Page 19

I quickly head toward the lettuce section, putting some much-needed distance between us. These moments when Tate shifts from logical to whatever this is, throw me completely off balance. It’s easier to handle Sheriff when he’s serious than this version who makes my pulse skip.

“Sunny, you walk fast when you’re on a mission. Is this how it’s going to be all week?”

There’s a hint of amusement in his voice, like he knows exactly why I’m moving myself away from him.

“I’m like a bullet, Tate, fast and efficient. Keep up, or be left behind,” I say, pushing the cart toward the tomatoes next, trying to regain my composure. Focusing on groceries is infinitely safer than dwelling on those dimples or how his voice does that thing when he’s being playful.

“So maybe you could fill me in on what exactly this Family Olympics involves?” he says, changing the subject. “Because apparently the rest of the town knows more about it than me.”

He picks out two beefsteak tomatoes that look absolutely perfect.

I should really bring him shopping every time.

He knows vegetables. He knows what melon is ripe by smell.

He probably knows the square root of pi, too.

What I used to call nerdy, I now call suspiciously useful fake boyfriend material.

“You didn’t get the schedule?” I frown.

“Did you forget my grand entrance with a puppy during dinner?” He quips, bagging the tomatoes with a perfect flourish of a knot.

“Oh, right,” I murmur, taking the bag from him.

“Each day, we have a different competition, sometimes even more than one.” I grab some locally grown peaches that Tate takes from my hands to look over.

“First, second, and third place get the most points, but you also get points just for finishing. By the end of the week, the pair with the most points wins.”

“And tomorrow’s activity is the water balloon toss?” he asks.

“Are you any good at catching things?”

“Well, I’ve caught a few pucks in my lifetime,” he says, then his dimples flash just long enough for my heart to do that swooping thing.

“We also have canoe races, hide-and-seek, and the big finale…” I pause for dramatic effect. “Paintball.”

“You guys are serious if you’re shooting family members for fun.”

I turn the cart toward the meat freezers. “But you’re by far the best partner I’ve ever had, so I think we’ve got a good shot at winning. ”

“So, let me get this straight,” Tate says, stopping next to me. “You want me to do everything I can to keep Bart from winning?”

“Exactly,” I say sweetly.

Tate laughs. “Isn’t this supposed to be fun?”

I innocently blink up at him. “Destroying Bart’s ego is fun, Tate. It’s very therapeutic, but with the added bonus of getting to see his face when he loses.”

He tilts his head, a tease on his lips. “What would your mom say if she could hear you now?”

“If Mom were here,” I say, “she’d probably tell me to crush him.”

“And now I see where you get your drive.”

I pick up the value-size bag of hamburger patties and drop them in the cart. “I’m not worried about the games as much as you not knowing how to answer all the questions you’re about to be bombarded with.”

“What kind of questions?” Tate asks, comparing prices on the hamburgers and swapping out the bag in my cart with a different one.

“About us. Your background. Any deep dark secrets I should know before my family googles your name?”

He throws me a side eye. “Sunny, my nickname is Sheriff .”

“What about your childhood?”

“My sister and I mostly played with Lego sets, read, and did math workbooks,” he says, dropping the sausage links I forgot into the cart.

“Well, that’s pretty uninteresting.”

“My parents were busy most of the time,” he says. We turn into the cereal aisle, and I immediately head for all the colorful boxes loaded with enough sugar to power a small carnival.

“You did math workbooks for fun?” I ask. “Tate, that’s literally the definition of boring.”

I drop four boxes of cereal into the cart, including a kind that looks like tiny cookies.

He picks up the cookie cereal and studies the box like he’s the diabetes police. “Excuse me for enjoying knowledge,” he says. “And I don’t think the kids need cookies for breakfast.” He replaces the box with a bag of granola.

“You’re no fun. What about breaking the rules together?” I poke him in the side and notice how solid his abs are. Absolutely no muffin top on this man. Seriously, does the guy do sit-ups in his sleep? Heaven help me if the man ever loses his shirt around me.

“I don’t break the rules—unless necessary.” He gives me a look before he keeps walking, steering me past the candy aisle.

I look over at him. “The only dangerous thing you probably ever did was play hockey.”

“My parents forced me—against my will—at the beginning,” he says, picking up some protein bars.

“Oh, I have to hear this.”

“Well, I was obsessed with watching hockey as a kid,” he says. “Specifically old Wayne Gretzky replays. I memorized his stats, watched his best moments in slo-mo, and became fascinated with the physics of his shots.”

I burst out laughing. “You play hockey because of physics?”

“Are you surprised?”

I shake my head. “That is the most on-brand thing I’ve ever heard.”

“My parents told me that if I really wanted to understand the game, I’d need to learn how to play.” He adds a box of cookies to the cart—the sandwich kind that are my favorite. I didn’t even tell him I liked those. “Had no idea what I was getting into.”

I snort, then reach for four gallons of punch that are definitely too heavy for one trip. “Let me guess. First practice traumatized you?”

“Oh, absolutely.” He pauses, taking the punch out of my hands and loading it into the cart, like he’s been paying attention. “I told my parents I was never going back.”

“But they forced you to go?” I ask.

“I was too much of a rule-follower to quit. ”

“Smart parents.”

“After a year, I loved it. I quickly became better than the other kids because I worked my butt off to out-skate them so they couldn’t smack me with their sticks.

When you’re not naturally good at something, you’re forced to learn it faster.

” He shrugs like it’s simple, but I’ve just discovered the key to Tate Foster: he doesn’t just stumble into something—he studies it, dismantles it, masters it step by logical step.

I turn and look at him, surprised to find out that he wasn’t a natural. On the ice it seems effortless for him. “And then you became an excellent player?”

“To me, it was all about science. Understanding force and thrust.”

I snort. “You probably shouldn’t say those words on a first date, Tate.”

It appears that he’s genuinely confused. “We’re on a first date?”

“Okay, technically our third, since the coffeehouse was our first and then the motorcycle ride according to @crushers_unofficial. But still— force and thrust ?”

Tate shakes his head with a laugh. “And I told Rourke and Leo I wouldn’t mention any science terms with you.”

I stop in the middle of the diaper aisle. “What else did you promise them?”

He hesitates. “No Lord of the Rings quotes either.”

I laugh. “Is that how you woo women? Do you ever cosplay as an elf on your dates?”

“The only costume I have is Gandalf. Oh, wait. I wasn’t supposed to tell you that either.”

“I can get into old wizard dudes,” I tease, picking up a package of pull-ups since Camden still needs them occasionally.

“But everyone knows that Aragorn is the real heartthrob.” I toss the pull-ups at Tate, and he doesn’t even flinch at catching them.

If I’d thrown diapers at Bart when we were dating, he would have let them hit him in the face .

“You know Lord of the Rings ?” he asks, pushing the cart ahead for me. He looks intrigued.

“To be honest, I haven’t read fantasy in ages. But I’ve read Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. What about you?”

“It’s all I read as a kid,” he says, staring at the rows of diapers like he’s thinking of magical kingdoms rather than looking at smiling babies in diapers. “Tolkien, Lewis, Robert Jordan, Le Guin, Sanderson.”

“So you’re like…one of those fantasy nerds?” I ask, feeling like Tate is a secret book where I find out something new on every page.

“That depends. Do you like fantasy nerds?” he asks with a smirk.

I laugh and look away, partially because I don’t want him to see how he affects me.

“What?” he asks, completely unaware.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” I say, shaking my head. “I didn’t believe it was possible.”

He blinks. “Hey, even fantasy nerds can occasionally have charm. It’s rare, but it does happen.”

“Remember that for the family reunion because you’re gonna need to pull out your charm when Granny’s around.”

He groans. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m not,” I say, stopping in the middle of the canned-fruit aisle. “My grandmother loves a man who says all the right things.”

Tate narrows his eyes. “Define ‘all the right things.’ Because clearly, my idea of charm isn’t exactly standard.”

“Just be yourself,” I say. “You don’t try to be charming, you just are.”

He holds my gaze for a little too long, leaving my heart to do a funny tumble. I turn back to the applesauce jars just to make it stop.

He reaches for an extra-large one on the top shelf, and I notice the bracelet on his wrist, the one he always wears with the four beads. It looks like something a kid made .

“Who gave you that?” I ask, nodding toward the bracelet.

“A child in the hospital,” he says.

“I’ve never seen you take it off.”

“I don’t.” He pushes the cart forward, looking away from me like the canned fruit is more interesting.

“Why not?” I ask, suddenly curious.

“She had cancer, like my little sister,” he says. “I wear it to remember my sibling.”

I’m so thrown by his quiet confession that I don’t have words. Or maybe I do—but suddenly they feel fragile and inadequate, like something delicate I’m afraid to fracture if I say the wrong thing.

He forces the cart ahead, the squeaky wheel piercing the awkward silence. “Tate, I didn’t know that. I’m so sorry.”

I know it’s not enough, but I can’t just say nothing, the way people try to avoid the subject of grief around me.

He shrugs. “You don’t need to apologize. I didn’t tell you before.”

“When did she…”

“I was ten,” he interrupts. “That’s why I started reading fantasy books. My parents were busy, and I needed to escape.”

It all makes sense now. Why he’s always so safe. Why he keeps his guard up. Why he does everything in a logical order, because grief makes your whole life feel out of control.

“I think it’s really sweet that you still wear it,” I say.

He stops, his hand resting on the cart’s handle, and I reach over, turning the four beads so I can read them. “It says HOPE.”

He spins the bracelet so I can see it better. “The girl in the hospital made it because that was my sister’s name.”

I stare at the bracelet for a long moment, my heart suddenly feeling the same sort of ache when I think of Mom. “I feel like I just barged into your personal life without asking.”

“Honestly? It’s comforting to hear her name and talk about her.

Sometimes it feels like everyone has forgotten her.

” Then he looks at me, the undercurrent in his gaze like a deep river.

There’s so much more to him than I realized.

“And we are supposed to be dating, so you should know this, even if it’s awkward. It’s one reason I am like I am.”

“You mean serious?”

“Yeah, but people take that for being grumpy,” he says. “I’m not.”

“I already knew that,” I say quietly. “The only thing you’re grumpy about is doing PR for me.” It feels important to let him know I see him—the real him, not just the Sheriff that everyone else sees.

“Okay, that I can agree with.” He laughs. “But I’m not grumpy. I’m logical. And being around you makes that harder.”

For a moment, we just stand there, grinning at each other and this moment between us.

A message dings on my phone from my sister, pulling me away.

Olivia

Could you pick up some pads for Abby and powdered doughnuts?

Tate looks over my shoulder before I have a chance to shut off my screen. “Did we forget something important?”

“Just doughnuts and…feminine products.”

Tate doesn’t even blink. “That’s a combination I never thought I’d be shopping for.”

He turns the cart and heads straight for the feminine products aisle with zero shame.

“I can get these, if you want to shop for doughnuts,” I say, giving him an out from the aisle most men avoid at all costs.

“And miss an opportunity to flirt with you while we shop for pads? No way,” he says, looking straight at me with a confidence that’s suddenly more attractive than it has any right to be. When did Sheriff Serious become Mr. Funny and Cute?

“It takes a bold man to admit that,” I say as we stop in front of the feminine products section .

“If I can flirt with you here, I can flirt with you anywhere.” He grabs a package off the shelf. “Besides, some guys bring flowers, I bring maximum absorbency for your family reunion.”

Just then, Tina walks by, sees Tate holding a box of pads, and mutters, “Brave man,” before she keeps walking.

I burst out laughing so hard, I nearly double over.

It feels good to laugh without restraint, to forget about all the problems back at the lodge.

Maybe it’s because we’ve both learned to wear our “I’m fine” masks so well that we recognize the cracks in each other’s.

Or maybe it’s because I like a man who can confidently shop for feminine products while cracking jokes.

Either way, being here with Tate, I feel seen in a way I haven’t since Mom died.

“What can I say? I have good timing.” Tate tosses the package in the cart. “And I have a feeling it’s going to be all over Sully’s Beach by tomorrow.”