Chapter 17 You Belong Here
Bailey
Silas’s office building is four blocks from Sweet Persuasions, and he keeps our hands linked as we walk away from the cafe.
In public. On Main Street. Where anyone could see us.
My heart does this weird flutter-panic thing, but I don’t pull away. It’s early enough on a Saturday morning that the streets are mostly empty—just us and a few tourists making their way toward the slopes. Anonymous enough that maybe this is okay.
Or maybe I just don’t want to let go.
There’s a new sign in the town square advertising a farmers market.
“I didn’t realize there was a farmers market,” I say.
“One Saturday a month, May through October.” He squeezes my hand. “You should come sometime. Kit’s friends from Fork Lick have a booth. They have the best strawberry milk.”
You should come sometime. Like I’m going to be around for strawberry season. Like this is something that could be normal—weekend visits, farmers markets, holding hands in public.
“How long has it been since you’ve walked down this street?” He doesn’t give me time to answer, and instead lifts his chin to indicate the shops before us. “Does it look the same?”
Okay, he has me there. Main Street is cuter than it used to be.
Despite the fact that Sirens Valley is closed most of the year, businesses still manage.
The Trans’ restaurant has been here for over twenty years, and got renovated recently.
I don’t remember there being a bike lane down one side of the street before, and the lamps are new, solar-powered and freshly painted.
The wrought-iron posts also hold banners that proclaim “You Belong Here,” each one a different, vibrant color.
“No, it doesn’t.”
And that’s . . . unsettling. I left Here behind like it was a place frozen in time, a snow globe I could shake and put back on the shelf. But it kept going. It got better without me.
It’s not the town I ran away from anymore. And I don’t know how to feel about that.
On this side of the street, we’re passing businesses that’ve been here for ages: Parthenope’s Pies, of course, plus The Sisters Gifts and the liquor store. There’s a real estate office—one of Silas’s competitors.
The listings taunt me with their prices—what I pay for my cramped one-bedroom in the city could buy a whole house here. With a yard. And a garage.
“Speaking of people who enjoy the new downtown.” Silas’s hand drops from mine.
I force myself to look away and see him nodding ahead of us.
Janet Mullins is headed our way. In her seventies, Janet’s a petite white woman with curly hair cut short. She’s retired now, but for thirty years she was the sixth-grade teacher for all of us.
Miss Mullins is wearing a set of open-ear headphones, and when she spots us she taps her watch.
“My goodness, is that Bailey Price?” She reaches her hands out to me and I take them, because that’s what you do for old ladies.
“I heard you were at the bar last night but I was helping Mary with her computer. Let me look at you.” Miss Mullins grips my hands and holds my arms out from my body.
I brace myself. Here it comes. The once-over. The assessment. You’ve put on weight, dear. Have you tried . . . Or worse, the fake concern: Are you taking care of yourself?
I feel like I’m back in school all over again—in her class with Ben Hartly and his stupid taunts, adults either joining in or pretending not to notice.
Miss Mullins looks me up and down.
“You look so happy. You’re practically glowing.”
I blink. That’s . . . not what I expected.
She squeezes my hands, her eyes genuinely warm. “Whatever you’re doing, Bailey, keep doing it.” Then she glances over at Silas ever so briefly and whispers, “It’s working.”
“We ran into each other at Sweet Persuasions,” I blurt out.
“Yeah,” Silas adds. “And I wanted to show her the, uh . . . book club pick for this month.”
We’re standing in front of Chapter & Song, the book-and-music store that’s been around for ages. And right there in the window is a display featuring the monthly book club’s upcoming pick.
It’s titled Come On In: A Look at Gender and Sex Inside—and Outside—of the Bedroom.
My head slowly turns to face Silas, who has squeezed his eyes shut. “I wanted to show her last month’s book.”
Janet’s eyes light up. “Oh yes, I so enjoyed The Dinner Party. Bailey, are you interested in twentieth-century feminist artists?”
“Of course,” I say. I couldn’t name a twentieth-century feminist artist if they whacked me on the head with a paintbrush.
“Well maybe next time you’re in town we can discuss it. Silas, good to see you out for a stroll, not that I don’t mind seeing you out running too. You and the rest of the Buffed & Polished boys sure do give the ladies in town something to look at.”
And with that, Miss Mullins drops my hands, pats Silas’s shoulder, and waves goodbye. A few seconds later I hear her singing Todrick Hall’s “Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels.” Complete with dance moves.
“So.” Silas blows out a breath.
“Book club, huh?” I turn back to the display and read the title out loud. “Looking for a fresh perspective on gender and sex?”
Silas stands beside me, and I can see his reflection in the glass. “Hey, I’m not one to turn down learning something new, especially when it’s relevant to the bedroom.”
Our gazes connect through the window’s reflection, and I can tell we’re both thinking about last night. His hands on my thighs. My nails in his shoulders. The way he—
With his coffee to-go cup in his right hand, the hand closest to me is free, and he gently touches my thigh, slipping his fingers discreetly up to my waistband before tugging my belt loop.
The same way he did last night when he pulled me against him at the dartboard.
Heat floods through me, and I have to bite my lip to keep from making a sound on Main Street in broad daylight.
Then, in the window I see him grin. “Besides, The Dinner Party was really good.”
I laugh, and he drops his hand. We both turn and continue our walk down the street. “Do you attend the book club?”
“Nah, just read the books. They meet on Saturday afternoons and that usually doesn’t work with my schedule. But Whitney does a great job picking out books since her parents handed Chapter & Song over to her.”
We walk silently for a moment, nearing the other end of Main Street already. Up ahead, the trail veers off toward the ski resort. The mountain is stunning in winter, all white slopes and dark evergreens, but it comes at a cost. It’s popular and touristy.
I prefer spring. It’s underrated, with most coming for the fall foliage or the ice and snow, but I’ve always loved the blooms coming up and the ease of the cold.
“Okay, since you seem to know everything that’s happening around town, a walking, talking tour guide of Here, doesn’t it bother you to see the town dry up after the ski season is over? Like, when it’s just the Herevians, doesn’t it feel like something’s missing?”
Silas drains his to-go cup and gazes at the mountain.
“No,” he says, tossing the cup into a nearby trash can.
“Really?” I turn toward him. “If you lived in a bigger town you could work just one job”—I hold up a finger to demonstrate—“like the average person. You could make a living off your photography, or real estate–ing, or whatever it is that you really love to do.” The only thing that keeps me coming back to Here is my family, and with Silas’s mom being out in Maine, he doesn’t have the same ties to Here that I do.
Silas takes a step toward me, close enough that it takes him from a friend showing me the town to something else. “I love living here,” he says. “I want to be with my friends, I want to make changes. Make Here better.”
I look up at Silas, his passion shining through in his words and enthusiasm. I wonder in a city the size of New York how many people there are with his passion. He’d get lost, get dimmed, by the city.
Here, he’s a big fish in a small pond. He knows people, he makes things happen. This is where he was meant to be.
We reach the Victorian building where his office is, and he unlocks the main door. The stairwell is dim and quiet, our footsteps echoing on the old wood floors.
“Quinn’s usually here on Saturday mornings,” Silas says as we climb, “but she’s visiting her sister this weekend. So we’ve got the place to ourselves.”
Something about the way he says it makes my stomach flip.
His office looks the same as it did when I came here to ask about the boudoir shoot—neat desk, framed photos on the wall, the shelves with binders, and that picture of him and Hunter at the summit.
But instead of sitting at his desk, Silas goes to a flat filing cabinet in the corner. The kind artists use for storing prints and drawings.
“I’ve been working on something,” he says, and there’s a nervousness in his voice I’ve never heard before. “For about a year and a half now. No one’s seen it yet. Not Hunter, not Kit. Just me.”
He pulls open one of the wide, flat drawers.
“I wanted you to be the first.”
My breath catches. Not Hunter. Not Kit. Not anyone.
Just me.
This isn’t just showing me some photos. This is trust. Vulnerability. This is him saying you matter more than I’m supposed to let you matter.
And suddenly I’m terrified—not of what I’ll see in that drawer, but of what I’ll feel when I see it. Because if he’s spent his whole life loving this place, documenting it, preserving it . . .
How can I ever compete with that?
“Okay,” I whisper, even though I’m not sure I’m ready. “Show me.”