Page 69 of Tessa and Nash

“You think it could help?” I say.

“I think,” she corrects carefully, “it could, if it’s done right.”

My chest tightens. Not with panic this time.

With hope.

Hope is also dangerous.

Because it makes you forget what you’re risking.

A shout goes up nearby as the chili cook-off judging begins. Someone yells that Hank Lawson’s chili “tastes of spite.”

Tessa’s mouth twitches. “That’s accurate.”

I grin without meaning to. “You’re enjoying today.”

She glances around the square, lights, laughter, history, the whole town wrapped up in itself.

“I’m… surprised,” she admits, and the admission is a crack in armor. “It’s easier than I thought.”

“Pretending to like me?” I ask before I can stop myself.

Her eyes snap to mine. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

My stomach drops.

I open my mouth, then close it again because I don’t know what answer is safe.

Tessa watches me for a beat longer, then taps the edge of my notebook. “Show me the part about the cabins again.”

I swallow hard. “Yeah. Okay.”

I turn the page, and we huddle over my sketches.

It’s as if this isn’t fake, and for a few minutes, in the middle of Founders’ Day madness, with Dottie still holding court and Virgil’s warning echoing in my skull, I forget how awkward I’m supposed to be.

I just listen to Tessa’s quiet questions and the way her mind sharpens around the details, and I feel my insides settle.

Not because the problem is solved, or because the town stopped watching, but because for the first time since I blurted the word ‘engaged’ in front of the council, I’m not carrying the future alone.

Tessa Long leans into my shoulder, pointing at a drawing of a porch railing and asking what kind of wood I’d use.

And I think, with a sudden, terrifying clarity…

This is what it felt like that night.

Not the heat, the whiskey, the bed. But the ease, the click. The part where she looks at me seriously, not as a joke.

I swallow hard and turn the page carefully, as if moving too fast might shatter it.

“Okay,” I croak. “So, if we build the cabins here…”

Tessa nods, eyes focused, and for once, the town isn’t the loudest thing in my head.

The loudest thing is the warning Virgil left behind.

Ask questions before you build things that wake old fights.