Chapter 21 Milo
Milo
Ichange my shirt three times before I leave.
Which is ridiculous. I’m a bartender. I’ve spent six years reading people, making conversation, putting strangers at ease. I’ve talked down bar fights and coached regulars through breakups and once convinced old Pete to finally call his estranged daughter after fifteen years of silence.
But apparently none of that matters when it comes to Tessa Lang.
The first shirt is too casual—just a henley, the kind I’d wear to work.
The second is too formal—a button-down that makes me look like I’m trying too hard.
The third is somewhere in the middle: a dark green sweater that Gramps said brings out my eyes, whatever that means.
I roll the sleeves up. Roll them back down. Roll them up again.
This is pathetic.
I check my reflection one more time. Hair’s doing that thing where it won’t quite lie flat, but at this point I’ve accepted that’s just how it’s going to be. I splash on some cologne—not too much, just enough to layer with my natural scent—and grab my keys.
It’s a forty-minute drive to Pine Valley, which means I need to leave now if I’m picking her up at six.
I reserved a table at Bella Notte weeks ago, back when I was still telling myself I’d eventually work up the nerve to ask her out properly.
Before the blizzard. Before the cabin. Before four days of watching her fall apart in the best way.
Now I’m finally taking her on a real date, and I’m more nervous than I’ve been in years.
Gramps would laugh at me. “A pretty omega’s got you tied in knots, boy? Good. Means she’s worth the trouble.”
He’s not wrong.
Tessa’s apartment is above her office on Main Street. I’ve walked past it a hundred times, looked up at the windows and wondered what she does when she’s not organizing the entire town’s social calendar. Now I’m standing at her door with my heart hammering like I’m seventeen again.
I knock and wait, resisting the urge to fidget.
The door opens, and my brain goes offline.
She’s wearing a dress. A deep blue dress that hugs her curves and makes her eyes practically glow.
Her hair is down—I’ve never seen it down before, always pulled back in that efficient ponytail—and it falls past her shoulders in soft waves.
There’s a hint of makeup, just enough to accent her features, and her lips are painted a shade of red that makes my mouth water.
“Hi.” Her voice comes out a little breathless, and I catch the flutter of her pulse at her throat.
“Hi yourself.” I lean against the doorframe, letting myself look. Really look. Take my time with it. “You’re stunning.”
Pink creeps up her cheeks, and her scent goes softer—more lavender, less of that citrus edge she gets when she’s stressed. “You clean up pretty well too.”
“I try.” I offer my hand. “Ready?”
She grabs a long wool coat from the hook by the door—charcoal gray, fitted—and slips it on over the dress. Even bundled up for February, she’s gorgeous.
She takes my hand. Her fingers are cool against mine, and I have to stop myself from pulling her closer, wrapping her up, warming her properly. There’s time for that. Tonight is about showing her what this could be—not just heat and biology, but something real.
“Where are we going?” she asks as I lead her down to my truck.
“Pine Valley. Little Italian place called Bella Notte.”
“I’ve heard of it.” She glances at me as I open the passenger door for her. “Supposed to be romantic.”
“That’s the idea.” I wait until she’s settled, then close the door and round to the driver’s side. When I slide in beside her, her scent wraps around me—lavender and citrus with that sweet undertone that’s been stuck in my head since the cabin.
I grip the steering wheel and pull onto the road.
The drive to Pine Valley winds through the mountains, snow-dusted pines lining both sides of the road. The sun is setting, painting everything gold and pink, and Tessa watches the scenery like she’s never seen it before.
“I forget how beautiful it is out here,” she says. “I’m always so busy, I never take time to just... look.”
“That’s what tonight’s for. No spreadsheets. No clipboard. Just dinner and conversation.”
She laughs, and I want to bottle that sound. “I don’t know if I remember how to do that.”
“Lucky for you, I’m an expert. Comes with the bartender territory.”
“Is that what you’re doing right now? Tending bar?”
“Nah.” I glance over, catch her watching me with those sharp eyes. “This is different. You’re not a customer, Tessa. You’re the woman I’ve been thinking about since you walked into my bar and color-coded my napkin holders.”
“I didn’t color-code your—” She stops. “Okay, I might have suggested a system.”
“You reorganized my entire bar in forty-five minutes while waiting for a town council meeting to start.”
“It needed reorganizing.”
“It was perfect chaos and I loved it.” I grin at her. “But I loved watching you more. The way you couldn’t help yourself. The way you had to fix things, make them better, even when nobody asked.”
She’s quiet for a second. “You noticed that?”
“I notice everything about you.” I reach over, find her hand in her lap, and lace our fingers together.
Her pulse jumps against my palm. “I noticed you take your coffee black but you’ll add cream if someone makes it for you.
I noticed you tap your pen when you’re stressed and bite your lip when you’re working through a problem. ”
She’s staring at me now. I can feel it.
“I noticed you wear that gray sweater when you need comfort—the one with the hole in the sleeve you think nobody can see.”
“Milo...”
“I’m not saying this to freak you out.” I squeeze her hand. “I’m saying it because you should know. Someone’s been paying attention, Tessa. Someone sees you—not just the event planner or the organizer or the woman who holds everything together. You.”
When she speaks, her voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it.
“No one’s ever... I mean, I’ve dated. But no one’s ever noticed things like that before.”
“Then they weren’t paying attention.” I lift her hand to my mouth, press a kiss to her knuckles. “Their loss.”
Bella Notte is tucked on a corner in downtown Pine Valley, warm light spilling from the windows onto the snowy sidewalk. The hostess leads us to a booth in the back—intimate, private, just like I requested. The whole place smells like garlic and fresh bread and candle wax.
Tessa slides into the booth, and I take the seat across from her. Close enough that our knees brush under the table. She doesn’t move away.
“This is nice,” she says, looking around. “Really nice.”
“Wait until you try the pasta.”
“Let me guess—you know someone.”
“I know everyone.” I lean back, spreading my arms along the booth. “Occupational hazard. People tell bartenders things. Best pasta in Montana, worst first date locations, whose marriage is falling apart, who’s secretly in love with their best friend’s sister—”
“Worst first date location?”
“Mini golf.” I shake my head solemnly. “Too competitive. Someone always gets mad about the windmill.”
She laughs—a real one, surprised out of her—and her whole face changes. Softer. Younger. God, she’s beautiful when she lets herself go like that.
“Noted. No mini golf.”
“Definitely no mini golf.” I hold her gaze, let the moment stretch. “Not that we need alternatives. I’m pretty confident in tonight.”
“Confident.”
“Extremely.” I drop my voice lower, watch her pupils blow wider in response. “I’ve been planning this for a while. What I’d say. What I’d do. How I’d make you feel.”
Her knee presses harder against mine under the table. “And how’s that going so far?”
“You tell me.”
The waiter shows up before she can answer—wine, appetizers, the house special that he swears will ruin us for pasta anywhere else. When he leaves, Tessa’s got that look on her face. The one that means she’s trying to figure something out.
“Ask,” I say.
“What?”
“Whatever you’re thinking. I can see it. You’ve got a question and you’re deciding whether to ask it. So ask.”
She tilts her head. “How do you do that? Read people so easily?”
“Practice.” I pour us both some wine, take my time with it.
“When you spend your whole childhood behind a bar, you learn to watch people. Gramps had me helping out from the time I could see over the counter. Taught me to notice things—who’s had too much, who’s about to start trouble, who just needs someone to listen.
” I shrug. “After a while, it becomes second nature.”
“That’s... actually really sweet.”
“Gramps is a sweet guy. Don’t tell him I said that.” I take a sip of wine. “My parents moved to LA when I was fifteen—my dad got a job offer he couldn’t turn down. I was supposed to go with them, but Gramps needed help with the bar, and I didn’t want to leave Honeyridge. So I stayed.”
Her expression softens. “That must have been hard. Being away from your parents.”
“It was, at first. But Gramps made it work. And my parents visit when they can—holidays, summer. Now that Gramps is retired, he spends most of his time fishing and showing up at the bar to complain about my playlist.” I grin. “He thinks anything recorded after 1975 is noise.”
“He still comes by?”
“Every week. Orders the same whiskey, sits in the same seat, tells me everything I’m doing wrong.” I meet her eyes. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The appetizers arrive—bruschetta, calamari, something involving cheese and fire that the waiter presents with dramatic flair. Tessa watches with wide eyes, then looks at me.
“You planned the fire cheese.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You absolutely did.” But she’s smiling, and her scent has gone warm and relaxed, the citrus edge completely gone now. Just lavender and that sweet undertone. Just her.