“Like how you turned into Tarzan to save me?”

“Exactly.” He chuckles to himself. “That’s still my favorite version of our story.”

Our story.

My stomach does a few somersaults.

It might have taken a while to get to this point, but I’m so glad I was patient. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on our story.

“Are you sure you’re not cold?”

I shake my head, the wind breezing through my hair. “I’m perfect. Just don’t let go of me.”

We’re standing outside of the restaurant, looking out over the ocean as the lighthouse lamp rotates, highlighting the water with each pass of its beam.

Dinner was beyond amazing—the crunch of the bread, the smooth texture of the soup. Griffin was right: it was the best meal I’ve had in Port Snow so far, and I’m so glad I got to experience it with him.

After sharing a whoopie pie for dessert, we find a secluded spot against the railing that overlooks the ocean. Griffin wraps his arms around me, holding me from behind, his chin resting on the top of my head.

“Thank you for tonight, Griffin. I had a really nice time.”

“Me too.” He kisses the top of my head, and I can feel him gear up to say something else, but he lets out a long breath instead.

As we stand there, wrapped up in each other, I wonder what he wanted to say, why he held back.

Does he feel the same way I feel about him? Because the feelings I have for this man go beyond just like—they flirt with love and grow deeper and deeper with every minute I spend with him.

Are his feelings as strong as mine, or does he think we’re moving too fast?

It doesn’t really matter at this point. While my feelings run deep, our relationship is too new to bring up the l word.

So instead, I say, “What’s your typical good night look like on a date?”

“Good night? I don’t know what you have planned later, but there won’t be any good nights. More like good morning.”

I roll my eyes, even though I know he can’t see me. “I don’t mean for tonight, just in general. When you take a girl out on a first date, do you normally go in for a kiss?”

“Well, given that I’ve only been on four first dates, I’d say sweaty palms is usually my go-to for saying good night.”

“You’ve only been on four first dates?”

“Mm-hmm. Claire was my high school sweetheart, and the other two girls ahead of her didn’t really count—our parents chaperoned us, after all. And now there’s you, and with you, I know exactly how our night is going to end, and it’s not with a goodbye kiss on your doorstep.”

“Are you going to ravish me, Griffin?”

“Yup.” His simple confirmation shoots a wave of excitement up my spine. “What about you? What’s your typical first-date good night?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“I don’t know.” He leans over my shoulder to look at me. “Do I?”

I shrug. “I almost always have sex on the first date, kind of like ripping off the Band-Aid, you know? ‘This is what I have to offer; what do you have to offer?’ kind of stuff. Makes it easier to move on to the next date if I have a good time.”

His mouth parts in shock, his eyes blinking a few times. “Are you serious?”

“No.” I laugh, maybe a little too hard, as he squeezes me and presses a loud kiss to my cheek.

“Jesus, Ren. For a second there, I felt myself turn into a jealous asshole.”

“Do you really think I’m the kind of girl who would have sex with every first date?”

He shrugs and goes back to pressing his chin against the top of my head. “I don’t know. I mean, you did hump the hell out of me in a pond . . . oomph.”

I’ve playfully elbowed him in the stomach. The low rumble of his laugh warms me up from the tips of my toes to the top of my head.

“Will you tell me about her? About Claire?”

For a moment, I feel him stiffen behind me before he slowly lets out a deep breath, his lips finding the top of my head.

“What do you want to know?” His voice is slightly strangled but open.

“You met in high school, right? How did you meet?”

“I borrowed a pencil from her. It was lame, but it was a way to talk to her. She was the girl every guy wanted to be with. Fun, smart, outgoing, and beautiful. She was the entire package, and when my sophomore year rolled around, I finally got the courage to talk to her.”

“And you asked her for a pencil?”

“Yeah, but it worked. After class, in the hallways, I chased her down to give her back her pencil, and we started talking. I asked her out for ice cream after school, and the rest is history.”

“That’s really sweet.” I squeeze the arms that are wrapped around me. “Did you both go to college?”

“She did; I didn’t. I stayed back to help my parents and become a volunteer firefighter while she went to the University of Pottsmouth, earned her degree in nursing. She always had a nurturing way about her, so nursing was right up her alley.”

“When did you get married?”

“Not until she graduated. We wanted to make sure we were financially ready before we got married. It was smart but torture, because we weren’t allowed to live together. Her parents were pretty strict. So it made things interesting.”

“Oh wow, I can imagine. When did you buy your house?”

“I bought it a few years after I graduated. My parents are pretty awesome and helped me sign off on it. Claire didn’t move in until a few years later, but she’d sneak over as much as she could when she was in college.”

“Bet that was hard with all the peering eyes in this town.”

He chuckles, his voice growing dreamy. “Tell me about it. But we made it work.”

“She sounds like a beautiful person.”

“She was. You two would have been friends, probably would have given me a run for my money.”

For some reason, that makes me really happy—that in some offbeat way, I’ve earned her blessing.

“How was she with your family? Did they ever throw you weird ‘you’re together now’ parties?”

He shakes his head above me, giving me a tight squeeze. “Still want to kill them for that, by the way, and no, they didn’t. I mean, they did stupid shit when we went to prom, like make us take pictures with lobsters—we won’t get into that—but nothing like you experienced. Claire held her own with my brothers, though. She was well versed in the Knightly clan, since she grew up here, too, so she didn’t have a hard time keeping up.”

“So if she grew up here, how come it took you so long to ask her out?”

“Honestly? I was scared. It wasn’t until I hit my growth spurt and started working out that I gained confidence.”

I try to think what a scrawny little Griffin might look like, but I can’t picture it. To me, he will always be the burly firefighter with the handsome smile.

“That’s kind of sweet. Did she have a crush on you at all?”

“Nah.” He clears his throat. “She actually really liked Jen’s husband, Zach. I, uh . . . I kind of went out of my way to introduce him to Jen so that he was off the market.”

I turn to face him, shock mixing with humor. “No you didn’t.”

He nods slowly. “Sadly, I did. But it worked out in the end.”

“Oh, you sneaky, sneaky man.”

He pulls me into a hug and presses a kiss against my forehead. “Hell, I would have done the same thing if you’d shown an ounce of interest in any other guy in town. I would have found an unsuspecting tourist and hooked them up. When I know what I want, I make sure no one else can have it.”

And that warms me to my very core.

“Your home is beautiful, Griffin.” I take in the subtle neutral tones throughout the house, the cozy gray-toned wooden furniture. The house is a simple oasis; you step inside and instantly feel comfortable.

“Thank you.” He comes up behind me and slowly pulls down the zipper of my dress, pressing light kisses across the side of my neck.

When he asked me if I wanted to go back to his place when we were in his truck, I hesitated at first, nervous that I would be stepping into his wife’s territory, but he told me he renovated a few months ago, needing a change, the reminder of her too consuming. He didn’t get rid of everything, but he did get a new bed, and that made me feel a whole hell of a lot better.

I don’t want to take his wife’s place. I want to be respectful of what they had, but after an awkward conversation in his truck outside of his house, Griffin let me know I was okay, that I wouldn’t be intruding on her territory.

And I know I should have felt weird about that, but I didn’t. It actually made me feel better, the idea that maybe with some crazy cosmic force she brought us together. And who knows? Maybe she was the one who poked the moose in the butt to get him out on the road at just the right time.