Page 60 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

Just that one word made the tension in his stomach and back relax until he could almost breathe again. She’d made them a team.

“We do.”

“So I guess we’re going to just keep doing what we have been,” she said.

“I guess so. But maybe... Do you want to try staying the night together again?” he suggested. She’d only stayed the night that one time after the funeral. He understood now that maybe it was because they’d both let their guard down thanks to his grandpa.

But he needed her for more than just sex, and he was beginning to think she needed him too. Which made him feel better.

He wanted this thing between them to grow no matter how much the unknown scared him. No matter that he had no idea how to navigate this thing with Sera. No matter how much he wasn’t sure if he would ever trust her enough to stay.

Wes was asking for more than she had ever given anyone else. Since she’d left the foster-care system, having her own space and her own home had been important to her. And he wanted them to start staying the night together. She couldn’t just be like,Yeah, but only at yours. That wasn’t fair to him or to her.

If she was going to go into the unknown space where her feelings were leading her, she needed to really go there.

“I guess.”

They’d gotten up the main road and had crossed over in front of WiCKed Sisters. Tomorrow she was going to have to start changing out the window for Valentine’s Day. She had put Wes to work making some love journals and self-love journals. Some people wanted a partner—others didn’t.

She wanted a partner. When had that happened? She’d always prided herself on her resilience and ability to just be alone. It had never bothered her. Having her chosen family around her had always been enough. She also never wanted to risk herself by making a mistake like her parents had and hurting those she cared for.

But thinking about Wes staying the night... If it became a habit, would she miss him when he was gone?

Then she shook her head, thinking that making plans had never protected her from being hurt before. Something Ford had said drifted through her mind.Love is never wasted.

He’d been referring to his wife when Sera had mentioned it must have been hard to continue living without her. Ford had admitted it was still hard, but he had all those loving memories. They had been a life raft after his wife had died and his son and grandsons had gone away.

Could Sera find memories with Wes? The kind that would be enough to sustain her if they couldn’t find a way to last past the time they’d given each other?

“If you’re not ready for me to stay, that’s cool,” he said.

If there was ever a man who didn’t sound cool with something in that moment, it was Wes. “You’re not cool.”

“No. I’m not. I don’t understand the emotions that you stir up in me and I’m trying to remember the one good thing my dad said to me growing up—that only one person can freak out at a time and let you have it—but this isn’t my comfort zone.”

He was so blunt and honest that it was both warming and a little bit hurtful. He didn’t want to care for her. Even though she was struggling with similar insecurities, it stung.

“Yeah, I get it,” she said.

“I know, which is what makes me feel like a big d-bag. God, it would have been so much easier if you’d just been some floozy trying to swindle Grandpa.”

She almost laughed at the way he said it. Watching him try to grapple with feelings that mirrored her own made her feel safer in a way. “Sorry about that.”

“I’m not. I like you, Sera. There, I said it. I mean, you had to have guessed.”

For a minute she closed her eyes and just let that affection, and the warmth and joy it brought to her, live in her mind and body. Helikedher. For a moment something she’d never been close to was within her reach.

Wes liked her, and she liked him too.

The complications of that started swarming in her head, circling around, and she shoved them aside, slipping her arm around his waist, starting them toward her house. “I wasn’t sure. It is icy tonight, and you might not want to take the risk of driving back to your place.”

She felt him relax against her.

“There is that.”

When they got to her house, she realized this moment was the one that would change everything. She had no idea if having Wes stay the night would be something she enjoyed, or if she’d never want him to do it again.

She wasn’t confident at all in her ability to make this attraction and affection into anything more than an affair. Ford might have been a man who enjoyed decades of loving memories while being alone, but Sera wasn’t made of the same stuff.

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