Page 56

I clasp her face between my hands and tell her, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I wanted more before now. I should have, even when you were with someone or I was. I just didn’t want to screw up our friendship if I was wrong, you know?”

“I know. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to admit it either. I was going to tell you that morning I showed up at your door,” Maggie says. “On the drive there, I decided I was going to blurt it all out and then Natalie was there looking tall and blonde and I lost my nerve. I was flooded with so many doubts. She was the opposite of me. All the girls you dated were the opposite of me.”

“And you thought that meant that I didn’t want you?”

“Yes.”

“Maggie, dating women who weren’t like you was on purpose,” Theo says. “Nobody else could be you. It wasn’t fair to be thinking of you when I was with someone else. I tried to make sure they were as different as possible. It still didn’t work. I kept wishing the woman I came home to every night was you. When it wasn’t, I didn’t really want to go home.”

“I heard Natalie mention something about you working too much when you two were fighting.”

“I wasn’t overworked. I was trying to distract myself from pining for you. Only you,” I confess. “I just hope I can be the man, the boyfriend you deserve. I want you there when I wake up every morning, in my bed. I just don’t want to let you down by not being enough.”

“You could never let me down,” Maggie says. “You’re my favorite person. And…I’m in love with you.”

“I’m in love with you too,” I tell her. “Always have been. Always will be.”

Maggie makes a broken little sound before her arms tighten around my neck.

Then I kiss her like I never want to stop. Just like all the other times before.

Because Maggie and I didn’t fall in love this week.

We finally stopped pretending we weren’t already there.

EPILOGUE

Maggie

Five months later…

The Wilmington boardwalk is packed with people for the annual Fall Festival. Every storefront is glowing beneath strings of yellow and orange lights while “The Monster Mash” drifts through the cool ocean breeze.

Tourists wander between vendor booths carrying caramel apples and cups of hot cider while kids in adorable Halloween costumes run past with painted faces and plastic pumpkins swinging from their hands.

And somehow, in the middle of all the chaos, there’s a line wrapped halfway down the block for my food truck.

I still can’t believe that part.

“Two pumpkin cheesecake cupcakes and one ghost sugar cookie!” I call out before turning to grab another tray from the display case.

The smell of cinnamon, vanilla, and fresh espresso fills the truck while Theo hands drinks to customers beside me. He looks ridiculously attractive in a black button-up with the sleeves rolled up over his forearms.

Honestly, it’s distracting. He’s distracting.

Especially because he keeps smiling at me like this whole thing somehow impresses him.

Which is crazy because Theo’s the one who convinced me to start this business while he spends his days negotiating million-dollar divorces.

Meanwhile, I spent three hours this morning frosting black cats and white ghosts onto cupcakes while listening to Halloween music and drinking too much coffee.

Still, every time I catch him looking at me tonight, it feels like my success matters to him as much as it does to me.

“Your line is literally insane,” Kendall says as she climbs the steps into the back of the truck holding a brown shopping bag from one of the festival booths. “Monty had to fight three men for a parking spot.”

“I didn’t fight anyone,” Monty says behind her. “I negotiated aggressively until they caved for twenty bucks.”

Kendall just rolls her eyes at her husband.