver’s seat. My hands were shaking, but my heart had never been steadier.
I was going to get my man.
EMILY
My heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear the engine as I pulled into my driveway. The familiar sight of my little house, Cam’s truck parked in his drive. All of it looked different now. Sharper. More vivid. Like someone had turned up the saturation on the whole world.
I killed the engine. Silence rushed in to fill the space. I sat there for three long seconds and bargained with the universe. Please don’t let me throw up on his shoes.
Nope. Not happening. I was doing this.
I climbed out of the car and started across the lawn, my legs moving before my brain could catch up.
Cam’s front door opened.
He stepped onto the porch, arms crossed over his chest, and just... watched me. My stomach flipped. God, he was beautiful.
His expression was unreadable, but there was a tension in his shoulders, a stillness to the way he held himself. Like he was bracing for impact.
I stopped a few feet from the bottom step, suddenly feeling like a teenager showing up at her crush’s house unannounced.
“Why do I feel like you were expecting me?”
“I might have got a text.”
“Who from?”
“Mia.”
“Oh.” I let out a breath that was half laugh, half sigh. Of course she had. “She couldn’t even give me a five-minute head start? Snitch.”
The ghost of a smile crossed his face. “I prefer the term ‘excellent wing woman.’”
“I think Mia would as well.”
The smile faded. “So. You’re here.”
“I’m here.” I shifted my weight, my pulse thrumming in my throat. All those words I’d rehearsed in the car suddenly felt inadequate. How was I supposed to tell him that everything had changed? That I’d spent my whole life building walls and he’d somehow found every single crack?
“I got the scholarship,” I blurted. “I actually won it. Jack sorted out the fraud and... I’m going to art school.”
His smile almost stole my breath. “Em, that’s incredible.”
