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He knew she was simply thinking out loud—that this was Emily processing, not accusing, the same way she’d processed at the whiteboard and over Chinese food containers and a dozen other times in the past week. He registered all of that.

Bu it didn’t help.

Because he was sitting in the middle of a table of people he was starting to think of as his friends, in the middle of a town he was starting to think of as his, and Emily Whitaker was three inches away from him, talking to Robyn as if he weren’t there at all.

Emily shook her head, frustration tightening her voice. “I mean, come on. It’s probably him, isn’t it?” She had no clue Cole was even listening.

The table went quiet.

Not all at once. Not dramatically. But in pieces. Cassidy stopped mid-reach for her drink. Liam looked down at the table. Tyler’s expression changed first, then Robyn’s. Jackson went still beside Zoe. Zach, who had been half turned toward Madison, looked back sharply.

Emily noticed the silence a second too late.

Her eyes lifted from Robyn to the rest of the table.

Then to Cole.

He stood up and slowly picked up his coat from the back of his chair. Emily looked up, eyes scanning his face.

“I thought things had changed.” He kept his voice even. It was the voice he used when something cost him, and he wasn’t going to show how much. “I thought you had changed.”

Emily opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Not even a weak excuse.

Which was fine by Cole, because he wasn’t finished.

“My grandfather said he didn’t steal those cookies. His word was always good enough for me. I thought it was good enough for you now, too.” He shook his head.

He went to leave and then stopped, turning his full attention to Emily.

“I was falling in love with you.” He said it simply because it needed to be said. “And I’m standing here realizing that you’re never going to fully believe my family didn’t do this.” He held her gaze for a moment. “No matter what I do. No matter what changes between us. You’ll never let it go.”

The table was completely silent.

Cole looked around it—at Jackson, at Zoe, at Liam, at Cassidy, at Tyler and Robyn and Zach and Madison—and he hated that it had to be this way. That a plate of stolen cookies nearly twenty years ago had somehow reached forward and put its hands around his throat.

Mostly, he hated that Emily was looking at him like that.

Like she hadn’t meant to hurt him.

Which made it worse.

Because maybe she hadn’t.

Maybe she had only been thinking out loud. Maybe she had only been doing what she always did, turning over every piece of a problem until the truth shook loose. Maybe, if it had been anyone else’s grandfather, he would have admired her for it.

But it wasn’t anyone else’s grandfather.

It was his.

She pushed back her chair. “Cole⁠—”

He stepped back before she could stand.

The movement was small, but her face changed as if he had slammed a door.

“Don’t,” he said, and his voice came out quieter than he expected.

Her mouth closed.