“I kept my distance. Then you wanted sex.”

“Oh, Ryder.” She laughed, shook her head. “Well, that’s true.”

“So I gave you a break. It was just supposed to be sex, right?”

“Right.”

“It was okay to like each other. It’s better if you do. And maybe to figure each other out some, all good. But the more I figured you out, the more it wasn’t just sex. I didn’t much like that either.”

“This has been very hard on you.”

“See, that snooty tone? Why does that grab me like it does? You grab me, Hope, by the throat, by the gut, by the balls, by the heart.”

Her breath caught. How foolish. How wonderful. “You said heart.”

“I kept thinking it’s just the way you look, because the way you look, it drops a man to his knees. But that’s just a nice add-on. Really nice, but it’s not the way you look. It’s the way you are. Everything kept sliding around, like it was trying to find its place. Then it clicked in, fit. Done. You. Naked in the grass at sunrise. That was it.”

“It was sooner for me,” she managed, “but not very much.”

“So, I’m going to tell you.” He took another drink. “I’ve said it to my mother, and to Carolee. My grandma, and if I’m drunk enough I’ve said it to my brothers. But I’ve never said it to another woman. It’s not right to say what you’re not sure of, or to use it to smooth the way.”

“Wait.” She set her glass aside, rose to go to him. To stand with him over Main Street and look in his eyes. “Tell me now.”

“I love you. And I’m okay with it.”

She laughed. Her heart sang, but she laughed and took his face in her hands. “I love you. And I’m okay with it, too.”

“I don’t do poetry.”

“No, Ryder, you don’t do poetry. But you stand up for me. You tell me the truth. You make me laugh, and you make me want. You let me be and feel who I am. And you fell in love with me even when you didn’t want to.”

He closed his hands over her wrists. “I’m not going to stop.”

“No, don’t stop.”

She leaned to him, leaned on him, let that wonderful surge come, and let her speeding heart ride on it. “I’m so happy to love you. So happy to have you, just exactly the way you are. I’m so happy you told me tonight, when it was about friends and family, when it was about home.”

“It used to bother me that you were perfect.”

“Oh, Ryder.”