Seth
Iwas wiping down one of the tables near the window, moving through the familiar rhythm of closing duties, when the flyer on the community board caught my attention again.
The Oakridge Harvest Market.
Oakridge sat about forty minutes away, far enough that most people made a day of it rather than a quick trip. The flyer promised the usual mix of local food stalls, live music, baking competitions, and a coffee showcase featuring cafés from surrounding towns.
It wasn’t something I would normally have looked at twice, but I found myself staring at it a little longer than necessary before finally reaching up and pulling it free from the board.
I crossed to the counter where Janine was working, catching her attention as I got closer.
“Do you have plans next Saturday?” I asked.
She looked up immediately, suspicion already setting in. “Is this a work question?”
“No,” I said too quickly, which only made her expression sharper.
I held the flyer up between us. “Oakridge is doing their annual harvest market thing. There’s a coffee showcase this year too.”
Janine looked like she was trying to figure out if I was serious.
“You want to go to a town festival?”
“I just thought it looked fun.”
That only deepened the look on her face, something caught between disbelief and amusement.
“Because until a few months ago, your entire life basically consisted of this café and your apartment,” she said.
“That’s not true.”
“It absolutely is.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but nothing came out fast enough, and that alone seemed to confirm her point.
She leaned forward onto the counter, studying me. “Glen and Lynn showing up was the first time I’ve seen you go out voluntarily in years,” she said.
I grimaced before I could stop myself. It wasn’t entirely wrong.
“People change,” I said after a beat, though it came out more defensive than I intended.
Janine tilted her head slightly. “Do they?”
“Yes,” I said quickly, then added, “I have other plans too.”
That got her attention. “What plans? With who?”
“My friends from college.”
Her expression shifted immediately, surprise breaking through the skepticism.
“We’ve been talking again,” I added before she could say anything.
One of them had reached out months ago, then another joined later, and somehow the conversation had kept going.
They were trying to organize a dinner in the city. It was still months away, but it was real now because I hadn’t ignored it.
Her features softened at that, the teasing easing into something more measured. “Really? And you said yes?”
“I replied,” I said, like that settled it.
A faint smile tugged at her mouth, and I knew exactly what she was seeing.
It wasn’t really about the dinner or the plan. It was the fact that I hadn’t immediately dismissed it. That I hadn’t instinctively found a way out of it.
She would’ve been right about me once. A few months ago, I would’ve let it disappear without replying. I would’ve told myself I was too busy, too tired, too needed here.
Work had been enough then. The café, my apartment, the routine I didn’t have to think about.
For a long time, I had told myself that was enough, but lately it felt more like something I’d been using to stay in place. Because as long as nothing changed, nothing could go wrong.
Janine watched me for a moment longer, her expression shifting slightly. “Why don’t you take Dane?”
I looked away, focusing too intently on the flyer still in my hand. “That’s not really a thing.”
“What happened?” she asked, quieter now.
That question should have been simple. It wasn’t. Before I could stop myself, I was already thinking back, replaying the last few weeks in fragments I hadn’t properly examined until now.
Dane not coming in at his usual time. Me noticing it anyway. Telling myself it meant nothing. Looking up every time the café door opened without admitting why.
The careful, slightly awkward conversation the last time he had stopped by. The way everything had started to feel like it was pulling back without either of us saying it out loud.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think maybe I got ahead of myself.”
“What does that mean?”
I hesitated, staring down at the flyer like it might give me something clearer to say.
“I thought it felt like something,” I said quietly. “But maybe it wasn’t.”
“Dane’s a shifter,” I continued, the thought slipping out before I could stop it, as if saying it out loud would somehow make it easier to understand. “He has this whole life that doesn’t really have anything to do with me.”
“Seth,” Janine said gently, but I was already past the point of stopping.
“I know how this ends,” I said before I could think better of it.
“No.” Janine’s expression sharpened immediately. “No, you don’t. You can’t decide things are over before they even start.”
Something uncomfortable settled low in my chest, sharp and familiar.
“That’s not fair,” I said instead.
“It isn’t fair,” she agreed without hesitation. “To Dane.”
Then she pointed at me lightly. “And it’s not fair to you either.”
I looked away again, jaw tightening.
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“I think you’re making it complicated.”
A short, humorless laugh slipped out before I could stop it. “Thanks.”
“I’m serious.” She shook her head slightly. “You act like you don’t have a choice.”
I opened my mouth to argue.
The words were all there, old and familiar arguments I had leaned on before without thinking.
That it wasn’t that simple. That I knew how this ended. People left eventually, no matter how good things felt at the beginning.
But as I sat there with Janine watching me, I realized I couldn’t actually turn any of those thoughts into something solid enough to say out loud.
Not in a way that would hold up under scrutiny. Not in a way that even sounded convincing to me, let alone anyone else.
So I didn’t say any of it.
The bell above the café door broke through the moment.
Dane stood just inside the doorway, and for a second my mind went completely blank.
Janine gave a low, satisfied sound beside me. “I’ll leave you two.”
“Wait—” I started, not entirely sure what I wanted to stop her from doing, but she was already moving.
She passed Dane on her way out from behind the counter, pausing just long enough to give him a look that somehow managed to be both amused and faintly intimidating before topping up a nearby customer’s coffee.
The air between Dane and me stretched in a way that made me hyperaware of every small movement I made. I wiped down the counter even though it was already clean, just to have something to do.
“Hey,” he said finally, walking up to the counter. After a beat, he added, “You busy?”
“Not really,” I said.
His gaze flicked briefly toward the back hallway. “Can we talk somewhere private?”
“Yeah,” I said after a moment.
I led him through the side door and down the narrow corridor behind the café, where storage crates were stacked unevenly against the walls.
The space was small enough that our footsteps felt louder than they should have been, and by the time I closed the door behind us, the sound of the café dropped away completely.
Suddenly, there was nowhere left to look except him.
“I, uh, didn’t know if you’d want to see me,” he started.
A short laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked, though it came out lighter than I meant it to.
“Because you stopped reaching out,” he said simply.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. That wasn’t how I remembered it.
Or maybe it was, and I had just been filling in the silence with something easier to believe.
“I thought you didn’t want to come by anymore,” I said finally, more carefully this time.
Dane frowned. “I came by twice.”
That made me pause. He must have come by while I was in the back, handling deliveries, or during the rush when the café was too full for me to notice anyone lingering.
The last two weeks suddenly shifted in my head as I replayed it like that. It was just timing.
Like two people moving through the same space and somehow missing each other every time they got close enough to actually meet.
Or worse, two people quietly assuming the other wasn’t there anymore, without ever checking if that was true.
“I thought…” I started, then stopped, because I wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence without making it sound worse out loud.
“No,” he said, simple and firm, like the idea itself didn’t sit right with him at all.
“I wasn’t trying to pull away,” I said after a beat. Even as I said it, I knew how thin that sounded. I hesitated, then added more honestly, “I just… didn’t know what I was supposed to do.”
Dane let out a slow breath. “Neither did I.”
Dane took a step toward me, not enough to close the distance completely, just enough that I couldn’t ignore him anymore.
“I just knew I didn’t like not seeing you,” he said.
I swallowed, feeling the weight of everything we hadn’t said properly sitting between us.
“I kept thinking it was going to turn into something that ended badly,” I admitted after a moment, the words coming out more raw than I intended.
“Because of before?” he asked quietly.
I nodded.
Dane let that sit for a moment, then reached up and lightly touched my cheek, steady and unhurried.
“I’m not him,” he said quietly. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
The kiss that followed was unhurried and soft, a quiet agreement between us that said nothing needed to be rushed.
When we stepped back out into the café, the clink of cups and low murmur of voices washed back in, softer than I remembered it being.
Dane’s gaze drifted toward the counter, then landed on the flyer I’d left near the edge of the workspace.
“So,” he said, voice a little easier now, “Oakridge Harvest Market next week?”
“I was actually going to ask Janine to go,” I said.
Dane raised an eyebrow, amused. “And now?”
I looked at him for a moment longer than I needed to, the answer already forming before I fully committed to saying it out loud.
“I’m still going.” A pause. “Maybe with you.”
Dane hummed. “Well, I’m already going.”
I blinked at him. “You are?”
“Brownie competition,” he added, like that explained everything.
I licked my lips, the memory of his brownies sharp enough that I could almost taste them again.
“You’re entering?”
“Maybe,” he said, clearly entertained by my reaction.
Something in me sparked before I could stop it.
“Could you save me some?” I asked, then quickly added, “Or make me an extra batch?”
Dane let out a quiet laugh. “I can bake you some whenever you want,” he said simply.
A warm feeling spread through me. “Anytime?” I asked.
“Anytime.”