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My first instinct is to call Zander.

I pull my phone from my bag before I reach the car. Then I stop.

His tour announcement was only a few days ago, and every conversation about it since has eventually bent in the same direction. He’s excited. I know he is. I saw it the night he told me. But underneath that excitement is a tension he can’t seem to set down.

I hate that it has enough space in my head to make me hesitate now.

This is good news. Mine.

This is good news, and I want to enjoy it before we start worrying about what it means for everything else.

I call him, and he answers on the second ring. “Hey.”

“Are you home?”

“Just got back. Why?”

“I have something to tell you.”

There’s a pause. “Good something?”

“Very.”

“I’ll come over.”

I smile despite myself. “I’m on my way home from the shop, so give me about fifteen minutes.”

I’ve barely gotten home before he knocks. I open the door, and he immediately asks, “What happened?”

“Can I get you inside first?”

“That depends on how long you’re planning to make me wait.”

I step aside, and he follows me into the kitchen. He looks curious, not worried, and some of the tension I’d been carrying on the drive home eases.

“The owner of Black Fern offered me a chance to buy into the shop.”

Zander goes still for a second. Then his whole face changes. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

He crosses the kitchen and catches me around the waist and pulls me against him hard enough that I laugh.

“Ruby, that’s huge.”

“I know.”

He kisses me, then pulls back without letting go. “How much of it?”

“We haven’t gotten that far. She’s putting the numbers together. There’ll be contracts, accountant stuff, all the boring adult parts.”

“But you’d be a partner?”

“Yeah.”

His grin is so immediate that the last little knot in my stomach disappears.

“Of course she asked you.”