Open Your Heart (Kings Grove #4) - Delancey Stewart Page 0,37

to hold the door for her, I missed the warmth of them immediately.

Inside, I found a seat next to Maddie, simultaneously glad and unhappy to see Harper settled at the opposite end of the table between Mike and Chance.

Conversation rippled around me, and I floated on its current, never adding much to it myself. My brain churned in time with my heartbeat, irrational worries pulsing across the movie screen in my head. It wasn’t a good idea to get too close to people, my mind said. At almost the same time, I recognized these thoughts for falsehoods, but as I tried to combat them mentally, emotion joined the battle and threw in a tiny little voice asking me if I was sure. Was I just being silly? Or did the ones I love tend to die? This was the mental loop I lived in, and it was why I so frequently chose solitude. It was hard to connect with people when there was an insane part of you that believed that very connection might end up dooming them.

But God, I was tired of being alone.

“Cam,” Maddie said, her voice catching my attention. “I’ve been meaning to ask you—about the wedding. Harper is getting a movie made, and you’d be the perfect person to help.”

I shook my head, not quite following. “What? A movie? What do you mean?”

Mike spoke up then. “Harper’s idea, actually,” she said. “We’d like to produce a movie about the Inn, but focus on Maddie’s wedding.”

“We’ll make two versions,” Harper said, a bright smile making her glow as she leaned in to talk. “One for Maddie and Connor of course, but another that can work as promo footage for the Inn.”

I understood. And I saw why Maddie had thought to ask me to help. Movies had once been my job—my passion. But I hadn’t made a film in a long time, and what they needed was more practical help than I could probably offer. “I don’t film,” I said. “I’m not a cameraman. I don’t know how helpful I’d be.” As I said it, already my mind was jumping from my irrational worries to this project, eager to have something more productive to fixate on.

Maddie shook her head. “No, we need you to do what you do best—you’re the visionary, right? If you’ll help guide it, create the vision, I know it would be amazing. If you let us do it without you, I might as well just hand my phone to Adele and let her film me walking down the aisle.”

“They’ve made entire Hollywood movies with phone cameras,” I told her. She stuck out her tongue at me.

“Please?” Harper asked, and the lilt in her voice and the shine in her eyes told me I’d be saying yes in a matter of minutes. While every crazy thought in my head was warning me to stay away from her, every cell in my body was driving me to jump on this chance to get closer to her.

“Okay,” I agreed. “Might need to bring someone else in to film, though.”

“I’d be happy to use my phone,” Sam said, always the joker.

“No thanks,” Chance shot across the table.

“You’re a great artist, Sam,” Miranda said, her hand finding the back of his neck. “But I think your talents lie in pen and paper.”

“You saw the movie I made with Finn last week,” Sam countered. “With the stop-motion pinecone people attacking the tent and the tiny pine-needle zombies? Don’t forget about the little bears we made out of mud!”

“Point made,” Chance said. “And you’d be the perfect choice if Maddie and Connor were made out of mud. You know someone, Cam?”

I leaned back in my chair, thinking. I knew a couple guys who might be willing to come spend some time in the mountains. “Yeah, I think so.”

“That’d be awesome. Thanks, man.” Connor smiled.

When dinner wrapped up, I excused myself, telling everyone I was exhausted from a long week. It wasn’t a lie, but the whole truth had more to do with my need to put some distance between me and the warm contentment circling the group inside Connor’s house for fear of wrecking it with my disjointed emotions. My mind was zinging back and forth, pushing me to explore whatever might exist between me and Harper, and pushing me to avoid connection at the same time.

“Take me home?” Harper asked me as I said goodbye, her hand on my arm, its heat branding me, snaking over my skin, through my