Page 66 of More Than My Hometown

I feel the heat prick at my cheeks, despite the coolness still lingering in the morning air. Nervous laughter builds in my chest, like I’m thirteen all over again, ready to burst because my crush nodded at me while walking to math class. Only, this was better. Looking away, I try to think of something to say—a way to put this feeling into words—but Dolly simply giggles.

She gets it. I know she does.

“Just tell me this, worth waiting for?”

“There you are! Well, two out of the three…”

Aunt Hattie’s shrill exclamation stops us in our tracks, right in front of the food tent, a table filled with precisely lined-up cinnamon rolls behind her. I blink hard, doing a double take, making sure it’s actually her. Aunt Hattie, at a fishing tournament at o’dark-thirty in the morning. I might as well be looking at the ghost of Christmas past for all the sense this is making right now.

“Aunt Hattie. Morning,” I greet, managing to get the words out.

Behind her, Hux mouths the word sorry, with a big shrug. Not that I have any idea what there is to be sorry about. Not like he was going to be able to stop her. She was going to find us, one way or the other.

“Good morning.” She purses her lips, the greeting somehow sour on her tongue.

“Would you like a cinnamon roll?” Dolly offers.

“What I would like, no, what I need, is your RSVPs for the birthday party. And Emily’s, wherever she is.”

Seriously? She needs that now? Can’t she see we’re a little busy at the moment? Wait, no, never mind. I’m not going to bring logic into this. I know better than that. That has no place here.

“I need to RSVP for the party?” Dolly asks, braver than I am.

Oh boy…

“I need a head count for the food.”

“I’m catering it!”

I look over at Hux, my eyes wide, hoping he can read my expression as the distress signal that it is. In every ER I’ve worked in, the nurses have had a series of hand gestures to secretly communicate with one another—something that I desperately need in the moment. However, there is no way crossing my fingers in a particular pattern is going to look like anything other than me trying to throw gang signs right about now.

Thankfully, though, Hux is on it. Swooping in, he drapes an arm around his wife, working on sweet-talking our aunt. Something that also makes him braver than I am.

It’s also my cue to exit.

Grabbing the bag of cinnamon rolls set aside for the first aid tent, I weave my way through the crowd back to the ambulance and first aid area. I stop to look out over Silver Lake as I wait for a large, dually pickup to straighten itself out on the launch ramp. The sun is starting to peek over the water, turning the sky from pitch black into muted grays and blues, and it won’t be long before we start to see pinks and reds.

I have no idea how many sunrises I’ve seen over this lake—hundreds, probably—but there is something about this one that hits me. That makes me realize how much I’ve missed them. The simplicity of the light moving over the water and all the stillness that goes with it. Even with all the chaos churning around me with the tournament.

Or maybe it’s nothing more than a simple reminder that I’m exactly where I belong.

“Hey, I grabbed the cinnam⁠—”

I stop, snapping my mouth shut, caught off guard by the sight greeting me as I approach the tent. Sitting on the back bumper of the ambulance, the doors wide open, are Landon and Emily, huddling together, both of their heads bent over Landon’s phone. They’re looking at something intensely, whispering almost conspiratorially.

Now that’s a sight.

Landon and Emily sittin’ in a tree…

I lean against the metal pole of the tent, my eyes glued to the two of them, the cuteness radiating off of them in waves. The pole shifts under my weight, moving the entire pop-up shelter, causing me to lose my balance and distract both Emily and Landon.

“That was graceful,” Em snickers.

“You okay?” Landon asks, feigning concern. At least one of them is willing to.

“Fine.” I straighten myself out, shrugging it off and pretending like it never happened.

No one saw that. Not my cousin, or my boss, or any one of the dozens of strangers who are hanging about. Nope.