She’s got lemonade with lemons and strawberries floating in it. It’s adorable. She’s got little plates with poop emojis on them that Luke picked out with her. The tablecloths match. Only Willa could take shit plates and somehow tie them into a beautiful outdoor birthday party for a six-year-old.

I wouldn’t have even let him get them, but she just laughed and tossed them in the basket. “Excellent choice!” she said, and Luke beamed.

“Yeah. I know,” I finally reply to Summer. Because I am acting weird. Willa and I have been sneaking around for a couple of weeks, and I don’t want to sneak anymore. I’m trying hard not to scare the shit out of her by being so sure about everything. But the fact of the matter is, I am sure.

I’ve made my mistakes. I’ve lived with the fallouts. I’ve spent years thinking about my life and what it would take for me to give someone a chance again.

And watching this woman plan what I meant to be a simple backyard barbecue for a kid and instead treating it like it’s the celebration of the century is just the cherry on top.

It feels fast, and yet it doesn’t. I wouldn’t have given in to this if it didn’t feel right.

“Cade Eaton.” Summer’s dark eyes are sparkling at me right now, and her jaw drops as she scans my face. Sharp as a tack, this one. I told Rhett once that I loved her because she was good for him but hated that she was smarter than me.

And this moment does nothing but prove that statement.

“You’re in love with my best friend, aren’t you?”

I cross my arms over my chest and look away. Love. I was never sure I could love someone in the way everyone talks about it. My heart has taken too many shit-kickings over the years. My mom. Talia. What Talia meant for the course my life took. All the things I missed out on, which I hate to even mention because I have Luke. But I’d be a liar if I said I never thought about what I might have done differently had life dealt me a different hand.

Maybe I’d be rodeoing. Or traveling all over North America, rolling in the cash that comes from selling top-of-the-line horses.

Maybe I’d be training all day and riding buckle bunnies all night.

All those maybes. But as I watch Willa put little weighted clips on the tablecloth so nothing blows away, I know that none of those maybes would have been right.

The hand dealt to me is what brought her to my front step.

“Yeah,” I grumble, still refusing to look at Summer.