Page 95 of Falling for Keeps

He looks suitably confused.

“She’s trying to be more like her mom, who hates anything outdoorsy.”

“Yeah, I remember Jen.” Ben laughs hollowly. “If Maven invites Penny to come with us, I bet she’d want to.”

“True. I don’t know anyone she likes more than Maven.” Emma’s creeping up that list for sure, but I don’t say it out loud.

Ben reads my mind anyway. “She seems to really like that librarian, though. Emma Harper? I saw them together earlier when your mom was walking around with Penny.”

“Emma’s kind of been a hero for us lately. Braiding hair and whatnot. She’s stepped in for some important things.”

“Oh yeah?” Ben asks. “What else?”

When I glance back at him, there’s an amused glint in his eyes. He knows something. Or he knows that I’m not sharing something. There are people walking around us, moving things or putting tools away, chatting while they drink from water bottles. I lean in, lowering my voice so it doesn’t carry. “We’re kind of seeing each other right now, but it’s not public knowledge.”

“Is it Price knowledge?”

“I haven’t talked to Maven about it yet. Mostly because there hasn’t been a good time for it, but I also don’t want anyone to know in case it goes south.”

“Do you think it will?”

“No…not exactly. But us Prices are cursed. I don’t know if you picked up on that or not.”

Ben chuckles, folding his arms and rocking back to look at the finished barn. “It should be simple. Do you love her? Then you put in the work.” He smiles at me. “I know life is more complicated and people are more nuanced than that. But it should be that simple.”

I nod, searching the groups of people for Emma’s radiant smile and short red hair. I locate her in a conversation with Sadie and Juliet, and she throws her head back, laughing. My whole body aches to be next to her. To be in on the joke. To slide my arm around her and feel the pleasantly warm sense of rightness I get when I’m around her.

Love? It’s too soon for that. Do I care about her? Yeah. A lot. Emma isn’t just the first person I look for when I enter a room. It’s important to me that she’s being cared for, that she’s happy, that she’s a priority to someone the way she makes everyone else a priority.

What’s that called? Extreme like? Deeply in like? Afraid to call it anything but like?

All of the above.

Emma catches me watching, and her smile turns hesitant. How much of a sacrifice would it be for me to put off my anxiety and sink into the relationship?

But no. Every time I begin to think maybe I can risk everything again, I remember why I’m not. I won’t make Penny risk everything again—not unless it’s a sure thing. Presently, I don’t even know what a sure thing looks like.

On a small stage at the back of the barn, a live country band plays well-known songs that drive the greater part of Autumn Ridge to the dance floor. Penny is living her best life bouncing between Maven, Ben, and Emma…who has spent an unfortunate amount of time speaking to Seth.

“Look at you!” Emma says, taking Penny’s hand and twirling her. “Your hair looks fantastic.”

Penny’s dress fans out. Her grin is infectious. “Aunt Maven did it!”

I don’t know how Maven managed the twisty thing going on with Penny’s blonde hair, but it took her thirty seconds with a clip and I’m forever grateful.

I check my watch, the same one I always wear. I remember the night Jen gave it to me, spending more than we could afford but confident because I’d just become an official dentist. But the woman who gave me that watch is solidly in my past.

The man I was when I got this watch is back there too.

I exhale. The night is still young, and I’m exhausted. I catch Emma’s eye and the music fades, the other people fade, until it becomes only the two of us.

“Where’s Seth?”

She gives me a look. “Dancing with someone.”

“Ah, of course.”

Emma laughs, shaking her head. “Knock it off. We’re…not here together. We talked last night, so we’re on the same page.”