“Mm.” I wasn’t expecting an apology. But I’ll take it. “But you were right about me. I mean. Brynn messed up, and I’m not sorry we called her out. She needed to fix things. But I don’t know. I started it for the wrong reasons. I was just trying to hurt her, and I ended up hurting all of us. And I am sorry about that.”

Owen nods. He leans into me a little and I lean back.

He says, “So, about that. Nikki and Tulasi and Lili said you got Brynn to go and apologize to each of them and promise to do better.”

“Huh.” Good for her.

“And Brynn told me that Emily wanted to break up with her, but you convinced her not to.”

I shrug and suppress a smile. “Possibly.”

“That was really cool of you.”

“Thanks.”

“Aaaand I might have underestimated Shane.”

This time, I can’t help grinning. “Nah.”

“No, really. He got his team to do a bake sale at their last tournament and they’re donating the money to STORM.”

“Shut up.”

“No, for real.”

“Well, he is a good guy,” I say. Shane. Who would have guessed?

“Yeah.”

I take a breath. “He’s not the guy for me, though.”

Owen doesn’t say anything.

This is terrifying. What if I’m about to make a huge mistake? What if he doesn’t feel the same as I do, after all? Or worse, what if he does, and I still screw up and ruin it somehow? But the trees whisper to me that life is bigger than my fears, and I clasp Owen’s hand and lace our fingers together. He doesn’t speak, but his fingers close over mine. I literally sigh with relief. We stand together for a while, holding hands, not saying a word. This is good.

“Look at these trees,” Owen marvels, oblivious to the runaway what-ifs inside my head. “Look how big they are. Think about how old they are. They were here before the Gold Rush, before the Spaniards. . . . They were here when it just the Miwok and Ohlone.”

“Yeah, I heard they were even here when the Jedi returned.”

Owen smiles down at me and squeezes my hand. “Nice.” What he says next convinces me that he was, in fact, reading my mind earlier. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us in the future, Ceej. But I like you enough to want to know, and enough to risk screwing up. I’m not even asking you to fall in love or anything. I’m just asking you to be open to . . . to . . .”

“Happy endings?” I suggest. “Or happy beginnings, anyway.” I turn toward him and slide my hands over his chest and shoulders and clasp them around the back of his neck.

The corners of his mouth edge up as he pulls me close. “Happy beginnings is good. I like beginnings.”

“For now, anyway.”