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Maisie’s cheeks burned, her smile brighter than the lamplight above. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly serious.” He motioned to the book. “That should warrant a little peek at that page now, aye?”

While his admission had made her heart take flight, it was nowhere as embarrassing as she needed it to be.

“No, sorry,” she said, holding her book to her stomach and clutching it tightly.

“No?” he said, laughing in surprise. “It’s that bad then, is it?”

She glanced at him sidelong. “Yes.”

He rubbed his chin, leaning back, though his arm still rested on the back of the bench behind her. “Alright, let’s see. Somethin’ else.” He seemed to think for a minute, then leaned toward her. “What if I finally voice aloud how much I like you?”

She looked up at him, his eyes staring out at sea, though his smile more present than ever. “That might work.”

“I like you, Maisie. Quite a bit.”

She laughed at his straightforward words, though her spirits had jumped straight through the gathering clouds above.

“So…” he prompted, motioning to the book again.

Maisie bit her lip. Obviously, he wasn’t going to give in. She thought back to the words she’d written about him a few days before. They hadn’t been terrible, right? And honestly, what did it matter if he saw it now when he’d already admitted that he liked her?

With a heavy sigh, she relented. “Fine. Take it.”

She held it up for him, and he accepted it like a candy-starved child, flipping through the pages to find the one she’d skipped.

“I’m just going to be over there when you read it,” she added.

“What?” he questioned.

But she was already up from the bench, walking swiftly away from him.

Finn chuckled. “Ach, you’re not gettin’ out of this, Maisie.”

He ran up to her, clasping her hand in his.

“No, I seriously can’t even handle the thought of it,” she said, her face on fire.

But he grinned all the more. “Come on, you’ve got to stay right here with me.”

In a swift movement, he pulled her toward him, spinning her around so her back was flush against his chest, then he wrapped his arms around her and leaned in close, his left cheek to her right.

“No,” she weakly opposed. “I seriously can’t even.”

As in, she couldn’t even breathe. She couldn’t even function. If she’d thought she’d been in a haze before, that was nothing compared to the euphoria she felt with Finn’s arms around her.

“Alright, let’s see here,” Finn said, his deep voice rich in her ear. He flipped through the pages, finally finding the one she’d hidden from him, shifting the book toward the light of the streetlamp as he read. “Ah, here it is.” He paused. “You…you wrote an entire entry in your food journal about me?”

Maisie dared a single glance at the page and wished to heaven that she hadn’t. “Oh my gosh. I’m such a loser.”

She pulled her hands up and hid her face as Finn laughed heartily. He wrapped his free hand around her wrist gently, then held the book out for both of them to see.

“I thought you only added the meals you ate,” he continued.

She didn’t even have a response for him, nor did she think he was in search of one. Clearly, he was too taken with reading her absolutely mortifying review of him.

“This has to be the best thing I’ve ever read in my entire life,” he said.