Cherry St.
 

A residential street that turns into Main St.

By the time they stepped off her parents’ porch, the night hadn’t fully settled into Main Street yet.

It was still quieter back here.

Softer.

The kind of neighborhood hush that lived just behind the town’s busier front—where porch lights glowed low and steady, where the hum of conversation carried from open windows, where gravel crunched faintly under their shoes as they moved down the short walkway toward the sidewalk.

Lucy Corbett didn’t let go of his hand.

Not when they stepped off the porch.
Not when they crossed the yard.
Not even when the house slipped behind them and the street opened up just a little wider in front of them.

Her fingers stayed laced with his like it had already been decided.

Like she wasn’t second-guessing it.

Which, if she thought about it too hard, would’ve been a problem.

So she didn’t.

Instead, she focused on the lilies in her other hand, tilting them slightly as she walked so they wouldn’t brush too hard against her side. The white petals caught what little porch light reached them, soft and pale against the dark, the scent faint but there if she paid attention.

He’d remembered.

That part was still sitting somewhere warm in her chest.

That, and the fact that he’d stayed.

He could’ve left at the door.
Could’ve kept it neat, respectful, contained to dinner and nothing more.

But he hadn’t.

He’d walked with her.

And they weren’t even at Main Street yet.

Just the quiet stretch between her parents’ house and the edge of town’s brighter part, where the sidewalks narrowed and the world felt smaller, more private, like it belonged to people instead of places.

Lucy glanced down at their hands once, the movement quick, almost unconscious, before her eyes lifted again.

Still there.

Still warm.
Still easy.

Still making it very hard for her to stop smiling like an idiot.

She pressed her lips together for half a second like that might fix it.

It didn’t.

The smile stayed.

Of course it did.

For a few steps, she let the quiet sit between them.

Not heavy.

Just… full.

The kind of quiet that didn’t need fixing.

Her shoulder brushed his lightly as they walked, subtle enough to pass as coincidence, intentional enough that she felt it all the way down her arm anyway.

Then she tipped her face just slightly toward him, catching the edge of his profile in the dim light, and said, softly—

“You did very well, by the way.”

A beat.

“With the dinner. The wine. The pie. The whole… not making it weird thing.”

The corner of her mouth pulled, warmth threading through her tone.

“My dad’s pretending he wasn’t impressed, but he had two slices of that coconut cream pie, so I think we can all read between the lines.”

That earned her a quiet little breath of a laugh, more in her chest than out loud.

She adjusted her grip on the lilies, fingers tightening slightly around the stems.

“My mom likes you again,” she added, a little more casually than she felt. “She did the leftovers thing.”

Lucy glanced up at him again, brows lifting faintly.

“That’s basically a formal reinstatement.”

The words came light, but there was something steadier under them now.

Something real.

Because she had watched her parents all night.

Watched the way they’d listened.
The way they’d laughed.
The way they’d let the past stay exactly where she’d asked them to.

And Cameron—

he’d met them there.

No pushing.
No overcompensating.
No trying to rewrite anything at the table.

He’d just been…

him.

And somehow, that had been enough.

Lucy looked ahead again, the street still dim and quiet in front of them, and felt that smile press back into place before she could stop it.

It was getting ridiculous now.

Genuinely.

She shifted her hand slightly in his, not pulling away—just settling it more comfortably, her fingers fitting more securely between his like she’d stopped questioning whether they belonged there.

Then, softer—

“I’m glad you came.”

The honesty of it slipped out before she could dress it up.

And for once—

she didn’t try to take it back.

A second passed.

Then, because she physically could not let a moment sit like that without interfering with it, her nose wrinkled slightly and she added—

“And I’m glad you didn’t try to fight him on the chili thing.”

A beat.

“That would’ve been a disaster for everyone involved.”

Her mouth curved again, the warmth back in it, but quieter this time.

Easier.

And as they kept walking—still not quite to Main Street, still in that in-between stretch where the town felt like it was holding its breath just for them—Lucy let herself stay there.

Hand in his.
Lilies in her grasp.
Smile she couldn’t shake.

And for the first time all day—

she didn’t feel the need to.

Cameron felt every word of it land.

Not just the compliment about dinner. Not just the pie, the wine, the leftovers, the formal reinstatement implied by Lucy Corbett’s mother sending him home with half a container of roasted potatoes and a foil-wrapped slab of something buttery and dangerous.

All of it.

The way she didn’t let go of his hand. The way she said I’m glad you came like she wasn’t trying to throw it away in the next breath. The way she settled her fingers more securely between his instead of loosening them.

That part got him.

More than dinner had. More than her father taking a second slice of pie and pretending it was an accident. More than her mother softening over the second glass of wine and finally asking him a real question instead of one of those politely weaponized ones adults used when they hadn’t decided whether to trust you yet.

Lucy’s shoulder brushed his again as they walked, and Cameron let his thumb move once across the back of her hand before he answered, the motion quiet enough to feel more like instinct than intention.

“Yeah,” he said, voice low in the night air. “Your dad was one sentence away from making me sign a chili-related noncompete.”

The corner of his mouth pulled.

“I felt it.”

That earned itself a little warmth back into the moment, just enough to keep it easy, because it still was easy somehow. That was the thing that kept catching him off guard tonight.

Not simple. Not harmless. Not something he could afford to mishandle.

But easy in the way Cherry Street had gone easy around them—porch lights glowing low, a dog barking once somewhere two houses over, the lilies in her hand giving off that faint clean scent every time the breeze shifted.

He glanced down at them for a second.

The flowers. Her hand in his. The line of her mouth still curved in a smile she clearly hadn’t bothered trying to get rid of anymore.

Then back up.

“I’m glad I came too,” he said.

That one he gave her plain.

No joke over it. No quick turn to something lighter.

Just true.

Because it had been good. Not perfect. Not miraculous. But good in that quieter, steadier way that felt a lot more dangerous to him than perfection ever would have.

He had sat at her parents’ table and listened and answered and not tried to be anything other than exactly what he was. And somehow, incredibly, that had held.

Held with her dad. Held with her mom. Held with Lucy sitting there across from him sometimes looking at him over her glass like she couldn’t quite believe any of this was going as smoothly as it was either.

Cherry Street stretched ahead of them, darker and softer than Main, the sidewalks narrower, the houses older and closer together. The kind of street where voices stayed low because they belonged to people, not the town.

Cameron let the quiet sit there for another few steps.

Not because he didn’t know what he wanted to say. Because he did.

That was the problem.

He’d known it halfway through dessert, actually. Maybe earlier. Maybe when her mother had disappeared into the kitchen and her dad had gotten up to check on something in the den and Lucy had looked at him from the other end of the table with candlelight catching in her eyes and something in him had gone still with certainty.

He wanted more of this.

Not like this, exactly. Not borrowed inside family dinners and breakfast booths and walks that kept pretending not to become something.

An actual date.

A real one.

And he had spent the whole walk so far trying to decide if saying that out loud tonight would be patience or stupidity.

Or maybe both.

His jaw shifted once.

He wasn’t usually like this—not anymore, not about the wrong things. He didn’t rush because silence made him nervous now. Didn’t talk just to fill the space. Didn’t push because he was scared if he waited too long the moment would disappear.

But this one had been sitting under his ribs for too long already, and the longer she kept walking beside him with her hand in his and that softness still lingering between them, the worse he was getting at pretending he could just hold it indefinitely.

So after another few steps, Cameron took a breath and finally said, a little more carefully than usual,

“Can I ask you something?”

It came out steadier than he felt.

Still, something in his voice must have shifted, because he felt himself grow more aware all at once—the gravel at the edge of the sidewalk, the warmth of her hand, the low hum of someone’s TV through an open front window half a block away.

He didn’t stop walking at first.

Then he did.

Not abruptly. Just enough that their joined hands drew a little gentle tension between them, enough that he turned slightly toward her beneath the wash of a porch light.

He looked at her for a second.

Not too long. Long enough.

And for maybe the first time all night, the confidence in him had something a little less easy in it. Not uncertainty exactly. More like care sharpened into nerves. He knew what he was risking. Knew what he didn’t want to push. Knew how much she had given him already just by not pulling away.

“That sounded too serious,” he said, with the faintest breath of a laugh, one hand going briefly to the back of his neck. “I mean—it is serious, I guess, I just don’t want you thinking I’m about to confess to a felony on Cherry Street.”

The attempt at lightness helped. A little.

But not enough to let him duck it now.

His eyes went back to hers, warmer and more honest than smooth.

“I know we’re not…” He glanced once between them, then back up. “I know this isn’t a thing I get to push.”

A beat.

“And I’m not trying to.”

That mattered enough that he let it sit there first.

Then he went on, slower now, choosing each word like he actually intended to stand behind it.

“But I also—I can’t really keep pretending I don’t want to ask.”

There it was.

Not polished. Not too pretty.

Just true.

His fingers tightened slightly around hers, not pulling, not asking for anything with the touch that the words weren’t already brave enough to ask.

“I want to take you on a date,” he said.

The sentence came quiet but clear in the middle of Cherry Street, like the night itself had made enough room for it.

“A real one.”

His mouth pulled faintly, nerves showing through at the edges now in a way he probably would’ve hated with anyone else.

“Not dinner with your parents. Not coffee that accidentally turns into emotional warfare. Not me walking you places because neither of us can seem to stop that from happening.”

That got the slightest thread of warmth back into it, enough to keep him breathing.

“I mean I actually ask you. You actually know I’m asking. We go somewhere on purpose.”

The porch light behind her caught the edge of the lilies, making the petals glow pale for a second in her hand. Cameron saw that, saw the line of her face, saw how close they were standing, and had to force himself not to say too much all at once just because he felt too much all at once.

So he kept it simple.

“As a date,” he said, unnecessarily, and let out the quietest, self-aware breath at himself. “Which I realize I’ve now said four different ways, so clearly I’m handling this with a lot of dignity.”

That earned him the faintest hint of his own smile, crooked and a little helpless.

Then he sobered again, not losing the warmth but letting the truth stay in front.

“You don’t have to say yes,” he said. “And you don’t have to say anything right now.”

That part came fast enough to matter.

Because he meant it. Because he wasn’t going to hand her something and then crowd her into answering just so he could settle his own nerves.

“I just…” He looked at her hand in his once, then back to her. “I needed you to know I wasn’t just thinking it.”

The night had gone very still around them.

Not empty. Just waiting.

Cameron stood there on Cherry Street with his heart beating harder than he’d like to admit and his hand still wrapped around hers and the whole soft, dangerous shape of the evening gathered quietly between them.

Then, because he could not leave it there without giving the moment at least one small place to breathe, he added, low and a little awkward and completely sincere,

“I promise I can make it less alarming than I just made it sound.”

A beat.

“Probably.”

Lucy stopped with him so gently it almost felt like the night had done it for her.

One second they were still moving through the soft dark of Cherry Street, hands laced, lilies tucked against her side, his voice low and careful in the space between them—

and the next she was standing there looking up at him while the meaning of what he’d just said unfolded all the way through her.

A date.

An actual one.

Not almost.
Not implied.
Not hidden inside borrowed little moments and “accidental” breakfasts and family dinners that had somehow turned into something too warm to pretend away.

He was asking her.

Properly.

And the second that fully landed, the smile on Lucy’s face changed.

It didn’t disappear.

It deepened.

Soft at first, then brighter, fuller—something warm and helpless and so obviously real she couldn’t have hidden it if she tried. Her grip tightened in his just slightly, the lilies shifting against her arm as she looked at him with that expression that always arrived a second before she said something dry enough to save herself from being seen too clearly.

Only this time, she didn’t say anything.

Not right away.

Because honestly?

Words felt a little useless.

Because he was standing there in the middle of Cherry Street looking uncharacteristically nervous and so earnestly trying not to push her while asking for exactly what she had been secretly, stubbornly waiting for him to ask.

And because she’d spent enough time pretending not to want this.

So instead, Lucy took one small step closer.

Then another.

Still smiling.

Still looking at him like she couldn’t quite believe he’d finally gotten here.

She had lilies in one hand and Converse on her feet and absolutely no extra height to work with, so when she leaned in, she had to rise onto the balls of her feet to reach him—

and then she kissed him.

No warning.
No half-hearted version of it.
No coy little brush she could play off later if she panicked.

Just a real kiss.

Warm and certain and immediate, her mouth finding his like the answer had been sitting in her chest for half the night and she’d finally decided she was done making him wait for it.

Her free hand stayed tucked in his.
The lilies pressed softly against her side.
And for one suspended second, everything around them seemed to go beautifully, impossibly quiet.

When she pulled back, it was only just enough to breathe.

Her lips stayed close to his. Her smile was still there, smaller now, softer somehow, and her breath caught a little when she looked up at him.

Then, with the tiniest shake of her head like she was half laughing at him and half at herself, she mumbled—

“I thought you were never gonna ask.”

The words came out low and a little breathless and fond in a way she absolutely would’ve denied under oath.

And then, because now that she’d kissed him once the rest of her seemed to have lost interest in behaving—

Lucy leaned in and kissed him again.

This time slower.

Deeper.

More sure of itself.

Her fingers curled lightly into the front of his shirt as she rose onto her toes again, and this kiss held more than the first one had room for—more relief, more wanting, more of the ache she’d been carrying around every time he looked at her like this and didn’t say the thing they were both clearly trying not to say first.

She kissed him like she was done trying to keep it neat.

Like she was done pretending this thing between them wasn’t pulling harder by the day.

The lilies brushed softly against his side.
Her Converse barely kept her balanced.
And when she finally pulled back this time, her cheeks were warm, her breathing a little uneven, and the smile on her face had gone almost disbelieving with happiness.

Still close.
Still looking at him.

Her hand stayed curled in his shirt for one extra beat before she glanced at his mouth again and murmured, softer now—

“Well.”

A tiny pause.

“That was me properly kissing you…”

The corner of her mouth tipped, playful and warm and just shy of smug.

“…and not running away after.”

That got a little laugh out of her own chest, quiet and a little embarrassed and impossible to hide.

She looked up at him through it, still close enough that the night between them felt more like breath than distance.

“So,” she added, brows lifting slightly, “I feel like that deserves some kind of award.”

A beat.

“Or at minimum a better first-date pitch than whatever felony-on-Cherry-Street situation that was.”

The tease landed light, affectionate, and she softened almost immediately after saying it—because the truth was, she loved that he’d asked awkwardly.

Loved that he’d been careful.
Loved that he’d tried.

And maybe that was the part that got her most.

So Lucy let herself look at him one more second longer than she normally would’ve.

Really look.

At the warmth still sitting in his face.
At the way he was still holding her hand.
At the fact that this didn’t feel reckless the way it should have.

It felt… right.

Dangerously right, maybe.

But right all the same.

Her smile gentled again as she lowered back fully onto her heels, lilies still tucked in one arm, and she gave his shirt one last small, absent tug before letting her fingers ease.

Then, softer now, with no joke over it at all:

“Yes.”

Her eyes held his.

“I’ll go on a date with you, Cameron.”

And because she physically could not let that sit there without one more tiny piece of herself interfering with it, she added under her breath—

“Obviously.”

Then she leaned in and kissed him once more.

Just because she could.

Lucy was still smiling when she pulled back from that last kiss.

Not the guarded kind.
Not the quick, accidental one she used to try and hide behind the second it showed up.

A real one.

Soft and bright and a little stunned by herself for how easily it kept coming back every time she looked at him.

Her fingers were still loosely curled in the front of his shirt, lilies tucked against her side, her face tipped up toward his in the warm wash of the porch light spilling from somebody’s front window down the block.

And God, now that she’d finally crossed that line, she didn’t entirely want to step back from it.

Not yet.

Her eyes flicked once toward the darker stretch of sidewalk ahead—toward where Cherry Street would eventually spill them closer to Main, closer to her apartment building on the other side of town—and then back to him.

The corner of her mouth curved.

Then, in a voice softer than before and just a little more shy because now she actually had something to lose if he looked too pleased with himself, she said—

“I mean…”

A tiny pause.

“You could come in for a little bit.”

The words came out casual enough to survive if she needed them to.

But only just.

Because the second she said it, Lucy could feel the warmth climb a little higher into her cheeks, and she immediately glanced away for half a second like maybe the dark street and somebody’s hydrangeas had suddenly become fascinating.

Then she looked back at him and narrowed her eyes just slightly, already trying to regain some control over the fact that she had, apparently, become a person who invited Cameron Tate upstairs after kissing him in the middle of Cherry Street.

“Not,” she added quickly, “because I had some grand seductive plan in place, so don’t get weird.”

That landed with just enough dry edge to sound like her again.

She shifted the lilies in her hand and lifted one shoulder in a small shrug.

“I did not expect company tonight.”

A beat.

“So if you come up there and it looks like a record store and a camera bag exploded into a one-bedroom apartment, that is between you and God.”

Her smile broke again at the edges after that—smaller this time, fond and almost embarrassed by her own honesty.

“And you’re not allowed to judge the fact that I definitely have at least one denim jacket on a kitchen chair for no reason.”

She looked at him then, really looked at him, softer now that the joke had settled.

Because beneath the teasing, the invitation meant what it meant.

It wasn’t polished.
It wasn’t premeditated.
It wasn’t some perfect, movie-scene continuation of the kiss.

It was just Lucy.

Opening the door another inch because she wanted a little more of him tonight.

A little more of this.

And maybe that was what made it feel so intimate in the first place.

Her hand found his again properly, fingers lacing back through his as her voice lowered just slightly.

“I just…” She smiled, gentler now. “I’m not really ready for tonight to be over yet.”

That one she gave him plain.

No cover over it.
No joke fast enough to take it back.

Then, because she physically couldn’t leave it there without undercutting herself at least a little, she added—

“And I feel like after all that dignity you brought to asking me out, it would be rude not to at least let you see my deeply uncurated living room.”

Her brows lifted faintly.

“Hospitality.”

A beat.

“Very mature of me.”

The smile that followed was impossible not to kiss again.

And she knew it.

For one stunned second after she kissed him, Cameron forgot every single useful thing he had ever known.

Forgot the street. Forgot the lilies in her arm. Forgot the fact that there were porch lights glowing warm from nearby houses and that Cherry Street still existed around them and that he was, presumably, still standing upright in the middle of it.

All of it went clean out of his head.

Because Lucy was kissing him.

Not careful. Not accidental. Not in that almost-way they’d been circling each other for weeks like neither one of them trusted the ground enough to put their full weight on it.

She kissed him like she’d made up her mind.

And Cameron—who had spent the better part of the evening trying not to crowd her, not to push, not to screw up what little fragile progress had built between them—felt something in his chest go wide open so fast it almost knocked the breath out of him.

His hand tightened around hers on instinct. The other nearly went to her waist, stopped only by a last useless flicker of disbelief, and then she was pulling back just enough to breathe, still so close he could feel the warmth of her mouth lingering against his.

He looked at her like maybe she’d just knocked the whole world half a step off its axis.

Then she told him, low and fond and a little breathless, that she’d been starting to think he was never going to get around to asking.

A laugh tried to break out of him right then, but it got tangled in something rougher first—relief, mostly. Relief so sudden and strong it made him feel a little unsteady.

“Yeah?” he murmured, voice gone quieter than usual. “Wasn’t exactly my fastest work.”

There was a grin trying to happen somewhere in there, but he barely got the words out before she kissed him again.

And that one did him in.

Slower this time. Deeper. Not the bright shock of the first one, but something fuller. Something that sank in.

Her fingers caught in the front of his shirt and Cameron made a low sound in the back of his throat before he could help it, one hand finally settling at her waist like it had been meant to go there all night. She was on her toes, a little off-balance in those Converse, lilies brushing his side, and every part of her felt so familiar and so new at the same time that it made his head spin.

He kissed her back like a man who had been trying very hard to behave himself and had just been handed permission to stop.

Not wild. Not careless. But with enough feeling in it that by the time she pulled away, his heart was beating hard enough to make him aware of it.

He looked down at her, trying and failing to hide how gone he was already, and listened while she half teased him, half shyly laid claim to the fact that she had, in fact, kissed him properly this time and stuck around after.

That got a real laugh out of him.

Warm and low and a little wrecked around the edges.

Then she said she figured that had earned her something.

Some kind of prize. At least better than the clumsy, half-fumbled version of a date invitation he’d managed a minute ago out here on the sidewalk like a guy with no game at all.

Cameron dragged his tongue across the inside of his cheek and dipped his head, smiling now because there was nothing else to do with the amount of happiness trying to break across his face.

“Well,” he said, “I can’t exactly go back and re-stage the whole thing with better lighting and smoother lines.”

His thumb brushed once over her hand where it was still caught in his shirt.

“So I guess you’re gonna have to settle for a trophy.”

He let that sit for half a beat, looking at her the way a man looked at something he still couldn’t quite believe had been given back to him.

“Maybe a plaque,” he added. “Something official. For surviving the worst date pitch in Bedford Falls.”

But then her smile gentled.

And he felt the shift before she even said yes.

The teasing gave way to something softer, clearer, and when she told him she’d go out with him—like it was obvious, like he should’ve known, like she couldn’t quite help letting him hear the affection under it—Cameron’s whole expression changed.

It didn’t go smug. Didn’t go cocky.

Just open.

The kind of open that only showed up when he was too happy to guard it.

He let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh and almost sounded like he’d been holding it for a month.

“Yeah?” he said, even though she’d already made herself perfectly clear.

Then he shook his head once, grinning now in that helpless, boyish way she could still get out of him without even trying. “Okay. Good. Good, because I was gonna be thinking about that for the next ten years if you’d said no.”

And when she kissed him again just because she could, Cameron met her halfway without hesitation.

That one was shorter, but somehow worse for his self-control.

Sweet and sure and entirely too easy to want more of.

By the time she drew back, his hand had shifted more securely at her waist and his forehead nearly brushed hers. He stayed there for a second, smiling down at her like he’d just been handed something precious and was smart enough, for once, to know it.

Then she glanced ahead toward the dark stretch of sidewalk, back at him, and offered him something more.

An invitation upstairs.

Casual on the surface. Only barely.

Cameron blinked once, like his brain needed a second to catch up again.

Not because he didn’t understand what she meant.

Because he did.

And because the thing that hit him first wasn’t triumph or ego or any of the dumb stuff some other guy might’ve reached for.

It was how intimate it felt.

Lucy letting him a little further in. Lucy, who could tuck a joke over almost anything if she felt too seen, standing here flushed from kissing him and asking him not to let the night end yet.

He listened while she immediately tried to take some of the weight off it with that dry edge of hers—warning him not to read too much into it, warning him the place wasn’t guest-ready, warning him that whatever chaos lived inside her apartment was none of his business and definitely not open for evaluation.

And that, if anything, made him want to smile harder.

Not because she was flustered.

Because she was being honest.

Because this was Lucy opening the door instead of performing the perfect version of it.

Because he knew what it cost her to do that.

His eyes moved over her face once, taking in the warmth still high in her cheeks, the lilies tucked against her side, the way her fingers found his again like that part at least already belonged there.

When she admitted she wasn’t ready for the night to end, something in him softened so completely it almost hurt.

He answered without a pause.

“Then I’m not ready either.”

Simple. True.

His voice dropped a little after that, gentler now. “And for the record, I’d be honored to meet your deeply unprepared living room.”

That got the beginning of a grin out of him again, lighter this time.

“I can promise you two things,” he said. “One, I’m not judging the denim jacket chair. Feels like a strong system. Two, I’ve seen enough job-site apartments and post-road-trip trucks to survive a little real life.”

His hand squeezed hers once.

“And three—” He huffed softly. “Yeah, I know that was more than two. I work in construction, not math.”

That was more him. Easier. Warmer. The kind of line that slipped out when he was happy and not trying too hard.

But underneath it all, his eyes stayed on hers in that steady way of his.

“No weird,” he said quietly. “I’m just coming because you asked.”

And he meant it exactly like that.

Not as pressure. Not as assumption. Just the truth.

Something about saying it seemed to settle both of them at once.

So they started walking again.

Not fast.

There was no reason to rush now, and Cameron found he didn’t want to. He wanted the sidewalk. The dark quiet of the street. The feel of her hand in his. The fact that every few steps her shoulder drifted close enough to brush his arm and neither of them corrected it.

He took the lilies from her after a moment without making a big thing of it, just reaching over with a small nod like obviously, let me carry those, and when she let him, he felt absurdly pleased by the simple domesticity of it.

For a little while neither of them said much.

They didn’t need to.

Their pace matched without effort, shoes scuffing softly along the sidewalk, the night air cool enough to keep the edges of everything sharp. Somewhere a dog barked once and then settled. A television flickered blue through somebody’s front window. The town felt hushed around them in that late-night way that made even familiar streets feel private.

Then Cameron glanced down at the flowers in his hand and said, “Just so we’re clear, I do think these are helping my chances.”

A beat.

“Not with getting invited upstairs. I already got that.” He looked over at her, mouth pulling crooked. “I mean with the plaque.”

He lifted the lilies slightly. “This is presentation value. Judges care about that.”

The line came out so earnest it nearly undercut itself, and Cameron heard it the same second she did. His grin shifted, a little sheepish now, like he hadn’t meant to sound quite so sincere about imaginary award criteria.

And that was the problem with Lucy.

Around her, he kept accidentally becoming charming in the least intentional ways possible.

He glanced ahead again, then back at her. “Though honestly, after tonight, I’m thinking I should be the one winning something.”

His expression softened.

“For not passing out when you kissed me.”

That one he delivered lightly, but the look he gave her after was all warmth. No swagger. No performance. Just the obvious fact that she’d gotten to him badly and he wasn’t even pretending otherwise.

A few more steps passed.

Then, because he couldn’t seem to help himself tonight, he added, “You know what’s embarrassing?”

He didn’t wait long enough to make it dramatic.

“I had a way cooler version of asking you out in my head.”

He glanced down at the sidewalk, smiling to himself now. “Couple better sentences. Less sounding like I got hit in the skull with a baseball somewhere around the middle.”

Then he looked back at her, that fond, crooked expression still there.

“But I don’t know.” His shoulder brushed hers on purpose this time. “Maybe the terrible version had character.”

And there it was again.

That easy, unplanned thing between them. The kind that had once made people assume they’d last forever without either of them having to try very hard at all.

Cameron felt it as it happened, felt the quiet rightness of walking beside her like this, lilies in one hand, Lucy’s fingers in the other, both of them smiling a little too much for people who were probably trying to play it cool.

He didn’t say anything about that part.

He just kept walking with her through the dark, wearing the kind of expression a man got when something he’d wanted for a long time had finally, gently started wanting him back.