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Saturday mornings in Bedford Falls always started a little earlier when the town decided to organize something.

Lucy had unlocked Honey Bee Vintage just after eight, the spring air still cool enough that she kept the shop door propped open with the old brass doorstop her mom used to use. Main Street was already waking up around her—truck beds opening, folding tables unfolding, the low murmur of neighbors greeting each other while they set up booths for the fundraiser.

It had become a tradition after last year.

Fall and winter sports had gotten new uniforms and equipment thanks to the same event, and now the town had rallied again for the spring and summer teams. Handmade signs hung from lampposts. A banner stretched across the courthouse square that read Bedford Falls Youth Rec Fundraiser in bright painted letters.

Lucy stepped out of the shop carrying a wooden crate filled with small vintage items she’d decided to sell for the fundraiser—old enamel pins, a few worn leather belts, stacks of vinyl singles people liked to flip through even if they didn’t buy anything.

She set the crate down on the folding table in front of the store and pushed a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

The sun had started climbing high enough to warm the brick storefronts now. Down the street, someone was setting up a lemonade stand. A couple parents were dragging coolers toward the park entrance. Kids already ran up and down the sidewalk like the whole thing existed purely for their entertainment.

Lucy worked methodically.

Tablecloth first.

Then the crate.

Then the small handwritten sign that read:

Honey Bee Vintage – All proceeds today go to Bedford Falls Rec Sports

She weighed the corners down with a couple of old brass paperweights before stepping back to check the setup.

That was when she saw him.

Cameron.

He was coming down the sidewalk from the direction of the park, a baseball cap pulled low and a couple of folding chairs slung over one shoulder like he’d already been helping somewhere else.

Lucy didn’t react the way she might have months ago.

No surprise.

No visible tension.

She had known he’d be here.

Word traveled fast in a town like this, and the fact that Cameron Tate was coaching one of the boys’ rec baseball teams this year had made its way through every diner booth and grocery aisle in Bedford Falls.

So when he started walking toward her booth, Lucy just adjusted the edge of the tablecloth and finished lining up a row of vintage sunglasses on the table.

Calm.

Composed.

When he reached the edge of the setup, she glanced up at him like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Which, in Bedford Falls, it kind of was.

“Morning, Coach,” she said.

Her tone was light, easy.

Lucy rested her hands on the edge of the table and gave him a small, polite smile.

“Looks like they put you to work already.”

Cameron had, in fact, already been put to work.

Since seven-thirty, if anybody was asking.

He’d helped unload coolers at the park, hauled folding tables out of the back of Danny Wilkes’s truck, and nearly gotten taken out at the knees by a pack of eight-year-olds with too much sugar and absolutely no sense of self-preservation. By the time he hit Main Street with the chairs hooked over one shoulder and his cap pulled low against the sun, he was already warm, a little winded, and in a mood that was annoyingly good for that early on a Saturday.

Then he saw Lucy.

And somehow it got better.

Not in the sharp, unsteady way it used to. Not in the way that made his whole body forget how to act normal.

Just enough to make something in him ease and lift at the same time.

She looked exactly like she belonged there—outside Honey Bee Vintage with the morning sun catching in her hair, table half set, little handwritten sign already in place like of course she’d found a way to make a fundraiser booth look better than everybody else’s. There was something about the whole picture that felt unfairly specific to her. Thoughtful. Pretty without trying. Quietly competent in a way he’d always noticed even when he’d been too young to properly appreciate it.

So by the time he reached the table and she greeted him with Morning, Coach, Cameron was already smiling.

“Morning,” he said, shifting the chairs down from his shoulder with a grunt before setting them on the sidewalk beside the booth.

The coach thing got a little grin out of him.

He tipped the brim of his cap once.

“Please. It’s a very serious title. I’ve got about six ten-year-olds ignoring me on a weekly basis.”

His eyes dropped to the setup in front of her—crate, sunglasses, belts, records, all arranged with that Lucy touch that made even a fundraiser table feel like it had a point of view.

He nodded toward the sign.

“This is nice.”

Simple. Meant.

Then he looked back at her, one forearm draping over the back of a folded chair.

“And yeah, apparently the town decided if I’m dumb enough to show up early, I’m free labor now.”

His mouth tipped at one side.

“Which feels a little exploitative, honestly.”

The warmth in his tone sat easy there, built more from last night than from old habit. He wasn’t reaching for that warmth either. It was just… there now. Familiar without being presumptuous.

He glanced toward the row of sunglasses she’d lined up and picked up one pair with tinted amber lenses, holding them up in front of his face like he was seriously considering them.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Too much for nine in the morning?”

He already knew the answer. That was part of the point.

Then, before she could fully commit to mocking him, he lowered the glasses and looked over the rest of the booth again.

“You need help with anything?” he asked, casual and straightforward. “I’ve got maybe ten minutes before somebody finds me and gives me another folding table to carry.”

A little kid in a rec baseball shirt tore past behind him just then, nearly clipping the chairs, and Cameron instinctively reached a hand out to steer him clear without even looking.

“Watch it, buddy.”

The boy mumbled a distracted sorry and kept running.

Cameron shook his head, then looked back at Lucy, the amused disbelief already there.

“See?” he said. “Natural authority.”

Lucy watched the kid dart past like a loose firecracker, Cameron catching him by the shoulder just long enough to redirect him without breaking stride. The boy was already halfway down the block before his apology even finished leaving his mouth.

She glanced after him, then back at Cameron.

“Very impressive,” she said.

Her tone stayed dry, but the faint lift at the corner of her mouth gave away the humor underneath it.

“Really commanding presence.”

The morning had properly arrived on Main Street now. A breeze moved lightly between the buildings, lifting the corner of the tablecloth for a second before Lucy smoothed it back down with one hand. Across the street someone had started setting up a row of raffle baskets, the cellophane crackling loudly in the quiet air.

Lucy shifted a small stack of vinyl records farther onto the center of the table so they wouldn’t slide.

When Cameron mentioned free labor, she gave a small shrug.

“That’s what happens when you show up early in this town,” she said. “They assume you’re volunteering.”

Her eyes flicked briefly toward the chairs he’d dropped beside the booth.

“You should’ve walked slower.”

When he lifted the sunglasses again, Lucy leaned forward just enough to pluck them from his hand before he could fully commit to the bit.

She set them neatly back in their row.

“Those require at least noon,” she said.

Then she straightened again, resting one hand on the edge of the table.

“You can come back later if you still feel mysterious.”

His offer to help made her glance back toward the shop door. Another crate sat just inside the entryway, but the rest of the booth was already finished.

She shook her head.

“I’m good.”

Lucy looked down the street toward the park, where a handful of kids had already started tossing a baseball around with wildly inconsistent aim.

Then she looked back at him.

“So how are they?” she asked.

“The team.”

Her voice carried genuine curiosity now instead of teasing.

“Are they actually playing baseball yet… or is it still just ten kids chasing the ball wherever it lands?”

She folded her arms loosely across the edge of the table, relaxed.

“And do you like it?”

The question came simply.

“Coaching.”

Lucy tilted her head slightly, studying him.

“You seem like you’re enjoying yourself.”

Cameron watched her steal the sunglasses out of his hand and set them back in line like she was correcting a child with poor impulse control, and the grin that pulled at his mouth came easy.

“At least noon,” he repeated. “That feels arbitrary.”

But he let it go, because apparently Lucy Corbett was now the reigning authority on mysterious eyewear and he knew better than to challenge her on something she’d already decided.

Her asking about the team shifted something in him, not heavier exactly, just quieter.

Real.

He rested both hands on the back of one of the folded chairs and glanced toward the park when she did, where a baseball had just sailed ten feet over one kid’s head and into a hedge.

“Bit of both,” he said.

His tone stayed light, but there was affection in it now. Not performative. Just there.

“We’ve got maybe three kids playing actual baseball.” He tilted his head, counting it out in his mind. “Two more who are trying real hard. And the rest are mostly just excited to wear matching hats and tackle each other in the outfield.”

That got a low laugh out of him.

“One of them picks dandelions between innings. Another one still calls every glove a mitt like he’s in an old movie. And I’ve got a catcher who spends half of practice asking if snacks are before or after batting drills.”

He shook his head once, fond and faintly disbelieving.

“So, yeah. High-level athletics.”

Then he looked back at her, forearms settling over the top of the chair now, posture loose under the morning sun.

“But they’re good kids.”

That part landed plain.

He could still hear one of them yelling Coach Tate! from across the park every five minutes like the title made him somebody important. It would’ve gone to his head once. Or at least he would’ve pretended it did.

Now it mostly just made him laugh.

When she asked if he liked it, Cameron didn’t answer right away.

His eyes drifted down the block again, toward the park entrance and the kids zigzagging through the fundraiser setup like they had nowhere in the world to be except right here. Somewhere a whistle blew. Someone called for tape. A truck door slammed.

The whole town was waking up around them.

And he realized he did know the answer.

“Yeah,” he said.

Simple. Certain.

“More than I thought I would.”

He looked back at her then, a little squint in his eyes from the sun, cap shadowing most of his face except for the mouth that had gone softer around the edges.

“It’s not really about baseball yet.” A small shrug. “Not for them. Not mostly.”

His thumb tapped once against the chair frame.

“It’s more like…” He glanced toward the park again, searching for the shape of it. “Trying to teach them how to be on a team. How to listen. How not to lose their minds when they strike out once.”

The corner of his mouth tugged.

“How to stop throwing dirt at each other when my back’s turned.”

That got another quiet laugh from him, but the warmth stayed.

“And I don’t know.” He breathed out through his nose. “Feels good being useful in a way that doesn’t have anything to do with people expecting me to be good at something.”

That one he said before he fully thought about it, but once it was out, it felt honest enough not to take back.

He shifted his grip on the chair and looked at her, expression open and easy in a way it hadn’t always been with her.

“When I was their age, baseball was everything. Or at least I thought it had to be.” A pause. “They don’t need it to be everything. They just need somebody to show up.”

That sat between them for a second in the spring morning air, quieter than the teasing had been.

Then Cameron’s mouth tipped again, lighter now.

“Plus, it turns out ten-year-olds think I’m way funnier than adults do, which has been huge for my confidence.”

He straightened a little and nodded once toward her table.

“So naturally, I’m riding that momentum.”

His gaze dropped to the row of sunglasses again, then to the vinyl singles.

“You doing the whole day out here?” he asked. “Or are you rotating inside when the town starts acting like sunscreen is optional and everybody gets loud?”

Lucy listened without interrupting.

Not the way people sometimes did when they were just waiting for their turn to speak—but the way she always had when someone was actually telling her something real. Her hands rested loosely against the edge of the booth table while Cameron talked, fingers lightly brushing the worn wood as the breeze stirred the corner of the tablecloth again.

Down the block a whistle blew sharply from the direction of the park, followed by the unmistakable sound of a kid shouting someone’s name across the street.

Lucy glanced toward the hedge just in time to see a baseball bounce out from it and roll lazily toward the curb.

When Cameron described the team—three actual baseball players, two trying hard, the rest tackling each other in the outfield—her mouth curved into a quiet smile.

She could picture it perfectly.

“That sounds about right,” she said.

The image of a ten-year-old picking dandelions in the middle of a game made her let out a soft breath of laughter.

“And the snacks situation is very important,” she added, lifting one eyebrow slightly.

“You can’t expect peak performance without a juice box strategy.”

Her tone was still teasing, but there was warmth in it now. Not the careful politeness she used with people she didn’t know well. Something a little easier.

Lucy pushed a stack of enamel pins a little farther into the center of the table, aligning them with the rest of the display before looking back at him.

When Cameron said he liked coaching more than he expected, she noticed the shift in his voice before she looked up again.

Something steadier there.

Less joking.

Lucy’s expression softened slightly as she listened.

The sounds of the fundraiser carried around them now—parents calling to kids, folding chairs scraping against pavement, someone opening a cooler with a loud plastic crack. The town was fully awake.

She watched him while he talked about showing up for the kids.

Not in a sentimental way.

Just attentive.

“You were always good with the younger kids,” she said after a moment.

Her voice was thoughtful, like the observation had come to her naturally rather than as a compliment she’d decided to give.

“You just didn’t realize it.”

Lucy remembered him tossing baseballs with middle school kids behind the field when they were teenagers, or letting someone’s little brother tag along during pickup games even when the rest of them found it annoying.

She didn’t say all of that.

Just the simple version.

Her gaze followed his briefly toward the park again before she looked back at him.

“And you’re right,” she added.

“They don’t really care about baseball yet.”

A faint smile returned.

“They care about snacks and hats and someone remembering their name.”

She straightened slightly, pushing herself off the edge of the table.

When he joked about ten-year-olds thinking he was funny, Lucy gave him a look.

That look lasted a second longer than the others had.

Then the corner of her mouth lifted.

“Alright,” she admitted.

Her tone stayed calm, but there was a small concession in it now.

“You are funny.”

A beat.

“Sometimes.”

The tease softened the compliment before it could turn into anything heavier.

She glanced down at the booth again when he asked about her plan for the day.

The table was finished now. The rows of sunglasses and small vintage items looked more like a tiny storefront display than a fundraiser stand.

Lucy rested her hands lightly on the edge of the table.

“I’ll stay out here most of the morning,” she said.

Her eyes moved briefly down the street where the crowd was beginning to thicken.

“Once it gets busy I’ll probably rotate back inside the shop so people can actually get through the door.”

She glanced back at him again, the sun catching the edges of her hair.

“And someone needs to keep an eye on all this.”

Lucy gestured lightly to the booth.

“Last year a group of twelve-year-olds tried to trade baseball cards for half the table.”

Her mouth curved faintly.

“I’m still not convinced they weren’t serious.”

Cameron laughed the second she mentioned the baseball cards.

Not just a quick huff either—a real, low laugh that slipped out easy and unguarded, warming his whole face before he could help it. He could picture it too clearly: a cluster of twelve-year-olds standing in front of Honey Bee Vintage with all the confidence in the world, dead serious about trading a stack of bent baseball cards for half her table like they were seasoned negotiators at an estate sale.

“Honestly,” he said, still grinning, “I kind of respect that.”

He shifted one of the folded chairs upright beside him, mostly because he needed something to do with his hands while he talked, then rested a forearm across the back of it. The metal was still cool from sitting in the morning shade.

“Bold strategy. No lowballing, no easing into it.” His mouth tipped to one side. “Just straight to we’d like the entire operation, ma’am.”

The breeze moved through Main Street again, carrying with it a mix of fresh-cut grass from somewhere near the square, coffee drifting from the diner, and that faint spring warmth that always seemed to show up all at once once the sun cleared the rooftops. Across the street, a woman in a Bedford Falls Rec hoodie was struggling to tape a sign to a folding table while two kids argued over whose turn it was to hold the scissors. Somewhere nearer the park, a whistle blew again, followed by a chorus of voices that sounded more excited than organized.

But what Lucy had said before that stayed with him more than the baseball cards.

You were always good with the younger kids. You just didn’t realize it.

That landed softer.

Quieter.

Cameron looked at her for a second without saying anything right away. He had never been great at taking compliments that weren’t built around something obvious—sports, strength, performance, things he could prove with numbers or stats or some version of winning. But that one didn’t feel thrown to him casually. It felt observed.

Which somehow made it matter more.

“Maybe,” he said after a beat.

The word came out easy, but not dismissive. He let it sit there the way it deserved to. No joke over the top of it right away. No shrugging it off like it didn’t hit somewhere real.

Then his mouth pulled again, lighter this time.

“I was probably too busy being an idiot to notice most of my better qualities back then.”

There was humor in it, but no self-pity. Just the kind of plain honesty he’d gotten a little better at lately—the kind that didn’t need dressing up to count.

When she conceded that he was funny sometimes, he put a hand to his chest like she’d just delivered a medal pinned to his shirt in front of the whole town.

“Wow,” he said. “High praise from Lucy Corbett before nine a.m.”

He glanced theatrically up the block like he needed witnesses.

“This should probably be documented somewhere official.”

His eyes found the fundraiser banner stretched across the square, then drifted back to her, amused.

“Historic moment. Right up there with my graceful defeat.”

That one stayed warm and light between them, easy enough to keep the conversation in the same place it had been all morning—playful, grounded, not asking anything of either of them except presence.

A little farther down the sidewalk, a little girl in an oversized rec softball shirt was trying to drag a wagon full of bottled water by herself with absolutely no success while an older man called after her to wait. Cameron watched for half a second, half-ready to step in, but the wagon tipped back into balance and she managed it with the furious determination only a kid could have.

He looked back at Lucy’s booth then, taking it in again with a little more time.

The records propped just so. The enamel pins lined up in neat rows. The sunglasses placed like they belonged in a real storefront instead of on a folding table in the middle of a fundraiser. Even her handwritten sign looked better than everybody else’s, like she couldn’t help making things look considered, even when they were temporary.

That had always been true about her.

She noticed things. And then she arranged them so other people noticed too.

“I believe the baseball-card thing,” he said, returning to it. “At that age everybody thinks they’re one good trade away from controlling the universe.”

His gaze dropped to the enamel pins and the stack of singles again.

“You throw a couple old Yankees cards into the mix, you might have a bidding war by ten-thirty.”

He smiled a little at the thought, then let the smile settle into something quieter.

The truth was, he liked this.

Liked standing here in the daylight with her, no dim bar lighting to soften anything, no late-night nostalgia hanging around the edges trying to make every glance feel heavier than it was. Just Main Street in the morning. Lucy at her table. Him with folding chairs and a cap on and somewhere else to be in a little while.

And somehow it still felt easy.

Maybe easier, actually.

There was something nice—something unexpectedly steady—about getting to stand in her orbit like this and not feel like every second had to mean more than it did. Not brittle. Not tense. Just… good. Real in a quieter way than big moments ever were.

He glanced toward the open shop door behind her, then back to her face.

“You already have coffee,” he said, though it came out more like a guess than a question. “Or are you doing all this on pure small-town grit and vintage instincts?”

The tease came easy, but his eyes had already flicked toward the diner end of the block where people were moving in and out with paper cups in hand. He could practically smell it from here—coffee, bacon, syrup, all of it drifting across Main Street and making the whole fundraiser feel even more like Bedford Falls showing off for itself.

Then he looked back at her.

“Because if you haven’t,” he said, shifting his weight against the chair, “I can disappear for five minutes and come back with something before my very serious coaching duties resume.”

His mouth tugged into that crooked, easy grin again.

“Figure it’s the least I can do, since I’m already benefiting from free comedic validation and excellent booth-side conversation.”

Lucy listened to him the same way she always had—without interrupting, without rushing him along, hands busy but attention clearly there.

While Cameron talked, she picked up one of the small stacks of vinyl singles and shifted it half an inch to the left so it lined up better with the crate beside it. It was the kind of adjustment most people wouldn’t even notice, but Lucy noticed those things automatically. The table had to feel balanced before the crowd arrived. Once people started wandering through, nothing stayed exactly where you left it.

His laugh about the baseball cards pulled a faint smile out of her again.

She could picture it too clearly—the determined faces, the serious negotiation voices, the absolute confidence that they were making a perfectly reasonable offer.

“Honestly,” Lucy said, brushing a loose strand of hair back behind her ear, “they were extremely confident about it.”

Her tone stayed dry.

“One of them told me the cards were ‘vintage.’”

She lifted her fingers in little quotation marks before setting a pair of round sunglasses back into their row.

“They were from 2018.”

The breeze moved through Main Street again, lifting the corner of the fundraiser banner stretched across the street. Lucy glanced up briefly at the movement before her attention returned to Cameron. His comment about being too busy being an idiot when he was younger earned a soft, knowing look from her.

She didn’t argue with him.

But she didn’t fully agree either.

Lucy just tilted her head slightly, like she was considering the statement.

“You were seventeen,” she said simply.

Which, in Lucy language, carried a lot of quiet context: seventeen-year-olds were idiots sometimes. That didn’t mean they were only that.

She didn’t linger on it though. The moment passed easily, the way most things had been passing between them lately—acknowledged, then allowed to breathe without turning into something heavier.

When Cameron put a hand to his chest over the “sometimes funny” comment, Lucy rolled her eyes a little, though the corner of her mouth lifted again despite herself.

“Yes, please make sure the historical society records it,” she said mildly.

“Right between the spring bake sale and the time the courthouse clock stopped for three days.”

Her hands moved automatically while they talked, adjusting a row of enamel pins so the little honeybee logo faced outward.

Main Street had grown noticeably louder in the last few minutes. A truck rolled past slow, someone called out for duct tape across the street, and the smell of coffee from the diner drifted stronger now that the breeze had shifted.

Lucy noticed Cameron’s eyes flick briefly toward the diner before he spoke again.

When he asked about coffee, Lucy instinctively glanced down at the small empty spot beside her crate where a cup probably should have been.

Then she looked back up at him.

For a second she didn’t answer.

She just studied him—cap pulled low, forearm resting across the chair, sunlight catching the edge of his shoulder. It struck her, briefly, how normal this moment felt. Not tense. Not fragile. Just two people talking on Main Street in the morning.

Then Lucy nodded once.

“I actually haven’t yet,” she admitted.

Her tone was matter-of-fact, but there was the faintest hint of relief in the confession, like she’d been running on momentum since opening the shop that morning.

She leaned one hip lightly against the edge of the booth table, arms folding loosely.

“But I also never say no to free coffee.”

The words came with a small shrug and a crooked little smile that made it clear she knew exactly what she was doing—accepting the offer without turning it into anything bigger than what it was.

Lucy tipped her chin slightly toward the diner down the block.

“Just plain coffee is fine,” she added.

Then, after half a beat, the tease returned.

“Unless you’re planning on showing off and bringing back one of those giant caramel monstrosities.”

Her eyebrow lifted.

“In which case I will absolutely judge you.”

She straightened a little, glancing down the street toward the park again where a cluster of kids in rec jerseys had started running in circles around a folding table.

Then she looked back at Cameron.

“But you’ve got about five minutes before someone remembers you’re supposed to be supervising,” she said.

Her gaze flicked briefly toward the park.

“And if one of those ten-year-olds sets something on fire while you’re gone, I’m blaming you.”

Cameron watched the way she said I actually haven’t yet and felt, stupidly, like he’d won something.

Not because it was a big thing.

Because it wasn’t.

Because it was just coffee. Just Lucy leaning her hip against the edge of the booth table, arms folding loosely while Main Street woke up around them, admitting she hadn’t had any yet and letting him fix that without either of them pretending it meant more than a cup of diner coffee on a fundraiser morning.

Which was exactly why it felt good.

Her line about the caramel monstrosities got a grin out of him before he could help it.

“Wow,” he said, hand to his chest again like she’d personally wounded him. “Good to know my reputation survived long enough for you to still assume I’d order something embarrassing.”

His eyes dropped to her for a second beneath the brim of his cap, amusement warm and easy.

“For the record, I’m a plain coffee guy now. Very mature. Very blue-collar. Real man-of-the-people stuff.”

Then the image of one of the rec kids somehow setting part of the fundraiser on fire while he was gone made him huff a laugh through his nose.

“That does sound like something they’d pull the second I turn my back,” he said.

He glanced toward the park, where a cluster of boys in oversized caps had, in fact, started circling a folding table like they were either about to play tag or dismantle it for parts. Then he looked back at Lucy, the morning sun catching the edges of her hair and the faint curve at her mouth.

Still easy. Still normal. Still somehow better than he would’ve expected this to be.

He pushed off the chair and hooked his thumb toward the diner.

“Five minutes,” he said. “If the town burns down while I’m gone, tell everybody I died trying to prevent it.”

Then he started down the block.

The bell over the diner door gave its usual bright jangle when he stepped inside, and the smell hit him all at once—coffee, bacon grease, syrup, toast, that permanent undercurrent of old wood and vinyl booths that places like this wore like cologne. Bedford Falls had apparently decided to pack itself in here before nine a.m. Half the counter stools were full, two older men were already arguing over something near the register, and Marla behind the counter took one look at Cameron and pointed a pen at him before he even made it all the way in.

“You’re late if you’re supposed to be coaching.”

He grinned and held up a hand.

“Good morning to you too.”

“You want coffee or attitude?”

“Both, apparently.”

That got a snort out of her as she grabbed two paper cups.

He didn’t have to think hard about the order. One plain coffee for Lucy because she’d said plain and Lucy was not the kind of person who asked for one thing while secretly wanting another. One for him, black. He added a handful of sugar packets and a couple creamers to be safe anyway, because he’d spent enough years around her to know there was a difference between plain is fine and I definitely don’t want options.

Marla snapped lids on both cups and looked past him out the diner window toward Main Street.

“That for Lucy?”

Cameron glanced at her.

“You all miss absolutely nothing, huh?”

Marla only gave him a flat look.

“It’s a small town.”

He laughed under his breath, paid, and was back out the door before the conversation could become breakfast-counter material for the next six months.

Outside, the fundraiser had gotten louder in the three minutes he’d been gone. Kids everywhere. Parents carrying boxes. Someone testing a mic near the square and immediately regretting it when the speakers squealed. Cameron adjusted his grip on the cups and moved back toward Honey Bee Vintage, already spotting Lucy’s table before he reached it.

Of course he did.

Her booth looked like it belonged there more than any of the others. Neater. Smarter. Like if all the tables on Main Street had to compete for best-dressed, hers had already won without trying.

And there she was behind it, one hand adjusting something small and exact, posture relaxed but alert in that way she always got when she was half working and half watching everything around her at once.

Something in him went warm again.

Not sharp. Not painful. Just there.

He stepped up to the table and held one of the cups out toward her.

“One aggressively non-embarrassing plain coffee,” he said. “No whipped cream. No caramel. No public shame.”

His mouth tipped faintly at one corner.

“I did bring options, though, because I’m told that’s what separates a responsible adult from a reckless one.”

He set the sugar packets and creamers on the table beside the crate, nudging them closer to her with one finger.

Then he took a sip of his own and let out a quiet, approving breath.

“Alright,” he said. “That’s strong enough to get me through at least two more children asking if practice counts as cardio.”

He glanced toward the park again, and right on cue one of the boys from his team appeared at the end of the block, saw him, and immediately cupped his hands around his mouth.

“COACH TATE!”

The yell cracked through Main Street with all the subtlety of a fire alarm.

Cameron shut his eyes for half a second and lowered his head.

“Yep,” he muttered into his coffee. “There it is.”

When he looked back up at Lucy, he was laughing.

A second kid joined the first one, both of them bouncing in place like the fact that they’d found him meant all adult supervision had technically resumed.

Cameron pointed two fingers at them from across the street.

“Don’t run.”

They immediately started running.

He looked back at Lucy with a helpless expression that said you see what I’m dealing with.

“Natural authority,” he said again.

The boys hovered on the sidewalk now, just far enough away to pretend they weren’t interrupting. One of them glanced at Lucy’s booth and then at the row of sunglasses like he was considering whether a fundraiser counted as shopping if you were ten and broke.

Cameron angled his shoulders a little, half toward the kids, half toward Lucy, not quite ready to leave the table yet.

“You know,” he said, quieter now, “I think this is the part where I’m supposed to act like I don’t want to stay and keep talking.”

His eyes flicked toward the boys.

“Unfortunately, I’ve got an audience.”

The line came easy, but his tone stayed warm underneath it.

He took another sip of coffee and looked over her table again, the sunglasses, the pins, the records, the handwritten sign weighted down under brass paperweights.

“You want me to send people your way, though?” he asked. “I can absolutely start a rumor there’s something expensive and mysterious on this table.”

His mouth tugged.

“Maybe tell the parents the sunglasses make them look younger. That’d move inventory fast.”

Lucy took the coffee from him, fingers wrapping around the warmth of the cup like she’d been needing it longer than she’d admit. The heat settled into her palm, grounding, familiar—something small and simple in the middle of a morning that was quickly turning loud and busy.

She glanced at the lid, then at him.

“Good,” she said, voice even, but there was a faint curve at the corner of her mouth. “Would’ve been a shame if you ruined all that personal growth in one order.”

She set the cup down just long enough to pull one creamer from the small pile he’d nudged toward her, pausing for half a second like she’d noticed it—like she understood exactly why it was there—before cracking it open and pouring it in.

Not making a thing of it.

But not missing it either.

She stirred slowly, eyes dropping to the swirl of coffee for a moment, then lifted it for a sip just as the shout cut through the street.

“COACH TATE!”

Lucy didn’t flinch.

She just shifted her gaze past him, watching the boys sprint toward them like they’d been personally summoned by chaos itself. One of them nearly tripped over his own feet in the process.

Her expression stayed composed for about half a second.

Then it gave—just slightly.

“You’re very in control of this situation,” she said, tone dry, but softer around the edges now.

She took another sip of her coffee, eyes flicking back to him as he closed his eyes like he was already accepting defeat.

There was something about it—about the way he didn’t try to hide it, didn’t try to spin it into something smoother—that caught her a little off guard.

He wasn’t performing.

Not really.

Not the way he used to.

Lucy leaned her hip back against the edge of the table, one hand loosely wrapped around her cup, the other adjusting a pair of sunglasses that didn’t actually need adjusting.

Her gaze moved between him and the boys, then settled back on him again.

And there it was—

that small shift.

Not obvious.

Not something she would’ve named out loud.

But something quieter.

Something like… interest, maybe. Not new, exactly. Just… reoriented.

“You’re doing a terrible job pretending you don’t want to stay,” she said, more quietly this time.

Not calling him out.

Just noticing.

Her eyes lingered on him for a second longer than they had earlier that morning, like she was recalibrating something she thought she already understood.

Then she exhaled lightly through her nose, the moment easing back into something simpler.

At his offer to start a rumor, Lucy’s brow lifted.

“You would absolutely abuse that power,” she said.

Her tone stayed calm, but there was the faintest hint of amusement threading through it now.

She reached out, straightening one of the enamel pins again, thumb pressing it into place.

“Mysterious and expensive might work, though,” she added.

A beat.

Then, glancing back at him—

“If you tell parents these make them look younger, I will deny knowing you.”

Her mouth curved slightly.

“But I’ll still take the sales.”

She took another sip of her coffee, slower this time, letting the warmth settle as the noise of the street carried around them—kids yelling, a mic squealing somewhere down the block, the low hum of conversation building.

Then her gaze shifted to the boys again.

Waiting.

Hovering.

One of them now very obviously staring at a pair of sunglasses like he was debating a life decision.

Lucy looked back at Cameron, that same quiet glint still there.

“You should go,” she said.

Not pushing him away.

Just… placing things where they belonged.

“They’re about to make a problem for someone.”

A small pause.

Then, softer—

“Coach.”

This time it didn’t land like a joke.

She lifted her cup slightly in acknowledgment.

“Thanks for the coffee.”

Lucy stepped back into her space behind the table, fingers already moving to adjust something small and unnecessary, letting the moment settle without stretching it too far.

But just before she fully turned her attention away—

her eyes flicked back to him again.

Quick.

Subtle.

That same shift still there.

Like she was seeing him a little differently than she had yesterday.

And not entirely minding it.