I let out a breathy laugh. “Maybe. Or maybe things just get more muddled.” I took a sip of wine as well and looked back over at Tuck, the fire crackling between us making him seem like nothing more than a memory. “You know how you think that if your childhood crush showed up, you’d realize he was just that and nothing more?” I murmured. “And you even think that maybe you had really bad taste back then that has nothing to do with the woman you became?”

Jane smiled. “Yeah. Sure, honey. It’s usually true. I used to have a thing for the Karate Kid. He was it. He was the goal.”

I laughed, but it turned into a sigh. “But then, you see the boy you used to dream about, and even though you’re years older and everything about you has changed, and even though you’re in a town full of the most beautiful people on the planet earth, he still makes you feel the same way you did back then—even more—and part of you hates it so much, and part of you doesn’t at all.”

I glanced over at Jane, but instead of looking sad for me, she was smiling. “I wouldn’t be so quick to hate that. If the way he looks at you is any indication, he feels the very same way.”

I practically stumbled up the stairs behind Tuck an hour later after Jane and I finished every last drop of the bottle of wine. I wasn’t exactly drunk, but I was plenty tipsy. Tuck set the candle Jane had lit for him on the dresser and I fell onto the bed and let out a moan of pleasure. “Beautiful mattress,” I whispered. “I love you.”

Tuck gave me a crooked smile, sitting on the edge of the bed and removing his shoes. Then he placed them by the door and sat down on the floor where I now saw he’d rolled out his sleeping bag. I came up on my elbow. “Tuck, you don’t need to sleep on the floor. There’s plenty of room in this bed.”

“It’s fine, Emily. I’m good down here.”

“Oh shut up. We’ve been walking for a week and sleeping on the ground. I’m not going to not share this bed. If you sleep on the floor, I will too in protest of you giving up a mattress, which is just dumb. No martyrs allowed.”

“I wasn’t being a martyr. I was being polite.”

“You? Polite? Please. Why make such a drastic change to your personality now?”

“Funny.” He still looked a little torn but stood and walked to the bed and sat down. “Are you sure?”

I patted the pillow next to me and scooted over. “Very.”