Chapter 16
Levi
“If we don’t leave in the next five minutes, I’m dragging you out.”
Naomi’s voice carries from the front of the shop, precise and professional, but there’s an edge of impatience tucked neatly under her polished tone.
I glance at the clock, my heart racing slightly. Shit.
For the past twelve hours, I’ve been holed up here, surrounded by flowers and scraps of ribbon, lost in a haze of stems. The arrangements for this funeral service aren’t just flowers to me.
They’re art, crafted in every shade of white.
Ivory roses, creamy dahlias, snowy ranunculus, and the faintest blush of peonies for texture.
A quiet kind of elegance, sharp in its simplicity.
I typically envision more color, but the minute the ask came from Hayden, I knew this was it.
Stark but timeless. Hayden as a color palette.
“Almost done,” I call back, adjusting the placement of a temperamental straggler, letting it rest slightly off-center. A whisper of life inside grief. Beauty isn’t a distraction here, it’s a rung to lean on while the ground shifts.
I don’t look up right away when the front door opens, still elbow deep in a tangle of white dahlias and fretting over a stubborn spray of ivy that refuses to drape the way I’d intended. Only when I hear a low whistle do I lift my head.
Ezra leans casually against the counter, all charm and worn denim, a to-go cup in one hand and a small bakery box in the other.
“Did I get my days mixed up again?” I ask, reaching for a towel to wipe my hands. Ezra’s deliveries have always come like clockwork, but I’m known for completely spacing.
He shakes his head. “No, no. This is an impromptu visit.” He lifts the box slightly. “I had a delivery downtown and thought I’d make a pit stop by Mrs. Hensley’s. She had lemon bars today, and I remembered you used to hoard them like some pastry goblin.”
“You remembered that?”
Ezra grins, ears reddening slightly. “You ate four in one sitting and blamed it on low blood sugar. I’m not likely to forget that.”
I take the box from him. “Thanks.”
He nods toward the half-finished arrangement. “This for the Caldwell service?”
“Yeah. I’m going for something simple and timeless and trying not to overthink it, but…” I gesture to the tangle of ivy.
Ezra leans down to study the arrangement from another angle. “It’s beautiful,” he says, and I know he means it.
We stand there for a beat, surrounded by the buzz of heaters and a room full of blooms. Then he clears his throat. “No pressure, but…if you ever wanna grab a drink or catch up or, you know, not talk and just…hang out…I’m around.”
Before, I’d have said yes without thinking. But now? Now it feels out of sync. Like a tune I used to sing but can’t quite remember the lyrics to.
I exhale, my fingers tightening slightly around a stem. “You’ve always been kind to me, Ezra. Really.”
His smile twitches, like he knows what’s coming.
“But I’m…” I start, rubbing the back of my neck. I’m not entirely sure how to label what it is I’ve started with Hayden. “I’m actually seeing someone. It’s new. But it feels…different.”
Ezra’s gaze lingers on mine for a heartbeat. “The funeral director?”
I blink. “How’d you…”
“You said ‘simple and timeless’ without gagging. Had to be him.”
I shake my head. “You’re annoying.”
“Only when I’m right.”
He steps back, resting a hip against the counter again. “I’m happy for you.”
And he means it. There’s no sarcasm, no wounded pride. Just something settled. Because even the smallest endings make room for the right beginnings.
“If it crashes and burns or if you ever need lemon bars…strictly platonic ones, of course,” he adds, gesturing toward the box, “I know a guy.”
I grin. “Thanks, Ez.”
He salutes with two fingers and is gone.
Naomi appears in the doorway, arms folded. “Levi. Thirty seconds, then I repo your apron.”
She leans on the frame, her clipboard balanced against one hip. She’s already texted me twice today about rescheduling a campus volunteer touchpoint for the garden. Somehow, she’s helping me juggle my dream project, handling a full course load, and keeping me on schedule…and still looks unbothered.
I roll my eyes but she’s right. I get moving, packing the van with the kind of care most people reserve for glass or grief, while Naomi tucks her phone under her chin, confirming with a supplier about a missing mulch order while I secure the centerpiece like it’s a newborn.
When we arrive at Harlow and Sons, Irene is already waiting at the door.
She gestures for us to come in, her gaze lingering for a second on the largest arrangement.
The cascading centerpiece of white dahlias, trailing ivy, and delicate orchids tucked between layers of soft petals.
I poured more than skill into this; I poured my whole heart.
“In here,” Irene says, leading us into the visitation room. The space is warm but subdued. Soft lighting, dark wood accents, chairs arranged in precise rows.
Hayden is already there.
All polished edges and dark fabric, standing still at the center. He adjusts a chair, straightens a frame. Hair perfectly in place, not a strand daring to rebel, but there’s a softness in the line of his shoulders I can’t quite name.
I want to say something. To wave or smile from across the room. But the air feels different here. He’s not my Hayden here. He’s someone else. Someone essential. The kind of steadiness you only notice when it’s gone.
Irene points out where she wants the arrangements, and Naomi and I get to work. We move around the room quietly, setting the flowers with careful intention. The stark whites create a beautiful contrast against the darker wood, softening the space without overwhelming it.
Marjorie Caldwell, stoic and hollow eyed, reaches for Hayden’s hand mid-sentence.
His fingers curl gently around hers, grounding her without words. It’s such a simple gesture. Nothing performative about it. No need to comfort for the sake of appearances. It’s just…him.
When we finish setting up, Naomi gathers her things, glancing at me. “Should we head back?”
I linger, eyes still on Hayden as he moves through the room, his role shifting from director to anchor. “You go ahead,” I say. “I’ll walk back later.”
She doesn’t question my decision. “Okay. I put the inventory notes you asked for on your desk.”
“I appreciate you.”
After she leaves, Irene passes by again, pausing briefly. “The arrangements are quite lovely,” she says. “You’re more than welcome to stay for the service.”
I nod, my throat tight. “I’d like that.”
I slip into a seat near the back, tucked just out of sight, and watch Hayden from here like I’m studying a constellation.
Distant, steady, quietly burning. Only hours ago I was buried in ribbons and invoices; now I’m sitting in a hush of white flowers watching Hayden in full-blown funeral director mode.
He moves like air. Subtle and inevitable. The kind of force you don’t notice until you’re already pulled into orbit.
And maybe that’s what unnerves me most.
Because I spent years avoiding rooms like this. Funerals, memorials, anything that smells faintly of endings. Yet here I am, willingly staying in one, watching the man I’m falling for make peace with death like it’s an old friend. The irony doesn’t escape me.
A stray thought hits before I can stop it: Hayden’s been here forever. Longer than anyone. Long enough that he must’ve seen every loss this town has weathered. Long enough that he could have been here then, on that day.
The one I never talk about.
The idea lodges, heavy, but I push it down. Because right now, he isn’t the myth or the god or even the keeper of the dead.
He’s just Hayden.
The way he stands in this room, shoulders straight and eyes gentle, makes me think maybe love isn’t about outrunning grief but learning to live beside it.
As the service begins, Hayden steps forward. Not to speak, but to simply be there. To exist as a steady presence in a room full of fragile hearts. He stays at the edges, pausing to clasp a hand, to offer a gentle nod, to whisper something I can’t hear but feel all the same.
People look at him like he’s holding their sorrow in cupped hands. Not reverence, relief. Like he’s not just managing the logistics of death but bearing the weight of it for them, even if just for a little while.
This isn’t the brooding funeral director who pretends he’s above it all. This is a man who speaks grief fluently without saying a single word.
His shadows, the tendrils of darkness that always seem to dance in his periphery, are quiet here. In this space, doing this, he doesn’t need to retreat into the dark. He is the light.
And I wonder if he even realizes it.
I watch him throughout the service. Guiding family members with a gentle touch of the elbow, offering a tissue to someone just as their tears start to fall. It’s like he’s giving pieces of himself without ever running out.
For a man who claims to prefer solitude, he’s extraordinary at making people feel held.
When the service ends, Hayden remains.
I don’t move, either. I sit there, absorbing it all, realizing I’m seeing Hayden in a way most people never will.
In the hush of white flowers and candlelight, it’s clear I’m not still falling. I’m already gone.
And I don’t want to be found.
· · ·
I lean against Hayden’s car, hands tucked into my jacket pockets, as the last mourners trickle out.
Hayden steps through the doors, his shoulders squared out of habit, but there’s a heaviness in his posture that wasn’t there earlier. His mask of stoicism is firmly in place, but it’s already cracking.
His eyes find mine and the whole parking lot tilts. No smile. No bravado. Just Hayden.
Raw and unraveling.
He closes the space between us with long, determined strides and folds into me, forehead to my neck, breath uneven.
“Come home with me,” he says, voice splintering. Not a plea but a man barely holding it together.
And how the hell could I say no to that?