Chapter 32 Wells
WELLS
By the time the sun sinks behind the ridge, I’ve made a fool of myself in the kitchen.
I’ve cooked the one thing Elspeth drilled into me until I could do it blindfolded: roast chicken with Mirabelle wine and thyme. Potatoes slicked with oil. Green beans bright with lemon. Bread warmed on a low rack, Mirabelle jam on the side.
I polish the glasses, light the beeswax candles, set witch hazel in a vase. Fleetwood Mac spins on the record player. It’s Elsie’s favorite.
When the sky fades to blue-black, everything is ready. The latch clicks, and Elsie steps in, pink from the wind, curls spilling out from under her hat. Her gaze lands on the table, the candles, the music.
For a few heartbeats, she stands there unwrapping her scarf, gloves sliding from her fingers one by one. I can see the exhaustion in the slump of her shoulders.
When she glances up, our eyes meet across the warm light of the kitchen.
She gestures limply. “What is all this?”
“Dinner,” I say. “And an apology. The big kind.”
For a long moment, we only look at each other. It hurts like hell.
“Els,” I say, voice raw. “I’m really fuckin’ sorry. For not trusting you. For saying the ugliest thing I could think of. I was scared, and I made it all your fault.”
“You told me running is what I do best,” she says quietly.
“I know. It was cruel, and it wasn’t true.” My hands shake; I show her my palms in surrender. “And about the other thing I said—that was wrong, too. We can make this work. If you still want me, that is.”
She studies me. “You think dinner fixes it?”
“No. Dinner feeds you so you don’t have to hold this on an empty stomach. Dinner is me hoping you’ll stay in the room, even if we argue. Dinner is me promising to always come back.”
Her mouth trembles. “You accused me of wanting Beau.”
I flinch. “I accused you of hurting me to avoid your own fear. Of reaching for something that stands against everything I believe in, so completely that it felt like a rejection of me at the core. That’s not the same. And it’s worse.”
“Why didn’t you just talk it through with me?”
“Because I didn’t trust myself to be decent. Beau baited me, and I built a whole lie around it. Clarity would’ve cost me nothing. I should’ve kept my faith in you.”
Her anger flickers, then falters. “I went to Winnie’s today. Isla was there. I cried in their bed for an hour while Goldie told me not to be sad anymore.”
Something in me breaks. “I’m glad you weren’t alone.”
“I told you I’m not selling,” she says, sniffling. “I’m not putting the inn in a trust, either. I’m staying here in Blue Willow.”
I want to fall to my knees in gratitude. I want to pull her close, press my face to her shoulder, and ask if she truly means it. I want to memorize every breath between us so I never forget what this moment feels like.
All I manage is, “Thank you.”
“I didn’t choose it because of you,” she says quickly.
“I hope it has to do with a helluva lot more than me.” I swallow thickly, then, “Let’s eat before we talk more.”
At the table, her shoulders drop a little. I plate the food. She eats.
We talk around the sharp edges. The county’s letter. How Alma cried in her car after pretending not to. How Bobby told three people at the Harbor Light he was going to carve our initials into the sign with a nail.
She rolls her eyes. “Honestly, let him have it.”
“He will,” I say, and we almost laugh.
Afterward, I pour plum wine for both of us.
“You asked me once why I stayed here in Blue Willow for so long.”
She gives a sad smile. “Is it because of the magic?”
“It’s because this house was the first place that wanted me without proof. I told you my family didn’t have any room for the messy version of me. Elspeth gave me work and a room and a reason. A home, a place where I belong. The idea of losing that terrifies me.”
She blinks hard. “I know that feeling well. Loss is slippery like that. It doesn’t always wait for the letting go. Sometimes it starts the moment something matters to you.’
“You know it better than me.”
“I wish I didn’t.”
We clean up quietly. The normalcy of it is its own sort of benediction: plates under hot water, the scrape of forks, the soft thud of the oven door. She dries; I wash. We move around each other in the small kitchen like we’ve done this a million times.
In the parlor, the record turns and turns. We step through the doorway, and the song changes without me touching the needle. “Silver Springs.”
You can call it a coincidence if you want. The house wouldn’t, and neither would I.
Elsie freezes in the archway. “Wells.”
“I know,” I say. “Tell me to skip it, and I will.”
She stands very still, breathing through her nose, and then—because she’s braver than she knows—she shakes her head. “Let it play.”
I hold out my hand. “Dance with me.”
She crosses the rug and lays her hand in mine. It fits the way it did in the snow, the way it did in the alcove, the way I pray it will when we’re old and foolish and the house has to shout at us to stop bickering about a hinge.
I put my other hand at her waist, careful. She sets her palm against my chest, right where it hurts. We sway, barely moving. Hemingway threads through our ankles, daring me to step on his tail.
Elsie rests her forehead against my jaw.
“Fuck you, in particular,” she whispers, “for ruining my favorite song.”
“I know,” I murmur into her hair. “I’m sorry. Do you think we can fix it?”
Her fingers curl in my shirt. We move slowly enough to hear the click of the needle at the groove, the breath she takes when the harmony climbs, the faint, contented creak of the house. When the chorus fades, the record hisses softly and then turns again, and neither of us lets go.
“You still want me?” I whisper.
“Yeah, I still want you.”
I swallow hard. “I’m learning to ask for what I need. I have a hard time doing it properly.”
“Only sometimes,” she says dryly.
“I’m going to try now.” My hands are shaking.
“I need you, and I want you, Elsie. In the quiet way, where wanting you means wanting to be the person you can lay your head on without thinking through the angles. Where wanting means staying when you’re unlovely, and I’m infuriating, and the house is angry with both of us.
“I want your lists and your late-night second-guesses and the way you stare too long at the molding when you’re trying not to cry.
I want your laughter in our kitchen and your scowls at my bad jokes.
I want your contrarian arguments because they make me sharper.
I want the mornings you don’t talk until coffee and the afternoons you don’t stop.
I want the whole of you, stubborn and sweet and scared. ”
Her eyes shine. “And if I can’t give you all of me yet?”
“Then you give me what you can, and we build toward the rest. I want a future with you, Elsie. That sort of thing takes time.”
She stares at me like she’s trying to see past my face into the very heart of me. “Don’t promise me waiting if you’ll resent me for needing it.”
“I won’t,” I say, certain of it now. “I’ll resent myself for not wanting to wait, sometimes. I’ll resent time for being slow. I’ll take a walk. I’ll fix a step. But I’ll always come back.”
She looks down at her hands. “You’re not the only one who owes an apology,” she says.
“I know I’ve made things hard on you. I know I’ve scared you.
Despite your objections, I know I can be selfish.
I’ve made you feel like you’re always on the edge of losing something.
Speaking to Beau without keeping you in the loop was wrong. ”
“I would’ve tried to meddle,” I admit.
“I know, and I don’t fault you for it.” She lifts her head. “And just for the record—it wouldn’t be Beau for me. Not ever.”
I huff a laugh that cracks at the edges. “Just for the record.”
Her eyes flick up, a flicker of mischief in them. “How could I look at him twice when you’re standing right there?”
Heat slides up the back of my neck. “Hearing you say that . . . it makes me feel less like the handyman you’re stuck with and more like the man you always want around.”
“I do want you around. I just hate the idea of being so needy.”
I frown. “You’re not needy. And you’re not selfish, either. I know you’ve spent your whole life apologizing for needing anything at all. Really, you learned to put yourself first when others didn’t. You deserved care. You deserved safety. Not just when you were with Elspeth, but all the time.”
“And you?” She kisses the hollow of my throat.
“You deserved someone who sees you, who wants to understand you, and to take care of you. I want to be that person. I want you to feel worthy—not only when you’re fixing something or protecting someone, but when you’re tired or wrong or scared.
You’re allowed to make mistakes with me. I’ll forgive you for them.”
“It’s hard to believe that sometimes.”
Her thumb brushes my jaw. “It’s okay to be kind.
It’s okay to be soft. And don’t worry about me putting you on a pedestal, either.
” She laughs, teasing. “Trust me, I never did. I know that if you love someone, you love them even when they’re messy.
Because perfection isn’t real, and it isn’t love. That’s not what I want with you.”
My throat closes. “What is it that you want?”
“For us to . . . build a life together.” She ducks her head shyly. “That’s what you want, right? A future?”
“It’s what I fucking dream of.” I stroke my thumb over her knuckles.
“When you were gone today, I realized something. That losing this house, this town . . . that would hurt me. Deeply. But I could learn to live again somewhere else, in some other way. Losing you—I couldn’t rebuild from that. It would destroy me.”
She presses her mouth to mine then—soft, sure, a little desperate, like she’s sealing a promise she’s still learning how to keep.
The house exhales, the chandelier gives one bright, happy chime, and somewhere in the kitchen, a cabinet door swings and clicks shut.
We sway there long after the record runs quiet. When she finally pulls away, her eyes are steady, her mouth sweet and swollen.
“We’re not perfect,” she says.
“God, no.”
“We’re going to fight again.”
“Probably tonight.”
She laughs, and it feels like the low sun shining in January—unexpected, golden, a little bit miraculous. “We’ll go slow,” she says. “We’ll wait on the big decisions until they’re ready. We’ll keep each other in check.” Her eyes shine. “I’ll stay for good, and you’ll always come back?”
“I’ll always come back,” I promise.
“Okay,” she whispers and lays her head on my chest.
We dance to the silence, to the tiny noises of approval the house makes, to the beat of something that might be my heart settling where it belongs. Outside the windows, the ridge is all shadow and quiet and cold.
In here, in our home, it’s warm enough to hope.