Chapter 5 #2
He catches every single one. Not obnoxiously, not even with a smirk.
But every time I look, he’s already there or almost there. Something about being caught feels better than being unseen.
Grant stopped really seeing me long before he cheated. I know that now. Maybe he saw the bakery owner when she was useful. The fiancée when she looked good beside him. The sweet, creative woman when she made him seem interesting.
But he did not see all of me.
The too loud, too restless, too emotional, too ridiculous, too excited by fictional maps and weird lattes with sprinkles me.
He looks like he sees too much and is not particularly scared by it.
It may be a projection, but I choose not to care.
“So,” I say, turning back toward him. “What do you do when you’re not ordering coffee in bars and interrogating emotionally unstable women?”
“I bake,” he says simply.
I blink, and then laugh.
He says nothing.
I wait.
“You bake?”
“Yes.”
“As in, professionally?”
“Yes.”
I look him over before I can stop myself.
The chest, the arms, the hands.
God, the hands.
“That makes a terrible amount of sense.”
His brow lifts. “Does it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you look like you could knead dough into submission.”
Oliver chokes on absolutely nothing as the man’s gaze drops to my mouth.
Everything shifts.
I should not have said that.
He sets his mug down carefully. “Dough doesn’t require submission.”
“No?”
“It requires patience.”
My stomach dips.
Oliver says, “I am begging both of you to speak about bread normally.”
I ignore him. “So you’re a patient baker?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
His eyes stay on mine. “Precise.”
“Of course.”
“Consistent.”
“Tragic.”
“Disciplined.”
“Devastating.”
This time, his smile lingers.
“You don’t like disciplined?” he asks.
My brain fully abandons me.
Oliver slams the towel down on the bar. “No.”
I turn my head slowly. “Oliver.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I’m having a conversation.”
“You’re having it wrong.”
The man has gone still, but his eyes are curious.
I lean back in my stool. “I like discipline in baking,” I say.
The man watches me for a beat, and then nods. “Good clarification.”
“I thought so.”
Oliver looks between us. “I need to close early.”
“Why?” I ask.
“So I can burn it down.”
“You just said we can’t discuss felonies over the phone.”
“This is in person.”
The men at the dartboard leave twenty minutes later, their argument done. Oliver locks the door behind them and flips the sign to closed, then turns back to the bar with the expression of a man preparing to survive a natural disaster.
I should leave.
I need to leave.
My apartment above the bar is forty steps away through the alley and up the narrow stairs. There is a mattress waiting for me, a screaming shower, and a disgusting squirrel dismantling something important on the fire escape.
I have work in the morning. Early in the morning.
Muffins to make, and a life to keep rebuilding.
But instead, I stay on the stool while the man finishes a second black coffee that Oliver made with visible resentment.
“You know,” I say. “Coffee this late is suspicious.”
He looks at the mug. “I sleep when I decide to.”
“That sounds unhealthy.”
“It’s efficient.”
I slide off the stool because I need to stand before my body convinces me to do something reckless from a seated position. The room shifts a little, but not from alcohol. From adrenaline. And wanting.
From the very annoying realization that I feel alive in a way I have not felt in a long time.
The man stands too.
He does not step closer.
Oliver moves behind the bar. “H—” I cut him off with a glare, and he rolls his eyes. “Elizabeth,” he says as if it physically pains him.
He looks serious, and it tugs at the part of me that knows better.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m not drunk.”
“I didn’t say you’re drunk.”
The man watches us silently. Oliver’s eyes flick to him, and then back at me. “You don’t have to prove anything tonight.”
My throat tightens.
“I’m not proving anything.”
He doesn’t look convinced, and I’m not quite sure I am, either.
But there’s a difference between trying to prove I am wanted and wanting to choose something for myself.
At least, I hope there is.
I step close to the bar and lower my voice. “I know what I’m doing.”
His brows lift.
“Mostly,” I add. “I know what I’m asking for.”
That makes him quiet. His eyes search my face for anything he can find. He may see the panic and the heartbreak and the desire for freedom. But he also sees me.
I may be wounded. The abandoned bride. But I’m also me. Messy and shaky and still somehow making jokes because if I stop, I may just fall apart.
Finally, he exhales.
“I can call Marley,” he whispers.
“No.”
“I can walk you upstairs.”
“I know.”
“You can still change your mind.”
I soften. “I know.”
Oliver looks at the man, and whatever passes between them is silent, male, and deeply irritating.
He does not flinch.
“If she changes her mind, you leave,” Oliver says.
“Obviously.” The man nods.
“You don’t make this worse.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t get clever with me.”
“I’m not clever.”
I laugh softly.
The man looks at me. “Do you want to leave?”
It’s a direct question. No pressure or assumption. No performance. Just a door opening in front of me.
I think about Grant’s office and his hand on Elise’s hip. His voice turning my pain into drama. I think about my ring at the bottom of his coffee and my car gasping onto the shoulder near a Wawa. I think of the night alone above this very bar and of drawing roads that lead away and back.
I think of Suzy Homemaker and her perfect fake pantry.
Then I look at the man in front of me.
His severe face and steady hands. His controlled mouth and the way he asked before flirting.
“Yes,” I say finally.
Oliver closes his eyes and curses under his breath.
The man’s gaze doesn’t move from mine.
“With me?” he asks.
A shiver makes its way down my spine.
“Yeah, with you,” I confirm.
A pained sound comes from behind me as Oliver grabs a clean glass. I watch Oliver as he fills it with water and pushes it toward me. “Finish this first.”
“Seriously?” I stare at him.
“Yes.”
The man says, “He’s right.”
I turn to him. “Do not team up with him before we even leave.”
“You should drink the water.”
“Oh my god.”
Oliver’s mouth twitches despite himself.
And I drink. All of it. Rather aggressively, honestly.
And then I set the empty glass down and look between them. “There. Hydrated. Aware. Furious. Still interested.”
The man’s eyes darken.
Oliver points to him. “Do not look like that in my bar.”
He looks away, but not fast enough. My pulse kicks.
I grab my bag from the stool and pull the strap over my shoulder. My cardigan slips, and I adjust it because my hands need something to do besides touch the man in front of me. That seems like a choice best saved for when we’re in private.
Oliver walks me to the side door that leads into the alley, the man right behind us. “Are you parked out back?” he asks.
I chuckle. “Oh. Funny story. I live upstairs.”
He looks a little unsure. “Temporary place after breaking up with my ex,” I explain.
The alley smells like rain, old brick, and sugar. The city hums around us. Baltimore at night, loud and tired and familiar.
Oliver stops below the exit sign and looks at me one last time. “Text me when you’re upstairs.”
“I live right here.”
“I’m aware of geography.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Text me.”
I sigh. “Fine.”
His gaze softens in a way almost no one else would ever notice, and he looks over my shoulder at the man I’m about to sleep with. “I know where she lives,” he says.
The man’s voice is steady. “So do I.”
Oliver’s face goes flat, and I bite back a laugh.
“Because she lives above the bar,” he adds.
“Don’t get cute,” Oliver mutters.
“I’m not.”
“He’s really not,” I say. “That was tragically literal.”
Oliver opens the side door wider. Then, more quietly, he says to me, “You are not too much because he was too little.”
I freeze, the words sliding right under my ribs and staying there.
For a second, I can’t speak.
Oliver looks uncomfortable immediately, like sincerity escaped and he wants to shove it back in a drawer.
So I do not make it worse by crying.
I nod. “Thank you.”
He closes the door.
For a moment, we stand in the damp heat and the yellow of the security light without touching. The back of Bitter Bloom is a few feet away. The keys are in my bag; my heart is in my throat.
“You can still go upstairs alone,” he says.
“I know.”
“You can ask me to leave at any point.”
“I know.”
“I’m not him.”
The words are blunt, and my breath catches.
“No,” I say. “You’re not.”
His gaze holds mine for one steady second.
Then he nods.
I turn toward the back door and insert the key with shaking hands. Not from fear, but from nerves. From wanting.
From the reckless, terrifying, wonderful truth that I am about to do something entirely for myself.
Behind me, the man says nothing.
He only waits. Patient and controlled.
I unlock the door and look back at him. “Coming?”
His eyes drop to my mouth, then lift. “Yes.”
I step inside, and this time, when I make a bad decision, it feels like mine.