My breath hitched. “You’re going to ruin me.”
“I think we already ruined each other,” he murmured. “And maybe that’s what makes this thing so permanent.”
He took another step forward. “I’m tired of pretending this doesn’t matter. You can go—get on that plane, chase whatever’s waiting for you—but I had to say it first. I had to tell you what you already know.”
The rain softened everything—the traffic, the sky, the ache in my chest.
“So, what are you saying?” I asked.
“I’m saying I’m going to be selfish this time.” His smile turned crooked, reckless. “I’m saying I’m in love with you, and maybe I always have been. And if there’s even a chance you feel the same, stay. Not for me—for us.”
“I changed my ticket,” I whispered.
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“I made it round-trip.” My voice wavered, but I didn’t look away. “Because I realized I could survive the heartbreak. What I couldn’t survive was leaving again—leaving the people I love, the place that made me. The mess, the hurt—it’s all worth it. They’re worth it.”
A slow smile curved his mouth. “Maybe I could be worth it, too.”
I laughed—a shaky, breathless sound. “You already are, Teddy. You always have been.”
As if it all melted away, I couldn’t hear anything but his breathing. One beat. Then another. His fingers found mine and brushed over the inside of my wrist.
The world went still.
I didn’t think. I stepped forward, closing the distance, and grabbed the front of his soaked flannel. For a half-beat, we froze like that, searching each other’s eyes as his warmth seeped through my clothes and his arms pulled me impossibly closer.
It wasn’t the fairytale kind of kiss—it left rain in my mouth and tears on my cheeks, the kind that meant I was still alive enough to feel it. Maybe love wasn’t supposed to be clean or easy. Maybe it was supposed to be the messy kind—soaked-through and imperfect and still, somehow, exactly what I needed.
EPILOGUE
By December, the snow had found us. It dusted everything from the top of Main Street all the way to the beach, transforming Bluebell Cove into a live snow globe.
Georgie’s house smelled like gingerbread from the candle she’d been burning since Thanksgiving. I’d claimed the armchair in the living room as my unofficial office—a laptop on my knees, manuscript pages scattered like confetti across the coffee table. My editor wanted one more round of developmental edits before the new year, and for once, the thought didn’t make me panic.
Priscilla loved the changes I made to the storyline. Less tragedy, and more of that wistful romanticism that had steadily seeped into my pores like the plague.
“Chapter Thirty-One still makes me cry,” Georgie said, walking by with a mug of hot chocolate. She leaned over my shoulder, pretending to read, but mostly to make sure I wasn’t sneaking in last-minute panic rewrites.
“That’s because you’re sentimental,” I said. “And you like happy endings.”
“I likegoodendings,” she corrected, smiling before disappearing toward the kitchen.
Rhett was out somewhererunning errands, which we all knew meant buying a ring. By “we all”, I meant me and Teddy.Georgie didn’t have a clue. Every time he looked at her lately, it seemed like he was holding his breath, barely able to keep the question inside. If anyone deserved her, it was my fellow comrade-in-cynicism.
Reformedcynics, thanks to our comrades-in-sunshine.
The clock on the wall chimed. Down the street, Christmas lights flickered to life, strung across professional displays on Bluebell Lane and zigzagged from shop to shop down Main Street. The whole town had never looked more beautiful to me.
Call it the disgusting amount of optimism my boyfriend had infected me with, but everyone else appeared to agree—if Fallfest was huge, then the Christmas festival was slated to bemassive. Not only had we attracted even more attention in the last couple months, but we were planning a week-long, fifty-year-anniversary Holly Jolly Jubilee.
Bluebell Cove would set its place on the map in stone.
Teddy’s Jeep rumbled up the street a few minutes later. He’d been working with the Chamber of Commerce, a huge reason why the Cove was increasingly relevant with each passing week. He still wore that decades-old denim jacket, and had a knack for tracking snow into the foyer, but I didn’t mind.
“Productive day?” he asked, setting a paper bag on the coffee table.
“If you count deleting entire paragraphs as progress,” I muttered.
