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“Your mama is smart.”

I stared into my wine. “I think I kept expecting there to be some moment where I’d finally feel like I had paid enough.”

He shrugged. “If someone decides they don’t like you because of what you did, you can’t control that. If someone wants to call you a homewrecker for the rest of your life, you can’t stop them, but you can stop answering.”

Mama’s words. Almost exactly.

I smiled. “That’s what my mom said.”

“I told you she was smart.”

“You two are irritating.”

I thought to myself… This man. This relationship. This thing I had spent months preparing to lose before it had even had a chance to become anything.

Maybe Sydnee was right. Maybe Mama was right. Maybe Klair was— absolutely not. I refused to give her that much credit. But maybe they were all right in different ways.

I had survived the worst version of myself. I had survived loving Caleb. I had survived leaving him. I had survived being hated. I had survived loneliness. And my survival had become such a habit that I forgot I was eventually supposed to do something else.

Live.

I looked at Nash. “I’m falling in love with you too.” I squeezed his hand. “And I mean it.”

“I know.”

“And that scares me.”

“I know.”

“I still have moments where I think something is going to happen.”

“Something probably will.”

I looked at him. “Wrong answer.”

“What? Life happens.”

“Nash.”

“I’m not saying we’re breaking up.”

“Then say better things.”

He laughed. “I’m saying there will be hard shit like arguments, bad days, and things we don’t anticipate. But I’m not afraid of hard things with you.”

“And if something ever changes?”

“If my feelings change, I’ll tell you. If I’m unhappy, I’ll tell you. If I need something you aren’t giving me, I’ll tell you. And if we ever reach a point where this doesn’t work anymore?”

He squeezed my hand. “You won’t have to discover it from somebody else.”

A tear fell and Nash wiped it away. I leaned across the table and kissed him. When I pulled back, he smiled. “You know what I’ve been thinking?”

“What?”

He sat back. “Eventually, I don’t think you should move into my house.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”