“I love this town,” she says. “I love this festival. I love your staff and how they act like a strange little family. And I love the way your daughter sees the world, even when it makes no sense to adults.”
She pauses.
“And yes,” she adds, “I love the way you look at me like you’re trying not to and failing.”
The crowd makes a collective sound at that, some mix of teasing and cheering. I feel my ears go hot.
She laughs once, then shakes her head slightly, like she cannot believe she is saying all of this in front of an entire town.
“I’m scared too,” she says, more quietly now but still into the mic. “Not of you, of what this means, of staying, and of choosing something that looks less like a job and more like a life. But I have spent a lot of years helping other people create memories. Maybe it’s time I let myself have some.”
Then she says the thing that finishes me.
“I want to be here,” she says simply. “With you, with Maisie and with this bakery that smells like cinnamon every day. I want to see what this looks like when it is not on a deadline.”
The crowd bursts into applause, people whistle, and someone yells, “Kiss her!”
Maisie screams, “I knew it!” from somewhere near the front, and I hear my mom’s laugh mixed in, proud and relieved.
I don’t need any more prompting.
I walk up the steps, crossing the stage in a few strides and stop in front of Charlotte. We are close enough that the microphones are picking up every breath, and the crowd blurs into meaningless noise around us.
“Hi,” she says softly, close enough that I don’t need the mic to hear her.
“Hi,” I answer, my voice rough.
“You really did this in front of everyone,” she says.
“I wasn’t subtle,” I admit. “I panicked.”
Her eyes shine with amusement and something deeper. “I liked it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
There is too much energy in my body to stand still any longer.
I take the microphone from her hand, pass both mics back to the mayor without looking, and then I do the only thing left to do.
I cup her face in my hands and kiss her.
The crowd erupts.
The second she kisses me back, every nerve in my body settles and spikes at the same time. Her hands curl into my shirt. My thumbs brush her jaw. I taste a hint of sugar from something she must have stolen from a booth earlier, and it hits me how much of my life she has already threaded herself into in such a short time.
I had been so focused on being careful that I almost missed the point.
This, right here, this is the point.
When we finally break apart, breathing a little harder, the crowd is still clapping. I rest my forehead against hers for a moment.
“You sure about this?” I murmur.
She nods, her breath warm against my mouth. “I’m in.”
I feel the words land in my chest and stay there.
