“February seventh,” I whispered. “That’s when I got my new kidney. It was the best day of my life.”

“The crash happened on January tenth, but I didn’t wake up until the day after you had your transplant.” His thumb swept across my cheek, and I shivered. “It was the worst moment of my life because that’s when my parents told me Declan had died. I’d missed his funeral and was stuck in a hospital bed, unable to believe he was really gone. Not until I was discharged, and they took me to his grave. That’s when it hit me. I’d spent my entire life, even before I was born, with Declan by my side...but he was gone, and I had to figure out how to move on by myself.”

I tilted my head to the side and rubbed my cheek against his palm. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks.” Dillon offered me a sad smile. “It’s kind of crazy to think we were both in the hospital at the same time, even though I was in a coma for most of my time there.”

I did a quick calculation in my head. “I left six days after you woke up.”

“I was at Southeast Memorial. You?”

“Yeah. Me, too.” Same hospital. Same time frame. “It’s such a small world.”

“Full of coincidences that led you here.” His head dipped lower. “To me.”

“When you put it like that, it kinda seems like we were meant to meet.”

He brushed his lips against mine. The gesture was gentle, our mouths barely touching. But it was still a kiss. And our first. I had no doubt it was a memory I’d never forget.

“More proof of that bond pulling us together,” he murmured against my lips.

The way we fit didn’t make any sense. It was too much. It was way too soon. But it felt real. And good. So I rose up on my toes and pressed my mouth against his to claim a second kiss. A longer and deeper one than the first.

It lasted until his mom called out and we jumped apart from each other. “Dillon! You’d better get your dad out of the kitchen, or we’re never going to eat!”

“She’s not kidding,” he chuckled. “I better get in there. You up for throwing the football a little bit with my dad and me?”

It wasn’t at the top of my list of things to do since I was the furthest thing from athletic, but I wasn’t going to say no to the offer. Not when it meant I got to spend time with Dillon, doing something that made him happy. “Sure. Sounds good to me.”

“C’mon.” He dropped another quick kiss on my lips before tugging on my hand to lead me into the kitchen. We stopped on the way to grab a football out of a closet off the hallway leading to the back of the house.

“Oh! You don’t have to head out there with the boys, Faith. You’re welcome to stay in here and help me instead,” Elaine offered.

“You trying to steal my girl, Mom?”

My cheeks filled with heat at Dillon calling me his girl. It only deepened when Elaine and Lloyd’s gazes dropped down to our hands, where our fingers were laced together. A huge grin split Elaine’s face, and Lloyd chuckled as he kissed her cheek.

“Maybe you should’ve let me be your helper, and then we wouldn’t have interrupted the kids.”

“Except then we wouldn’t have any dinner to eat because you would have found a way to ruin it all,” she teased.

“We could’ve had Chinese again.” He jumped out of the way when she picked up a towel from the counter and snapped it at him. “Okay. Okay. We’re going.”

Dillon opened the sliding glass door that led to the other side of the stone patio we’d been on earlier. As we walked outside, I heard Elaine mutter something along the lines of Chinese food being a worthy sacrifice. I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but Dillon and Lloyd seemed to understand because they both burst into fits of laughter that lasted until we’d made it all the way down to the grass. Lloyd headed to the left, and Dillon and I went to the right.

“What’d I miss?” I asked Dillon when we were about fifty feet away from his dad.

“Thanksgiving dinner is my mom’s and my absolute favorite meal. We love all of it. The turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing, cranberries, rolls, and pumpkin pie.” He flashed me an approving grin. “We both also love anything pumpkin flavored, so the cookies you made were the perfect thing to bring.”

“You haven’t even tried them yet,” I reminded him. “They could be awful.”

“They’re pumpkin flavored, and you made them for me.” He paused to throw the ball to his dad in a perfect spiral. “So I’m going to love them.”

“I actually made them for your mom since she’s the one who invited me.” His dad threw the ball our way, and Dillon caught it and tossed it back before reacting to my joke. Then he wrapped his arms around my torso and lifted me off my feet, twirling me around until I got dizzy. “Dillon!”

“What?” he asked after setting me back on the grass.

I clutched onto his arms to steady myself. “I was just teasing.”

“Pumpkin cookies are nothing to joke about. Not with me or my mom.”

“You guys sure are serious about your Thanksgiving meal,” I muttered as he caught the ball and threw it back to his dad again.

“That’s putting it mildly,” he laughed. “My mom’s love for turkey dinner is a sure sign of how happy my mom is about us being a couple. If I hadn’t already realized you had her stamp of approval before you got here, that would’ve clinched it.”

A couple? Stamp of approval? So much about his statement blew my mind, making me dizzier than the twirling had just moments ago. “What do you mean?”

“That comment, about Chinese food being worth the sacrifice?”

“Yeah?”

I wanted to stomp my foot when he paused again to catch the ball. “You want to throw it this time?”

“No, what I want is for you to explain about the Chinese food thing.”

He seemed to find my frustration amusing because he laughed while tossing the ball back to his dad.

“Dillon,” I growled.

“You’re cute when you’re irritated. Did you know that? I noticed it the first time we met.” I glared at him, making him laugh again before he finally answered, “My mom would’ve been willing to eat Chinese today, sacrificing her favorite meal, if it brought the two of us together.”

“Shut up! Really?” My gaze slid to the house, where I could see through the windows to where she was working in the kitchen. I respected Elaine a hell of a lot. It wasn’t just because of what she’d done for the foster kids at my school, either—although that would have been enough of a reason. But she was a genuinely nice person who cared about others and didn’t have a problem showing it. I hadn’t known a lot of people like Elaine in my life, and it made me appreciate those qualities in her more.

“Yeah, really. It’s why she tried so hard to make sure we met.” Dillon caught the ball again and nodded when his dad said he was going inside to check to see how much longer it’d be before Elaine needed help setting the table. “See, even Dad is in on it now that he knows what my mom was trying to do.”

It was hard for me to believe that Elaine was trying to pair me off with her son. At least she’d gotten to know me, so it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility. But Dillon’s dad? We’d just met today. I couldn’t imagine how much Elaine had to have raved about me for him to be okay with his son dating a foster kid with nothing to her name. “Maybe he’s just really excited about dinner.”

“No, I don’t think so.” He tossed the ball at the bottom of the steps leading up the stone patio and gripped both of my hands once his were free. “My dad’s a sharp guy. He probably clocked our body language the whole time we were out here and decided we could do with a little bit of alone time before dinner is ready.”

“What? No!” My eyes went wide, and my cheeks filled with heat. “Do you really think so?”

“Is it so hard to believe?”

“But he’s your dad.” My voice dropped a notch, like they could hear me from inside the house.

“Yeah, but it’s not like we’re teenagers who need a chaperone twenty-four seven.” He yanked me closer. “Or that we could get into too much trouble out here anyway.”

“This is so weird.”

“Which part?”

“All of it!” I felt his chest shake with laughter and nudged him in the shin with my shoe.

“Ouch!” He gave me an exaggerated wince.

“Oh, please,” I snorted. “I barely touched you.”

“I already told you how much I like it when you’re irritated.” His eyes were filled with humor, but they also held a thread of heat. “If you keep it up, I’ll be tempted to put the time my dad gave us to good use.”

And if they hadn’t been inside with a clear view of us, I might’ve been coaxed into finding out exactly how we would’ve passed that time. It was crazy! The pull between us was strong enough to get me to act completely out of character. It was turning me boy crazy for the first time in my life—but only when it came to one, specific guy. Dillon Montgomery...who was grinning down at me and making those butterflies take flight yet again.

“You’re impossible.”

The heat in his eyes ratcheted up a notch. “Impossibly attracted to you.”

“You’re quick with the perfect lines, slick.” Really damn smooth while I still felt awkward and nervous around him. It was understandable since I didn’t have much dating experience. Seeing my mom with so many strange men when I was young had given me a skewed perspective on romantic relationships. Coupled with my not-so-great experiences in foster care, my illness, and the scars from my transplant, and I’d gotten in the habit of avoiding potential relationships for the most part. But Dillon had snuck in there; tricking me into our first date. Blindsiding me by calling us a couple. Making me feel things I didn’t expect. “Should I be worried?”

“If what I’m saying is coming off as perfect, that’s just blind luck.” He shook his head and let go of one of my hands to run his through his hair. “I’m flying blind here, Faith.”

“It doesn’t seem like it from where I’m standing.” I took a couple of steps backwards, and his hold on my hand tightened.

“I dated some in high school, but nothing too serious. Then Declan died, and everything changed. I changed,” he stressed, the words practically ripped from his chest. “I was messed up in the head for a long time, struggling with guilt because the one thing I was better at than him was driving. I couldn’t get it out of my head that if I’d been behind the wheel instead of him, maybe the accident wouldn’t have happened. But I’d had a few drinks and a hit from a bong at the party we’d gone to, so Declan took my keys.”

His confession ripped my heart to shreds, and I closed the distance I’d put between us. “You know it wasn’t your fault, though. Right?”

“Most days, yeah. And on the others, I turn to gambling. It’s been my outlet for the past few years because I couldn’t stand the thought of drinking or smoking pot after Declan died. Or dating.”

He was hot. Rich. A good guy. Even though he was a little messed up, understandably so with what happened to his twin, Dillon Montgomery was one hell of a catch. Most of the girls on campus had to have been chasing after him on the regular. “No dating?”

“Nothing serious. A few hookups the summer before my freshman year before I realized they just made me feel worse. I just ended up at an underground poker game afterwards. It fucked with my head, and I lost each time. I finally figured out that casual shit wasn’t for me, but a serious relationship wasn’t either.” He shrugged. “It would’ve meant opening up to a girl about Declan, and I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of doing that.”

“But you told me?” It put our conversation in front of the fireplace into a whole new perspective.

“Sharing with you felt right.”

He sounded more okay with that than I was. “Because you think of us as a couple?”

“Yup.”

“Even though we’ve only been on one date?”

“What can I say? When you know, you know.” He grinned and winked at me. “I never understood what my dad meant when he told me that, but now I get it.”

I’d seen how his dad was with Elaine and caught the implication. As shocking as it was. Thrilling. And scary, too. Some of what I was feeling must have shown on my face because he hurriedly urged, “Don’t be afraid to let me in. Share as much or as little as you’d like. I know we haven’t known each other long, but I’d destroy anyone who tried to hurt you.”

His eyes gleamed with sincerity. Knowing he’d made himself vulnerable with me left me in the unusual position of being open to the idea of doing the same. “I’ll try.”

“I appreciate it.” He lowered his head and pressed his lips against mine in a kiss that was gentle and...meaningful. When his dad opened the sliding door to call out for us to come inside, it ended too soon. “You just gave me the best reason to be thankful on my favorite holiday.”

I had a big smile on my face when I walked with him into the house. Then I enjoyed the best Thanksgiving meal I’d ever had, surrounded by amazing people and filled with gratitude because maybe—just maybe—I’d finally found my path to happiness.