Page 102 of The Worst Possible Plan

That felt accurate. At least from my admittedly biased perspective. Which was currently the only perspective available inside Sarah’s Jetta.

Mostly. There it was again. That irritating little crack of uncertainty.

Maybe.

“Okay, fine. He did have a very good reason to arrest me.” I sighed so dramatically the windshield probably fogged up a little. Stupid conscience. Always showing up uninvited.

I frowned. “No.” I wagged a finger at myself. “We’re not doing that.” I pointed at the windshield. “We’re not defending him.”

This conversation had become alarmingly democratic. Every opinion received a rebuttal from another part of my personality. At this rate I was going to need a moderator and a timer.

“I can still live here.” That part mattered. More than kissing sheriffs. More than embarrassing myself. More than whatever emotional tornado had swept through my life over the last forty-eight hours.

Maplewood Falls had always been home. Long before Captain Competent decided to start patrolling it with his unfairly attractive face and his deeply inconvenient sense of integrity.

Just because one ridiculously handsome sheriff happened to patrol it didn’t mean I had to move and change my identity. Witness protection seemed like a slight overreaction. Also, I’d probably miss Dottie’s muffins.

People survived awkward encounters every day. Grocery stores were practically built on former couples pretending to compare cereal prices while desperately avoiding eye contact.

I’d simply wave politely if I saw him, calm and mature. Then I’d walk in the opposite direction. Preferably with casual purpose. The kind that suggested I genuinely had somewhere else to be besides anywhere Captain Competent happened to exist.

“He doesn’t get to ruin this for me.” The words came easier now, firmer. Less like I was trying to convince myself and more like I was finally starting to believe them.

My voice sounded strong enough that even the GPS remained respectfully silent for several seconds.

More certain. Funny how saying something out loud sometimes made it feel more real. Or at least louder.

“For the first time in my life.” I smiled. “I found something I’m actually good at.” The realization still felt new enough to handle carefully, like discovering a hidden talent you’d somehow spent years walking past without noticing.

Festival planning. Who would’ve guessed? Certainly not me. I’d volunteered for the job expecting temporary employment. To wing it and see what happened. Instead I’d stumbled into something that made sense to me.

Organizing chaos. Which, in hindsight, might’ve been excellent preparation for managing my own brain.

Making impossible things somehow work. Replacement bands. Missing volunteers. Escaping animals. My professional specialty involved looking at disasters and saying, “Give me five minutes.”

I’d spent years bouncing from one terrible job to another, wondering what was wrong with me. Receptionist. Retail. Office assistant. Every position had felt like trying to wear somebody else’s shoes, technically possible but deeply uncomfortable.

Nothing. The answer had been so ridiculously simple it almost annoyed me.

I’d simply been standing in the wrong room, trying to become successful at things that had never fit me in the first place.

Turned out, I wasn’t bad at everything. My brain had spent years collecting evidence to the contrary. Nice to know it had been using incomplete data.

I’d just never found the right thing. Sometimes the problem wasn’t you. Sometimes it was the map.

And nobody—especially not Captain Competent—was taking that away from me.

“Not again.” The words came tumbling out. “No man gets to decide who I become.” I’d handed over too much of myself before until I barely recognized the person looking back in the mirror. Never again.

Not Henry. I’d spent far too long trying to become the version of myself someone else wanted.

Not anyone. That chapter of my life had officially closed for renovations.

Definitely not the sheriff. No matter how mesmerizing his eyes were. No matter how well he kissed. No matter how annoyingly decent he’d turned out to be underneath all that sheriffing.

I still had a job, a real one, one I actually woke up excited to do instead of calculating how many hours remained until I could leave.

I still had my family—slightly chaotic, frequently opinionated, occasionally humiliating, but unquestionably mine.