Chapter 12 #2
“Apology accepted,” I say with a smile, letting go of my hurt pride.
His shoulders drop a fraction, relief visible in the way his whole body seems to exhale. “Good. Because I have a question, and I didn’t want to ask it while you still thought I was an asshole.”
“You already asked me yesterday to work… right before you kicked me out.”
He winces. “Yeah. That.” He scratches the back of his neck, looking genuinely embarrassed.
“So I’m asking again. Properly this time, without the weird trauma response in the middle.
” His mouth quirks. “Would you consider working at the inn? It doesn’t have to be full-time.
Just dinner service. Or lunch? Literally, whenever you feel like showing up, honestly, because the current chef is me, and my cooking is actively dangerous. ”
“You’re really selling it.”
“I know, right? I should be in marketing.” He smirks, but then it softens into something more sincere.
“Look, I get why you’d want to say no. But I promise, I’m not usually like that.
I won’t treat you like that again. And Jasper will never forgive me if I let you leave without at least trying to convince you to stay. ”
“Pulling the little brother card is mean.”
He runs his thumb absently along his eyebrow piercing, but his mouth curves with it.
Am I really considering this?
I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do next, but I know that I need to be useful.
Standing still is where the grief catches up.
A kitchen is the one place I know how to think.
Or hide, depending on the day.
“I’m probably only going to be here short term,” I say carefully.
“That’s fine.” No hesitation. “We can work with short term. Hell, we can work with super short term. However long you’re willing to stay.”
I turn the offer over in my mind. I’m here for Tessa.
It wasn’t supposed to include a job, but given how the dreams are already affecting me, making me question my sanity, maybe it would be good to have a routine to connect with people in the real world, so someone notices if I completely lose the plot, something to anchor me.
And God help me, I’ve been wishing for exactly this. My job back, a kitchen, and a purpose.
Somewhere to put all the love, panic, and grief so it looked like competence instead of damage.
Oh well. I already half agreed to it yesterday.
“Okay,” I hear myself say before I’ve even totally landed on the decision.
He grins, then sticks out his pinky finger like we’re kids making a playground pact. “Promise?”
I hook my pinky with his, and the gesture is so unexpectedly sweet that I can feel a flutter in my stomach. “Yes, promise.”
His smile reaches his eyes and carves dimples into his cheeks, and then his gaze catches on the lemon clip in my hair. He taps it gently with one finger. “Thanks, Lemon.”
Lemon?
No one has given me a nickname in years—not one that didn’t make my skin crawl, anyway.
Spencer called me Cherub, and I never told him I hated it. I folded the hatred up small and quiet as I did with everything else.
Lemon fits.
Dad used to call me Lenny-girl, back when I was small enough to sit on the kitchen counter and “help.” I didn’t realize how much I missed it, being seen like that.
I smile at him, trying to ignore how my heart is doing something complicated behind my ribs, but even as warmth spreads through me, something cold curls low beneath it.
I came here for clarity, for answers, for Tessa.
Instead, I just ended up with more complications—a job, a nickname, one baby brother who needs someone in his corner, and one big brother with kind eyes and paint on his hands who is struggling in a shape I recognize anyway.
And as terrible as it is, it makes me feel less… alone.
“So,” he lets go of my hand. “When do you want to start? I’m flexible. Desperate, even.”
“Desperate is not a good negotiating position,” I point out.
“Lucky for you, I’m a terrible negotiator,” he says easily, self-deprecating in a way I’m getting is his default. “How about tonight? Dinner service? I can show you around the kitchen properly.”
“Tonight works.”
“Perfect.” He looks genuinely pleased. “Sydney usually works dinner shift, so she’ll be there too.”
“Is she… the questionable life choice you mentioned earlier?”
His laugh comes out surprised and a little pained. “Yeah. That’s her. I’m working on it. The whole letting-that-go thing. Not going great, but I’m working on it.”
“Well,” I say softly. “For what it’s worth, anyone who doesn’t see what they have in front of them is an idiot.”
“You’re only saying that because you don’t know me yet.”
The words hit me with an unexpected echo.
“What if I do want to trade? Most of them have money and normal families. They fit in…”
Jasper said almost the exact same thing yesterday.
“Your brother said something similar,” I say. “When I told him he wasn’t weird.”
Nevan’s liar grin falters for a second. “Guess it runs in the family. Must be genetic. Or maybe it’s something in the water here.”
“Or maybe, you’re both wrong.”
He clears his throat and takes a step backward toward the house. “I should probably go check on Jasper and Mom, but I’ll see you tonight?”
“Tonight,” I confirm.
“Great. And, uh, thanks for saving my ass, again.”
“Just returning the favor.” I shrug. “You did pull me out of a death prophecy spiral.”
“Anytime you need rescuing from my mom’s doom and gloom, I’m your guy.”
As he turns toward their small house, I watch how he carries himself—shoulders square, stride confident, every inch the capable guy who runs this place.
But I’ve seen what’s underneath.
The exhaustion. The loneliness. The way he holds himself together with jokes and grit because falling apart isn’t an option.
I know that feeling too.
I wonder if he knows that I know. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to say sorry and hear it back. Two people who have both gotten very good at being fine, recognizing each other’s performance and choosing not to name it.
Before that awareness can turn into something heavier, I head back toward town with the crystal warm against my chest and too much buzzing under my skin.
When my thoughts start looping, I do what I always do when things feel unsteady.
Retail therapy.
It isn’t healing, but it’s adjacent. And right now, adjacent will do.
Half an hour later, the bell of the biggest shop in town jingles cheerfully as I step back out onto the sidewalk like it’s pleased with how much money I spent on emotional stability in the form of trinkets.
I’m holding so much stuff that I have to tilt to the side to get the door to close behind me, and I swear the air hits colder than it did before.
God, I should have brought my Bumble Bitch.
Worth it, though. Absolutely worth it.
My purse is slung over my shoulder, and I have a fuzzy yellow blanket tucked under one arm, two matching pillows cradled against me, and an insulated tumbler covered in tiny gold stars in my hand because I have zero self-control when it comes to cute stuff.
I’m all for soft things and poor financial decisions.
Hugging the pillows tighter against myself, I start walking home.
The sky has darkened even more while I was inside, the clouds now sinking lower and looking heavier, as if they’re pressing down on the town.
The wind has picked up, too, and suddenly my hair is everywhere, whipped across my face, and sticking to my lipstick.
“Ugh, here we go again,” I mutter, trying to blow it away.
I tuck my chin down and walk faster, and when I reach the crosswalk where I met Jasper yesterday, I smile, hair still clinging to my lips as I think of my Punk Fairy.
Maybe it’s weird to befriend a guy half my age, but after getting a glimpse into his life, I’m confident he could use a little looking after, and God knows I miss having someone to give that to.
Maybe I could bake him something to take with him to school on Monday.
The crosswalk sign shows a red “X,” and I eye the crossing button, but my arms are too full to press it. I shift the pillows higher against my chest, but then the blanket slides, and my purse slips. I try to re-hook my purse, but it only makes the tumbler bump my wrist and nearly go flying.
“Okay, hold on,” I grumble at my arms.
I attempt to shuffle everything into a new, somehow worse configuration, only to confirm that, yep, I still can’t reach the button.
The “X” across the street glows patiently, ready to stay like that all day. My shoulders start aching, and the sky looks as though it’s thinking about doing something dramatic.
Ugh.
I need to hurry if I want to take a shower and maybe take a nap before heading to my first shift.
Glancing down the empty street both ways, I step off the curb, but I only make it halfway across before the sky absolutely loses its mind.
Rain crashes down in a full-on downpour, sheets of water slamming into the pavement so hard it feels personal.
Within seconds, my sweater is soaked through, the fuzzy blanket darkening in ugly splotches.
“Oh no,” I gasp, slowing instinctively as the cold soaks through.
Why didn’t I buy an umbrella?
Mine is in the storage unit in Boston, like the rest of my life.
As I twist around with thoughts of sprinting back to the shop to buy one, light explodes to my side, bright enough to erase the rain, and I whip my head toward it.
Headlights.
Oh shit.