Chapter 25
EMILY
The corner booth at Jeb’s Diner felt like a holding cell. I shredded a napkin into confetti while my coffee went cold.
The lunch rush was in full swing. Burgers on the grill, coffee brewing, the clatter of dishes and voices. With its checkerboard floor, powder blue walls and dark blue leather booths, normally this place felt comforting. But not today.
My phone screen lit up. The group chat had exploded after my SOS text but I couldn’t bring myself to read them. It was enough to know they were coming.
The bell over the door jingled, not once, not twice, but in a steady stream. Suddenly, I was under siege. Mia slid in across from me, followed instantly by Hannah and Maya. Poppy squeezed in next to me, claiming the end. Annie, Samara, and Cassidy piled in wherever they could fit.
Brayden, the owner, appeared with a tray of mugs and a fresh pot of coffee, his floppy dark hair falling into his eyes as he set everything down. “You ladies need menus or are we doing the usual chaos order?”
Hannah studied me for a few seconds, then answered, “Chaos order. Bring us everything.”
“You got it.” He topped off my mug again, gave me a gentle smile, and disappeared.
“Okay.” Cassidy didn’t even wait for everyone to settle. She leaned forward with her lawyer face on. “We got the SOS. What’s the emergency?”
I opened my mouth, but the words stuck in my throat.
Hannah narrowed her eyes at me. “Wait. Did something happen with Hot Neighbor?”
My face went hot.
“IT DID!” Samara practically shrieked. “Look at her face!”
“Emily!” Poppy’s eyes were huge. “Tell us everything!”
“I...” I dragged in a shaky breath. “We kissed.”
The table exploded.
“WHAT?”
“WHEN?”
“HOW MANY TIMES?”
“Was it good?”
“Of course it was good, look at her face!”
“Order!” Cassidy rapped her knuckles on the table like a gavel. “One at a time. Emily, start from the beginning.”
So I did. I told them about the cake-fight kiss, the by-his-truck kiss, the late- night-after-baseball kiss. And all about meeting his family. By the time I finished, seven pairs of eyes were staring at me with varying degrees of delight.
“That,” Poppy sighed, “is the most romantic thing I have ever heard.”
“And you met his family?” Annie smiled softly. “Emily, that’s huge.”
“I know.” My voice shrank. “That is why I have to stop it.”
The delight vanished. The booth went dead silent.
“Excuse me?” Mia frowned. “Why on earth would you stop it?”
“Because it’s too much. It’s too complicated. He has kids, and I’m helping him out, and his family probably thinks I’m some random girl latching onto him for his money or.. or something.”
“Objection,” Hannah said. “Those are excuses. What’s the real reason?”
I stared down at my mutilated napkin. Because he doesn’t know what’s underneath my clothes. Because once he sees the scars, he’ll look at me differently and I won’t be able to bear it.
But I couldn’t fucking say any of that, could I?
“I’m just not good at this,” I lied, though my voice trembled. “You know, the whole relationship thing. I tried with that guy in my early twenties. It was a disaster. I can’t live next door to Cam if something like that happens again.”
“Emily.” Maya’s voice was low and sharp. She reached across the table and gripped my hand. “You are not that girl anymore. And Cam isn’t that guy.”
“You don’t know that.”
Mia was watching me with those sharp gray eyes, the ones that saw too much. “What are you not telling us?”
My heart hammered against my ribs so hard it hurt. “Nothing. I just... I’m scared, I guess.”
“Of what?” Hannah asked gently.
Of being seen. Of being rejected.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Emily.” Cassidy’s tone softened. “You’re talking to the queen of fear here. Remember my Yearbook entry? You guys didn’t give me Most Likely to Fear Love for no reason, did you?”
I shook my head.
“So yeah, I really do get it.” Her gaze went dewy. “But imagine what I would have missed out on with Harle, if I’d let the fear rule me.”
No, I couldn’t imagine that, but we weren’t the same. My fear was carved into my skin.
“Listen,” Hannah put in. “We’re not saying you need to marry the guy tomorrow. But you like him. He likes you. Why not see where it goes?”
She made it sound so easy.
“Can I ask you something?” Annie asked. “What do you actually want? Right now. In this exact moment.”
The question hit me hard. What did I want?
I wanted to stop being so exhausted by my own brain. I wanted to believe that I could have something good without it falling apart. I wanted to stop letting my past dictate my future.
I wanted Cam.
But that… that was all too much. So instead, “I just want to kiss him again,” I admitted.
Poppy beamed. “Then tell him that.”
“What?”
“Tell him exactly what you just told us.”
“That sounds insane.”
“No,” Samara said. “That sounds honest.”
“But what if—”
“No what ifs.” Hannah pointed at me. “What ifs are how we talk ourselves out of good things. You want to kiss him. He clearly wants to kiss you. Everything else is just noise.”
I looked around the table at my friends. At Mia, who’d known me forever. At Hannah with her bold confidence. At Maya’s steady practicality. At Poppy’s soft warmth and Annie’s gentle wisdom. At Samara’s enthusiasm and Cassidy’s clear-eyed logic.
My heart was beating a frantic rhythm against my ribs, a bird trapped in a cage. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to run, to hide, to keep myself safe and covered up.
But I was so fucking tired of running.
Letting out a breath that stuttered in my chest, I looked at Mia. She gave me a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
Trust us, that nod said.
“Okay,” The word scraped my throat. “Okay. I’ll tell him.”
“Yes!” Hannah pumped her fist. “Finally!”
“When?” Poppy asked, leaning forward.
“I don’t know. Soon. Maybe tomorrow when I go over to watch the girls.”
“No.” Cassidy shook her head. “Today. Text him today. Don’t give yourself time to talk yourself out of it.”
My phone sat on the table between us, screen dark and silent. My stomach twisted at the thought of picking it up.
“I’ll do it when I get home.”
“Em.” Mia’s voice was patient but firm. “Do it now.”
“While we’re all here,” Maya added. “So we can stop you from overthinking it.”
Fuck, they were so right it killed me.
“I hate you all.” But I was reaching for my phone, my hands shaking slightly as I unlocked it.
“You love us,” Hannah corrected. “Now text the hot dad and tell him you want to make out with him.”
“I’m not saying it like that.”
“Why not? It’s accurate.”
I pulled up Cam’s contact, my thumb hovering over the message field. What was I meant to say? Hey, so I know I keep running away but I’d really like to kiss you again? That sounded insane.
“Just be honest.” Mia was reading my mind again. “Say what you feel.”
I typed slowly, deleting and retyping three times before I finally settled on something that didn’t make me want to throw my phone into traffic.
Hey. Can we talk? Maybe tonight after the girls are in bed?
I hit send before I could second-guess it, then immediately wanted to throw up.
“There.” I set my phone down hard. “Done. Happy?”
“Very.” Poppy was beaming. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”
My phone pinged almost immediately, making my heart leap into my throat.
Of course. I’ll text you when they’re down.
I turned the screen to show Mia. A smile curved her lips. “See? He wants to talk too.”
“Or he wants to let me down easy.” The fear was creeping back in, cold and familiar.
“Stop it.” Hannah covered my phone with her hand. “Take the win, Emily.”
I nodded, but my stomach twisted. I promised to talk to him. I didn’t promise to survive the fallout.