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We walked out of the store as they lowered the gate behind us. Maddy was coming back from the bathrooms with Chelsea, a couple of stores down.

“How long are you staying at the water park?” Emma asked.

“Probably a few more days. Until Benny and Brad are done with the house. Can I walk you out to your car?” I asked, trying to buy a few more minutes with her.

She shook her head. “No, no. You have the kids. I’ll just say goodbye to you here.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She leaned over and gave me a hug. I breathed her in, tried to hold it in my lungs. I wouldn’t see her until our next date. Another five days at least and too long.

She let me go, and I held Chelsea while I watched Emma leave out the door by Nordstrom without looking back.

Emma had an aloofness to her. Like she was just along for the ride and the ride didn’t mean much.

At least not as much as it meant to me.

CHAPTER 24

EMMA

The interrogation started the second we got in the car. “Oh my God, that guy’s fucking in love with you,” Maddy said, turning on the engine. “It’s cute. Honestly, I’m not usually about all that puppy dog stuff, but I liked it.”

“He is not in love with me,” I said, putting on my seat belt.

“Yeah, he is. And you liiiiike him.”

“I do like him,” I admitted. “More than I thought I was going to.”

She gave me her yay face. “Okay. Awesome. When’s the wedding?”

“Maddy!”

“What?”

“I can’t date him.”

She’d started pulling out of the parking space, but now she hit the brakes and threw the car in park. She pivoted in her seat to look at me straight on. “Why don’t you want to date him?”

“He has kids?” I said.

“They’re his siblings.”

“I know. But he’s going to be raising them for the next six years.”

“So you’d give up someone perfect because his life took a shit turn and he ended up having to raise some kids.”

“Uh, I think you’re simplifying it a bit.”

“You are unreal.” She shook her head at me. “You’re just looking for a reason, any reason, to disqualify him.”

I scoffed. “So him having three kids isn’t a big enough reason? If I saw that on a dating profile, I would have swiped left. I’ve never dated men with kids, ever. That’s a conscious choice I make.”

“You don’t want anything that can’t fit in your luggage.” She stared at me like she’d just had an epiphany. “The lengths you will go to stay living in the chaos you’re accustomed to—”

I rolled my eyes. “What chaos?”

“The chaos you grew up in! This whole life you’ve made—the travel nursing and the constant moving—you’re reliving your childhood,” she said. “Doing it in a safe way you can control. You slap the word ‘adventure’ on it like lipstick on a pig, but it is what it is, just another way to keep you from ever belonging to anywhere or anyone.”