Page 75 of Meet Me at the Fudge Shop

“I’d never resent you, Lily.” How could he?

Because Brandon was right.

Hewascrazy about her. Lily was his sunshine and laughter, and she grounded him. She was the bergamot to his milk chocolate. The lavender to his rocky road.

“Maybe you wouldn’t, but your family sure would.” Her beautiful eyes were full of emotion.

“Just like your family would resent me if I won.” He stopped walking, turned toward her. “But are we going to keep letting them determine what we do with our lives?”

Because, yeah. His family would never, ever accept how he felt about her. So what was he going to do about it?

She frowned. “Maybe it’s futile.” She kicked off her sandals and walked across the grass, only a step in front of him. In the moonlight her pale blonde hair glowed like a halo.

“It doesn’t have to be.” He reached for her, captured her hand, and turned her around to face him. “Lily, I can’t stop thinking about that kiss. About you.” He swallowed hard. “About us.”

It took her a beat, a moment that lasted far longer than it should have, but finally, she said, “I can’t either.” Before he could breathe out a sigh of relief, she added, “But it doesn’t change the fact that our families hate each other. Or that you’re leaving.”

“I don’t have to.” The simple truth of Brandon’s words flooded in. “I could stay, or you could leave with me. Come to Chicago. We could go anywhere, really. Back to Florida, if you wanted. We could find a way, Lily, if we really wanted it.”

I know I do.

“I just don’t see how it would work.” She dropped his hand and resumed walking barefoot in the grass. “We tried it once, and it ended so badly. I don’t want that to happen again. Now that we’re friends again, I couldn’t stand to live in a world where you hated me.”

“I could never hate you, Lily. I never did.” At her serious side eye, he shook his head. “Besides, like we’ve both said, we’re not kids anymore.”

“You’re right. We aren’t, but we are still who we are. A Kelley and a Hart. One of us is still going to lose our fudge shop.” She made her way toward the now-deserted playground, stepping up onto a balance beam on the ground. “Our two families still can’t let go of decades-long hurt and hate.”

He followed alongside her. “Wecould be different.”

“And do what? Leave our families?” She hopped off the balance beam and headed right for a pair of swings. “I don’t know about you, but being back here, I guess it’s reminded me how much I missed home. And I don’t want to leave again, not if I have a choice.” Tossing her sandals to the side, she lowered herself onto a swing.

He joined her, turning on his swing to face her. “Then don’t. We can stay. We can fight. Whatever the results of the competition, we figure it out from there. As long as we’re on the same page.”

She stared at her pink-painted toenails, buried them in the sand before starting to sway. “Who are you kidding, Declan? You’d never go against your own family.” Lily said it softly. Not in admonishment. Just stated it right there, like a fact.

And itwasa fact. Or at least, it had been. But something had broken in him last night, when he’d dared to finally speak up against his family. When he’d chosen Lily by walking out on family dinner.

“You’re right. Family’s important to me. But so are you.”

“And you’re important to me too. But with your family, it just seems, I don’t know.” She kicked her foot, sending a spray of sand flying forward.

“It just seems what?”

She sighed. “Almost unhealthy. Like you’re doing it out of guilt or fear, not love.”

Her words shook something loose inside him. “No, Lily. But maybe there is a part of me that wants to break free of everything they expect of me.”

“Why? What happened to make you feel like you couldn’t be your own person, that you had to do everything your family asked of you? Is there more to it than what happened with your grandpa?”

How did she do that—cut to the heart of everything he’d struggled with his whole life and make it sound so cut-and-dried? So simple?

Declan planted his feet on the ground and leaned forward. “When I was a kid, my mom’s brother married someone the family didn’t approve of. They met when she was visiting Jonathon Island, and she got the flu. My uncle was on call at the clinic that night. I don’t know if you remember him, but he was a physician and planning to take over my grandpa’s pediatric practice. He split his time between that and the clinic.”

Uncle Craig. He’d been so generous and kind to Declan, had encouraged him to follow his dreams, wherever they might lead.

Lily reached over, slipped her hand in his. Squeezed. “And?”

“And, Gert was from Germany. They fell in love really quickly and decided to get married. The only problem was that she didn’t want to leave her own parents who lived in Frankfurt, so he told his parents he’d be moving.”

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