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“What happens now?” I ask.

“We need a tiebreaker.”

“Okay, like what?”

She takes another bite, and I watch as she thinks over how to figure out a winner.

“Okay, new challenge,” she says finally. “We see who can plan the best day.”

“A whole day? Like a date?” I blurt the question before I can think it through.

Blake blinks and then blushes. “Yeah, like a date. Who can plan the best first date.”

Fuck. Could Blake want me the way I want her?

“Okay.”

“Do you want to go first?” she asks.

I nod. “Sure. Tomorrow night?”

“Okay.”

We finish eating, and I take her plate to clean up.

“You don’t have to do that,” she argues.

I give her a look. “I’m not about to leave this pile of dishes for you to do.”

She bumps her shoulder against mine, and we work in silence as we load the dishwasher. My mind races with ideas for our date and for what this could mean for us.

Does Blake want me as badly as I want her? Either way, this is my chance to show her how perfect we could be together, and I’m not about to mess it up. Not when I’m this close to winning over my dream girl.

I need to nail this date and make her mine.

THREE

Blake

“Planning a date is a lot harder than I thought it would be,” I tell my best friend, Jade.

“What have you got so far?” she asks, then curses as she drops the phone. “Sorry about that.”

“No worries. What are you doing?”

“I’m at work. I’m hiking through the National Park, trying to find the perfect place for some new pine trees.”

Jade is an arborist. She moved here a few weeks ago and started working at the National Park. She loves plants and nature, so she’s pretty much in heaven here. Throw in that she’s now dating Meyer, her grumpy next-door neighbor, and she’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her.

Jade and I have been best friends forever. We met and instantly connected, and we’ve been inseparable since. When she moved up here to be closer to me, I was thrilled. Then she met Meyer, and we’ve barely seen each other since she got here.

“So?”

I blink. “What?”

“What’s the plan for your date? Are you going classic? Dinner and a movie? Or something more unique?”

“I have no idea,” I sigh. “Maybe it would be easier if I’d ever, you know, been on a date before.” I close the browser tab and open my email to check on work. “Where’s the best place you’ve been on a date?”