“Yeah,” he agrees.
“Did you see Mason’s face? He thought she’d hate him forever.”
“She could never hate him.” He’s looking at me weird. Intense. “That’s not how it works when you love someone.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“Observation.”
“Right.” I need to move. Need space. Need to not think about how he smells like dish soap and expensive cologne. “I should—”
“Poppy.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re really good at this.”
I freeze. “At what?”
“Taking care of people.” He reaches out, tucks a stray hair behind my ear. His fingers linger. “Making things okay when they’re falling apart.”
“I—”
“POPPY!” Ivy’s voice from upstairs. “THE ZIPPER’S STUCK!”
The moment breaks. Dean steps back. I run upstairs like the house is on fire.
But I can still feel where his fingers touched.
Still hear him sayingyou’re really good at thislike it meant something.
Like I meant something.
Chapter Sixteen
Midnight Confessions
Dean
It’s 11:56 p.m. and I can’t sleep.
Not because of work. Not because of the wedding chaos. But because there’s a light bouncing around my backyard like a drunk firefly.
I watch from my bedroom window. Someone’s out there with a headlamp, dragging string lights across my pergola. In the dark. Alone.
Three guesses who.
I pull on jeans and head outside barefoot, because apparently I make excellent decisions after midnight.
She’s balanced on a ladder that’s seen better days, headlamp crooked, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “damn you, physics.”
“You know it’s midnight, right?”
She jerks. The ladder wobbles. I’m there before I think about it, hands on the sides, steadying.
“Geez.” She looks down at me, one hand pressed to her chest. “Wear a bell or something.”
“On my own property?”
