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“Can I play you a song?” I ask.

“Right now?” She sounds puzzled.

“Please,” I tell her. “I really need you to hear it.”

She offers me an encouraging smile. “Sure, of course.”

Grabbing my guitar, I bring it back outside to the porch. My confidence grows with the reassuring sound of her following behind me. I could play inside, but we’ve spent so much time together on porches this summer, it feels right to be out here.

I take my guitar from the case and sit down on the bench seat with it. I expect Addison to lean against the porch railing, but instead she sits cross-legged on the porch, gazing up at me like she did in her living room the night I first played for her.

Everything that’s happened between us since then flashes through my mind, and I find myself grinning as I begin to pluck the guitar strings.

I’ll probably call this song “Sweet Like Peaches,” but in my mind, I’m going to call it “Addison’s Song.” I promised I’d play it for her when it was finished, and I finished it in the early hours of this morning out on the inn’s back porch while she was working in the kitchen. While I was praying that her ex’s arrival wouldn’t take her away from me and wondering what I could do to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I might not have found all the answers, but I’ve found a place to start. Right here, with telling her how I feel.

So I sing her the song.

And as I sing about the sweetness of being with her, about the comfort and warmth, I realize the full weight of what I feel for her.

I’m not falling for her.

I’ve completely fallen.

I’ve gone through so many relationships in my twenties—most of them very short-lived—and I’ve let the failures of those relationships define me.I’ve let it become how the world defines me, at least. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying something and then walking away when it doesn’t work for you. That’s better than not ever trying at all.

The problem is that I’ve tried and tried with men who never seemed to be trying as hard as me.

I’ve been desperately searching for love like I search for that perfect chord when I’m writing a song.

In a song, I know right away when I’ve found it. But I’ve learned love isn’t always like that. It might not be instant recognition. If you keep playing the chord over and over, though, eventually you’ll hear it. And you’ll know.This is the one.

It’sher. The way her eyes are watching me as I play for her, the way she’s smiling. She always looks at me like she sees all of me and she likes what she sees. It’s so simple, but it’s everything I’ve been searching for.

I sing the final chorus with more feeling than I’ve ever sang anything, glad I chose to let the song speak for me. But I think I’ll be fine without it now.

Sweet like peaches, like syrup, like blueberry pie

Let me bask in this world

I don’t want to say goodbye

Sweet like strawberries, vanilla, a bottle of cheap wine

Your touch stirred me back to life

Please don’t ever make me say goodbye

My voice breaks somewhere on the last lines, but I keep pouring my heart out to her until the very last note.

Don’t, no, don’t make me say goodbye

Please don’t ever make me say goodbye

And then I’m still. As the absence of the music settles around us, I sit here clutching my guitar, staring at her staring back at me. Until a bird chirps from somewhere in the tree in her front yard, and Addison blinks as if just remembering that’s something her eyes are supposed to do.

She gets to her feet, takes the two steps needed to reach me, and slowly wraps her fingers around the neck of my guitar. I let her take the instrument from me, unworried, because I know she’ll handle it gently. Like she handles me.