Pine Grove's annual Founder's Day Festival hadn't changed in twenty years. The same rides squeaked and whirred in the town square. The same church ladies sold the same pies from the same folding tables. The same high school band murdered the same patriotic songs with the same earnest enthusiasm.

But Casey Mitchell felt like everything else had changed.

"Ready?" Drew asked beside her, close enough that she could smell his familiar cologne but far enough away to maintain plausible deniability. That careful distance they'd been dancing around since deciding to work on the house together.

"No," she admitted. "But when has that ever stopped us?"

Their first public appearance together since the pregnancy news broke. Since the hospital scare. Since... everything.

The festival spread out before them like a timeline of their relationship. The Ferris wheel where they'd had their first kiss sophomore year. The cotton candy stand where he'd proposed after graduation. The gazebo where they'd snuck away during their wedding reception for a moment alone.

Now everyone would be watching, wondering, whispering. Pine Grove's favorite almost-ex-couple, expecting a baby and renovating their dream house. It was like catnip for small-town gossips.

"We could still leave," Drew offered. "Get ice cream at Dairy Queen instead."

"And give Margaret Weber something else to gossip about at bridge club?" Casey squared her shoulders. "Not a chance."

They made it three steps into the festival before the first well-wisher descended.

"Casey! Drew!" Mrs. Peterson from the historical society bustled over. "How wonderful to see you both! And Casey, dear, you're absolutely glowing."

"Thank you, Mrs. Peterson."

"And I hear you're finishing the house? Such good news. We were all so worried when... well." She patted Casey's arm. "Everything happens for a reason, doesn't it?"

Five more steps brought Principal Roberts, their old chemistry teacher. "Thompson! Mitchell! Or is it... well, never mind. How's the baby? The house? The..." He waggled his eyebrows meaningfully. "Everything?"

By the time they reached the food tables, Casey's cheeks hurt from forced smiling.

"I need funnel cake," she declared. "Immediately."

"With extra powdered sugar?" Drew was already heading for the stand.

"You remember my funnel cake order?"

"Case, I remember your ice cream order from third grade." He grinned. "Chocolate chip mint, extra sprinkles, but only the blue ones."

Something warm unfurled in her chest. The same feeling she'd gotten last week when he'd remembered exactly where she kept her favorite paint samples, or yesterday when he'd known without asking that she'd want the nursery windows facing east for the morning light.

Drew returned with funnel cake—extra powdered sugar—and they found a quiet spot near the gazebo to eat. Well, as quiet as anything could be with the high school band murdering "Stars and Stripes Forever" fifty feet away.

"They've gotten worse," Drew observed.

"I didn't think that was possible."

"Remember when you played first chair clarinet?"

"Remember when you played third chair trumpet and spent the whole concert staring at me instead of watching the conductor?"

"I maintain that was his fault for putting you directly in my sight line."

They laughed together, and for a moment it was easy. Natural. Then Casey caught Margaret Weber watching them from the pie booth, and reality crashed back in.

"I hate this," she said quietly.

"The funnel cake?"

"The watching. The wondering. Everyone trying to figure out what we are to each other when we don't even know ourselves."

Drew was quiet for a moment, brushing powdered sugar from his jeans. "What do you want us to be?"

"I..." The baby kicked, as if joining the conversation. "I don't know. Everything's different now. We're different."

"Are we?"

She thought about the past few weeks. Working on the house together, making real decisions instead of assumptions. Talking about hard things instead of running from them.

"Maybe not different," she said slowly. "Maybe just... more?"

"More what?"

"More aware. Of what we did wrong before. Of what we could do right this time." She gestured at the festival around them. "All these memories... they're not just about young love anymore. They're about everything that came after. The hard stuff. The growing up stuff."

"The growing apart stuff?"

"And maybe..." She met his eyes. "The growing back together stuff?"

The band chose that moment to launch into an enthusiastic if off-key rendition of "Can't Help Falling in Love," and they both laughed at the timing.

"Dance with me?" Drew stood, offering his hand.

"Here? Now? Everyone will talk."

"Let them." His smile was soft. "They're going to anyway."

So Casey took his hand, letting him pull her close as the teenage trumpet section massacred Elvis. They swayed together near the gazebo where they'd shared their first dance as husband and wife, but this felt different. Heavier with history, lighter with possibility.

"I missed this," Drew murmured.

"The terrible band?"

"You. Just... you."

She looked up at him, powdered sugar still clinging to his collar, and suddenly she was seventeen again, falling in love for the first time. But also twenty-seven, falling in love differently. Deeper. With eyes wide open instead of stars in them.

Drew's hand came up to brush sugar from her cheek, and the touch lingered. Their faces drew closer, breaths mingling in the summer evening air.

Then the baby kicked, hard enough for Drew to feel it where they were pressed together, and they both startled back.

"Sorry," Casey said automatically. "I didn't mean to—"

"Don't." His voice was gentle. "Don't apologize for whatever this is. Or isn't. Or might be."

"What is it? This... thing between us?"

"I don't know." He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "But I'm not running from it anymore. If you're not?"

The band's song ended with a flourish of questionably-tuned brass. In the moment of silence that followed, Casey could hear her heart beating, feel the baby moving, sense all of Pine Grove holding its collective breath.

"I'm not running," she said finally. "But I'm not rushing either."

"Okay." His smile was understanding. "We can walk?"

"Yeah." She took his hand again, threading their fingers together. "We can walk."

They rejoined the festival, ignoring the whispers and meaningful looks. Drew won her a ridiculous stuffed giraffe at the ring toss. Casey demolished him at the water gun race. They shared another funnel cake and didn't mention the almost-kiss.

But later, as the fireworks painted the sky in gold and silver, Drew's hand found hers in the darkness. And this time, when Margaret Weber walked by with her knowing smile, Casey didn't pull away.

Some things were worth the gossip.

Some things were worth the risk.

Some things—like the way Drew's thumb traced circles on her palm, like the familiar smell of his cologne mixed with funnel cake sugar, like the feeling of coming home even in the middle of a crowded festival—were worth walking towards, slowly but surely, one step at a time.

The fireworks reflected in Drew's eyes as he looked at her, and Casey thought maybe, just maybe, they were building something better than young love this time.