Page 126 of Once Upon A Second Chance
We keep walking, our steps falling in sync as the path toward Willow Creek bends gently toward the tree line. The leaves are just starting to turn—soft gold and slow red along the edges—like thetrees are thinking about changing but haven’t fully committed yet.
When we reach the park, the light is low and golden, brushing everything in that late-autumn glow that makes you feel nostalgic for things that haven’t even happened yet.
There’s a small overlook clearing near the top of the ridge, with a wooden bench and a little picnic table surrounded by tall oaks that cast flickering shadows across the grass.
Richard sets the basket down on the bench and starts unpacking it methodically. Cloth napkins. Mismatched cutlery. A still-warm thermos. A wide, shallow container of what looks like chicken with roasted vegetables and lemon wedges on the side.
I blink. “Wait. You cooked this?”
He gives me a sheepish look, tugging a folded towel off a second container. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“I may have… used Mrs. Delaney’s kitchen while I was checking in on her.”
I laugh. “You cooked dinner in a seventy-eight-year-old woman’s house?”
“She supervised,” he says quickly. “I did the chopping, she did the talking. Gave me verbal step-by-step instructions like it was a Food Network episode. Told me I was stirring wrong. Threatened to slap the back of my hand if I burned the garlic.”
I grin, already picturing it. “You’re kidding.”
“Dead serious. I think she also tried to get me to marry her granddaughter halfway through, but it’s possible she was just messing with me.”
I sit down on the blanket he’s just spread out and shake my head. “Only you would plan a romantic dinner with borrowed cookware and unsolicited sass from the town matriarch.”
“She said I should learn how to ‘cook properly before I go around proposing to women with real standards.’” He pauses just long enough for me to glance up, but his face gives away nothing.
Proposing.
He said the word casually, but it lands like a tiny spark tucked in kindling.
I look down at the plate he’s made for me, still warm, still fragrant, and suddenly I’m not just hungry—I’m full of something I don’t quite have a name for yet.
Gratitude, maybe.
Or love, freshly stirred.
We eat slowly, the sun dipping behind the trees in long, golden streaks, and I wonder—just briefly—if this is the part right before everything changes.
And if it is, I think I’m ready.
The food is nearly gone, and we’re both leaning back on our hands, legs stretched out toward the edge of the overlook.
The last of the sunlight is fading through the trees in slanted beams, dusting everything in gold like we’re sitting inside a memory that’s not finished forming yet.
Richard’s quiet beside me, unusually so. He’s watching the horizon like he’s waiting for something — maybe the right light, maybe the right words.
I glance over. “You okay?”
He nods, then smiles a little. It’s the kind of smile that pulls at the corners of his mouthslowly, like he’s not used to wearing it for long. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m better than okay. I’m just... scared, I think.”
I shift toward him, one leg folding under me. “Scared of what?”
“Of doing this wrong,” he says, eyes still on the horizon. “Of saying too much or not enough. Of not getting it right.”
I frown. “Gettingwhatright?”
He finally turns toward me, his eyes steady and full of something deep and unguarded. “This. You. Me. Us.”
