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“Sure, give me some Honey.”

He headed toward the wet bar near the kitchen and poured a finger into two glasses.

“So did you have any say in the decor?” I asked as I accepted my glass.

He looked around, searching, and his face lit up when it landed on a tablet resting on the coffee table. I followed him toward it, sipping my Honey.

“It’s silly,” he said, setting his glass down to snatch the tablet, “but I really wanted this.”

He tapped the screen a few times, and suddenly the lights above us turned from warm white to lime green. Then blue… purple…and back to white.

I laughed. “Seriously?”

“I told you it was silly.” The lights dimmed to near darkness, then flared too brightly before settling once more somewhere in the middle.

He smiled up at the lights, so pleased with the small luxury. Utterly adorable. It was such a trivial moment—a relative nothing in the scheme of all our moments together—but it was enough to topple everything. My fragile glass heart, already teetering at the edge of Forever His, lost its last bits of restraint, and words tumbled out of my mouth.

Words I could never take back.

“I love you.”

Even as the declaration escaped, I slapped a hand over my mouth.

His head snapped in my direction, wide silver-blue eyes latching on mine. “What?”

I shook my head, unwilling to remove my hand from my mouth in case more painful truths decided to spill out. I dropped my glass of liquor with a thump to the nearest table, sloshing some of its contents onto the wood.

He set the tablet down and took a few steps closer. “You just said you love me.”

“No,” I said behind my fingers. “I— It wasn’t⁠—”

Something like hope warmed his voice. “Yes, you did.”

Panic laced my bloodstream—I just told a man I can never have that I love him!—and my heartbeat took up residence somewhere in my throat. “I⁠—”

“I love you, too.” Footsteps grew closer, but I could no longer look at him. He moved slowly, carefully, like I was a skittish animal he needed to approach with care lest I run away.

My every muscle froze as the words sunk in—words I’d dreamed of and hoped for, but knew would make everything more complicated and painful. “You—you do?”

“Is that not woefully obvious at this point, Honeycutt?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered because the L-word was a big emotion, and Cam was a restrained person, and how was I supposed to know whether those charged looks and silky touches were real love or mere lust? And I didn’t want to explore it because in the end, it didn’t matter. Love or not, Camden was too good for me, and only his father was blunt enough to say so.

Cam stopped with half the distance between us remaining. “I have been in love with you for a decade. You are so deep in my head that no matter what I do, I can’t get you out. At this point, it would be like lobotomizing myself.”

Why the tears rose to my eyes, I couldn’t say, but they were suddenly there, blurring his image.

His voice lowered, straining to get the words out. “I can’t believe I have to say this.” His hands raked through his hair. “I thought the moment you tasted Honey, you’d figure me out.”

My shaking hand cupped my throat, where my heart pounded. “Tell me. Please?”

“Shay.” He took one more step, then stopped. “I created something that tastes like your kiss because I couldn’t stop wanting you, even though I’d blown my shot and knew you’d never want me back. I was trying to get you out of my head, but all I did was want you more.” He wiped a hand down his face.

I looked at the spilled glass of Honey on the table beside me. “You—you made it taste like me?”

“That night—you’d been eating those honey and vanilla bean caramels. Do you remember those? I couldn’t get that flavor out of my mind for years.”

I didn’t remember until he mentioned it. The candies had been individually wrapped in a bowl next to the punch. They were delicious, and I couldn’t stop eating them.