Yours to Keep
Cara
Paper & Pine was quiet in that late-afternoon way I loved—sunlight slanting through the front windows, the scent of tea and shortbread lingering in the air.
Eliza sat at the small table near the front, one ankle tucked under her chair, stirring her tea like she wasn’t thinking about anything at all.
She had a soft, settled look about her now, and I found myself smiling at it—quietly glad she was happy.
I was behind the counter when he walked past the window.
He was on his phone, head tipped slightly as he listened, and then he laughed—low and easy, the kind that carried even through the glass.
It was gone almost as soon as it came, swallowed by the street, but it landed anyway.
Right in the center of my chest, like it used to.
Familiar, even though everything about our lives had changed.
He didn’t slow. Didn’t look in. He just kept walking down Sycamore Street with that unbothered confidence he carried everywhere—including behind the bar at the Twilight Tavern. I told myself it didn’t matter, that I only noticed him because he was familiar.
Except my hand stilled on the counter anyway. I didn’t look away until he was completely out of sight.
Eliza didn’t follow my gaze right away. She noticed me noticing. Then she turned, eyes flicking to the window just in time to catch Jasper’s reflection disappearing from the glass.
She lifted a brow. “Huh.”
I looked back at her. “What?”
“Paige’s bartender,” she said mildly. “You watched him walk down the street like you were afraid he might vanish. In fact, you watch him every time we’re in the bar the exact same way, don’t you?”
I opened my mouth to deny it.
Closed it again.
Heat crept up my neck, equal parts annoyance and something else I knew I was in total denial of and would absolutely not be talking about.
“He’s around a lot,” I said. “You know, in town. No big deal.”
“Mmhm,” Eliza murmured, deeply unconvinced. She took another sip of tea. “If you say so.”
Jasper was already gone, the street outside empty again. Still, that laugh lingered in my head, warm and unexpected, and my pulse took its time settling—as if I had heard something I wasn’t ready to forget.
Eliza smiled into her mug.
That smile said she’d seen everything.
And worse—she was going to remember.