Page 102 of Just Act Natural

“And Eliza?”

I laugh. “Eliza rotates through bright hair colors, and she tends to match her outfit to the color of the month. She runs her own handmade soap business, so she likes to do things her way. She’s surprisingly pushy for a tiny woman, and Dean is absolutely gone for her.”

“As he should be. She sounds awesome.”

We stop in front of a red storefront with a bright yellow door. Lila puts her hand on the knob and raises her eyebrows at me.

“Prepare yourself for the razzle-dazzle.”

She pulls the door open, and I step inside. And…okay, she’s not wrong.

The small store is a riot of color and texture, filled with everything from tiny jewelry pieces, to bulky ceramic mugs, to huge paintings. It’s a lot to take in, but it feels cozy, too. Maybe that’s just the size, but it’s more likely the people in it.

“Hey, you guys.” Hope rounds the back counter to greet us. “All better?”

Lila lifts a fist into the air. “Unstoppable.”

“Perfect timing. We’re trying to pull together a lake day. Maybe Thursday? Your town council thing is Friday, right?”

“Yeah. I could do Thursday.” She looks up at me. “What do you think? You said you wanted to do something on a lake.”

“I thought you weren’t outdoorsy,” I tease. “Now I find out you dolake days?”

“For me, lake day means sitting in the sand getting a tan. Don’t get your hopes up.”

Watching Lila suntanning is the very thing I would hope for.

“Whatever the plan is, Thursday works,” I tell her.

“Great.” Hope beams. “Griffin’s in, and so are Wren, Tess, and August.”

“Is Ian joining the fun, too?” Lila asks. “We saw them together at the festival.”

Being looped into Lila’swemakes my chest go warm.

Hope grimaces and shoots a glance over her shoulder. “Tess decided she’s not ready to try for something more with him,” she says softly. “Wren wants to throw this together as a fun distraction for her and August.”

I’m missing pieces here, but it isn’t hard to connect the dots.

“So,” Hope says in her regular voice, throwing off the air of gossip, “we’re going to go have a great afternoon. The more, the merrier, if you guys want to come.”

“We’re in,” I tell her. Even if all Lila does is lay around in her swimsuit. Which I’m not going to think about while we’re standing with her sister.

“But right now, I’m here to be Grant’s personal shopper.” She slips away from me to inspect a nearby jewelry rack.

“Ooh, exciting.” Hope straightens a bag that was out of place and returns to her seat behind the counter. “Let me know if you have any questions.”

Lila makes a slow pass through the store, touching everything. I can’t stop staring at her hands. She picks things up and carefully maneuvers them one by one. I knew she was tactile, but this slow and methodical assessment does something to me.

It’s not just her delicate hands caressing practicallyeverything in the store. It’s the confidence behind it—she knows quality when she sees it.

A very small, very stupid, very insistent voice in my head says she’s seen quality in me, too. That whisper cracks something open in my chest. Fear, doubt, and insecurities I’ve held onto for too many years spill out—but so does an overwhelming hope. Hope for her. Myself.Us. Hope I’ve avoided touching as though it would scald, I now want to grab with both hands and cling to.

“How about this for your mom?” Lila offers me a leather planner embossed with pine trees on the front, unaware of the chaos ricocheting inside me.

“Perfect.” I would have walked through this entire store and settled on a scented candle.

She crosses to the back of the shop. “I’m thinking one of these for Eliza. I’m biased, but my sister’s art sounds like her whole vibe.”

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