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"You could," Liam replied. "One day Jorge and I lived in Richmond, Virginia. We loved it there but there was something missing. We visited ten cities all over the east coast. Big cities, small towns. We went to the beach, then the country, and finally here. We felt at home immediately and moved within the month. It's not hard if it's what you want."

"I didn't say I wanted it."

Sharon muscled her way into the wall. "Young lady, you love that bookstore as much as Willow does. You adore The Green Door's food. And you are here every Friday night with Huk on your arm while he's wearing that sexy cowboy hat."

Maeve shook her head. "We agreed to keep the cowboy hat secret."

Sharon shrugged. "It's true. He makes it look good. And I have a feeling he wears it because a certain lady thinks it looks sexy too."

I blushed to my toes.

"Uh huh. And all these days Huk doesn't have Gus...I hear he takes you on his favorite hikes."

Travis had a big mouth.

"You love Lost Creek," Sharon said with certainty. "I think it's in your bones."

That couldn't be right. I was an island girl. I loved the sand between my toes and salt in my air. I loved being at sea level.

Then Mack of all people joined the wall. "Didn't you say you came here because of a book?"

Sharon's eyes sparkled. She knew. How? Willow must have told her.

"Yes, I loved the Sammy books growing up."

"Lost Creek has been calling to you all your life. I know it. This could be your home. With Huk."

"He doesn't want to live here." I knew they weren't trying to bully us, but this wall of people reminded me far too much of all the times I was accosted by a fan who needed me to hear them out.

My ears started to ring and my hands balled into fists as I tried to fight off the panic attack.

Suddenly Mackenzie was at my side, her arm looped through mine. "I totally forgot Scottie wanted Marley's opinion on a new sauce. We'll be right back." She practically dragged me across the bar and into the kitchen.

Where it was blissfully quiet.

She shoved me onto a stool and a moment later a sparkling water with lime was in my hands. "Take a sip."

"Hey, what's going on?" Scottie poked his head out of a freezer.

Mackenzie waved him off. "Themeddlingmurderous book nerds came for Marley."

"Well shit." He stepped out of the freezer, letting the door close, and grabbed a bar of chocolate off a shelf. "Here, this usually helps me."

I set a square of chocolate on my tongue and let the sugar do its work.

"They don't mean to be, well, themselves," Mack said as she sat beside me with her own glass.

"Even I can admit they have good intentions, even if they go about it in the most bat-shit ways possible," Scottie grumbled. "They think they have the answers to everything. I think reading all those murder books has given them a god complex."

Mackenzie snorted. "You're not wrong. That's why those of us who aren't murder-obsessed have to stick together."

Was this...friendship? With Charley in Florida and my writing friends all over the world, I could use a friend or two right here in Lost Creek for the summer. Well, a friend who wasn't sleeping in my bed every night. "I really appreciate you stepping in."

"Any. Time. I know the signs of TCBIMA overwhelm. I've been there."

Scottie reached across the table and gave her hand a squeeze. "Besides, you're one of us. The lost boys look after their own."

That was the second time I'd heard Jackson's friends referred to that way. "I'm one of you?" My nose began to tingle as emotions, big emotions, welled up inside me.