Chapter Four
I WOKE UP before my alarm.
Which was irritating, because if I was going to be nervous, I would have preferred the illusion of rest first.
The house was still quiet, morning light barely slipping through the lace curtains I’d found at an estate sale three years ago and refused to replace even though one panel had a tear near the hem that I kept meaning to mend.
The air carried that soft early-spring coolness that made Charleston feel almost gentle before the humidity settled in for the day.
I lay there for a minute, staring at the ceiling fan turning slow and constant above me, trying to decide whether what I was feeling was excitement or impending doom, probably both, because it was just breakfast, and I knew that, kept telling myself that, except it didn’t feel like just anything.
I rolled onto my side and looked toward the small bookshelf near my bed, the spines arranged by height instead of genre because symmetry soothed me more than theme, and let myself sit with it honestly, without dressing it up into something safer or easier to ignore.
I wanted to see him again, and that was the part that felt dangerous, not obligation, not pressure, not something expected or inevitable, but want, plain and simple, and somehow that made it harder to push away.
I got up before I could overthink it into paralysis and padded barefoot across the worn hardwood floors, the boards creaking softly in places I’d memorized well enough to step around at night without thinking.
The house wasn’t large, one bedroom, a narrow galley kitchen, a living room that doubled as a workspace when I needed to repair a chair or refinish a side table, but it was mine, and every corner of it held something I had chosen deliberately.
A mint-green rotary phone sat on the small entry table, fully functional because I’d rewired it myself just to prove I could.
A mid-century record player rested against the far wall beside a crate of vinyl sorted by mood rather than artist. The couch was reupholstered in warm mustard fabric that most people called “bold” in a tone that meant “concerning.”
I called it cheerful.
By the time I’d made coffee, strong, because I needed help, and changed into a soft cream blouse tucked into high-waisted jeans that made me feel put together without feeling like a costume, the nerves had settled into something steadier.
Anticipation.
At nine on the dot, the low rumble of an engine rolled down the street outside.
The sound was deeper. Older. Not the high whine of something modern and over-tuned, but a grounded mechanical growl that vibrated faintly through the glass in the front window.
My stomach flipped.
I set the mug down too quickly, wiped my hands on my jeans, then immediately regretted that and smoothed the fabric as if I’d just undone all my effort.
When I stepped outside onto the small front porch, he was already there.
And so was the motorcycle.
It wasn’t shiny in the way new things tried to be impressive. The paint was darker, richer, the chrome worn in places that spoke of use rather than neglect. It looked maintained, not babied. Like him.
He swung a leg off the bike and pulled off his helmet in one smooth motion, blond hair settling back into place with minimal adjustment.
“You’re punctual,” I said, because apparently stating obvious facts was my chosen defense mechanism.
His mouth tilted slightly. “You don’t strike me as someone who’s late.”
“That’s because I’m not.”
“I figured.”
The ease of it, the way he said it without teasing, settled deep inside of me because he seemed so perfect.
“You want to come in?” I asked before I could second-guess myself. “Just for a minute. I, um… haven’t finished my coffee.”
That was a lie. I’d finished it, but I wasn’t ready to climb onto that motorcycle without one more breath of control.
He hesitated only long enough to glance at the house, then nodded once. “Sure.”
When he stepped inside, he didn’t comment immediately. Didn’t whistle. Didn’t look confused.
He took it in.
The rotary phone. The lace curtains. The record player. The framed botanical prints on the wall that I’d restored myself after finding them water-damaged in a thrift bin.
“You live like this on purpose,” he said finally.
I folded my arms loosely. “That sounds accusatory.”
“It’s not.”
He walked a slow half-circle through the living room, fingers brushing lightly over the polished wood of the side table I’d refinished last winter.
“It’s easy,” he added.
That, for reasons I couldn’t explain, felt like a compliment.
“I like things that last,” I said quietly.
He nodded once, like that tracked. “No TV?” he asked.
“There’s one,” I said. “It’s inside a cabinet. It ruins the aesthetic otherwise.”
His mouth twitched, and I hated that I noticed that, because it only added to his good looks.
“I had a record player like this,” he said, nodding toward mine. “Bought something similar a few years ago. It works better than half the streaming junk.”
“Most things do,” I said.
The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable.
It felt… measured.
Intentional.
Like we were both clocking details and deciding whether we approved.
My gaze drifted to the window, where the motorcycle waited at the curb, sunlight glinting faintly off metal.
“You ride that everywhere?” I asked.
“Pretty much.”
“That’s wildly impractical.”
“Yeah.”
“And dangerous.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Most things worth doing are.”
I swallowed. “Well,” I said, reaching for my purse and grabbing the small leather jacket I’d hung by the door, less dramatic than his, more practical. “I suppose breakfast qualifies.”
He held my gaze for a second longer than necessary, something unreadable flickering there.
Then he stepped aside and opened the door for me.
The engine rumbled to life again once we were outside, the vibration traveling up through the soles of my shoes as I approached the bike more cautiously than I cared to admit.
“You nervous?” he asked.
“Very,” I said. “This may end with my hair in your mouth and a heartfelt public apology.”
His eyes filled with humor. “… We’ll avoid that.”
I laughed as he handed me the spare helmet.
When I swung a leg over behind him, awkward and hyperaware of where to put my hands, he reached back without looking and caught my wrist gently.
“Hold on,” he said, caressing my wrist before letting go.
I wrapped my arms around his waist, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, and felt the solid line of him beneath it, warm, grounded, real.
The bike pulled forward and the house fell away behind us, and for the first time since last night the tight coil in my chest loosened into contentment as I leaned into him, my hands tightening just slightly, because this wasn’t something I should’ve been feeling, and I felt it anyway.
***
THE BOOTH CREAKED faintly when I slid into it, vinyl warm from sunlight slanting through the front windows, and Gatsby settled across from me with the easy sprawl of someone who didn’t feel the need to fill space to control it, forearms resting on the table as though this was simply another surface he’d learned to occupy without apology.
I let my fingers trail once along the chrome trim at the edge of the table, testing the coolness of it, noting the faint scratches where decades of rings and coffee mugs had worn it down to something softer.
“You’re serious about the tile,” he said after a moment, watching me instead of the menu in his hands.
“I am,” I replied, still studying the floor. “If they’d renovated it, they would’ve lost half the story.”
“It’s cracked.”
“So are most things worth keeping.”
His mouth shifted slightly at that, not quite a smile, more like he’d filed the statement away for later inspection.
The waitress came and went with coffee orders, and when she left us alone again the noise of the diner seemed to expand to fill the silence, forks against plates, a child whining two booths over, the hiss of the griddle from the open kitchen, and I became acutely aware of how small the table suddenly felt compared to the length of his back on the motorcycle.
“So,” he said, lifting his mug but not drinking yet, “Patina instead he simply held my gaze across the narrow stretch of table between us and murmured, “Good,” in a tone that wasn’t playful and wasn’t light, but certain in a way that felt grounded rather than flirtatious, as though he had recognized something and chosen not to disguise it.
The diner noise carried on around us, plates clattering against counters, coffee being refilled into thick ceramic mugs, someone laughing too loudly near the register, the steady hiss of the griddle from the open kitchen, yet inside the booth the air felt altered, heavier without being suffocating, charged without tipping into urgency, as if something quiet and substantial had settled between us and was waiting to see whether we would acknowledge it or pretend it wasn’t there.
This wasn’t fast or reckless or bright in the way fireworks are bright, wasn’t a flare meant to ignite and burn out in a single night; it was slower than that, steadier, the kind of thing that gathers strength without announcement and builds in increments rather than sparks, requiring attention instead of impulse and intention instead of adrenaline, and the more aware I became of it the more I understood that whatever this was, it would not disappear easily once it had taken root.
That should have been my warning.
Slow things take hold.
Slow things matter.
And I had not come into his world with clean hands.
I knew that.
Knew it in the quiet part of my mind that had been carefully keeping score since the night Ruby suggested this meeting, knew that I was sitting in a booth across from a man who was offering so much without realizing I had arrived with an agenda folded neatly beneath my intentions.
And yet here I was with a man who had just said “Good” like I was a virtue instead of a liability, and instead of cataloging him the way I had intended, habits, tells, weak points, I was noticing just how perfect he was for me.
This was, frankly, deeply inconvenient.
And the worst part was that I did not appear to be correcting course.