Chapter Twenty-Two #2
When she handed me a mug, our fingers touched, and that familiar current ran along all the places I pretend I don’t have nerves. Her smile faltered into something real and unguarded. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Yeah?” My voice was not as casual as I’d hoped.
“Yeah,” she said, and then ruined me completely by adding, “Even if you did terrify the doorman.”
“Attendant,” I corrected. “His name is Tad.”
“I’m sure he’s writing you up in a binder.”
“I hope it’s a nice binder.”
She laughed again, softer now, and set her mug down. “So. You’re here.”
“I am.”
“And you brought… pancakes?”
“Gingerbread men,” I said, flipping the lid. “So you could make fun of me.”
She looked into the box. She pressed her lips together so hard a dimple appeared in her cheek. “You massacred them.”
“I tried in the truck with a pocketknife.”
“God, you’re insufferable.”
“Still—”
“Don’t,” she said, grinning. “I will throw you off this balcony.”
“Then quit calling me names.”
We ate standing at the counter because sitting felt too official, and the city looked good from this angle.
“Did you really drive all the way down just to see if I remember you?” she asked around a mouthful of holiday carbs.
“Partly,” I said. “Partly to see if your world and mine can be in the same room without one swallowing the other.”
“And?”
“I think your world has better coffee and worse elevator smells.”
“Accurate.”
“And mine has better pancakes and worse Wi-Fi.”
“Also accurate.”
She studied my face then, the way she does when she’s weighing lines on a graph. “You sure about this? The thirty days. The driving. The… not running.”
“No,” I said truthfully. “But I’m sure I want to try.”
She watched that land, let it sit. Then she nodded once, like a deal had been struck. “Okay.”
The okay wasn’t fireworks. It was a lock sliding home.
Down on the street, a horn blared, someone shouted something that wasn’t festive at all, and a bus sighed to a stop. Up here, we stood in the glow of a wreath that was definitely crooked, in a city that didn’t owe us a quiet moment and gave us one anyway.
I held up my mug. “To test programs.”
She clinked hers against it. “Cheers.”
“And to Tad,” I added. “Who is not writing me up because I am, in fact, not a bad guy.”
She shook her head and bumped my shoulder with hers. “Don’t push your luck, Benedict.”
I won’t, I thought. Not with you. Not with this.
We finished the pancakes. We cleaned up in the casual choreography of people learning each other’s kitchens. I found the spoons without asking. She pretended not to be impressed and failed.
Seattle pressed itself against the windows and waited to see if we’d blink. We didn’t. We stood there with a snow globe between us and a city around us and three weeks ahead of us, and for once, it felt like both maps could occupy the same page.
“Tell me about your day,” I said.
And she did. And I listened. And the room didn’t tip.
And I couldn’t help but soak up every single second with her because we had enough history together to know it could be the last second she gave me. But I loved being in this apartment with her.
And it wasn’t the city view, though that was something, all glass and rain and skyline lights blinking like a field of grounded stars, it was her.
The way she moved around her own space. The soft warmth of her voice echoed off the high ceilings.
The faint peppermint-and-vanilla scent that clung to everything, including me now.
I caught myself glancing at the corner of her living room and grinned.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said, nodding toward the little tree twinkling beside her desk. “You actually put up decorations.”
She followed my gaze, cheeks flushing faintly. “Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I am, though,” I teased. “You? The woman who once called tinsel ‘glitter’s clingy cousin’?”
Melanie laughed, rolling her eyes. “Okay, I might’ve said that. But I had a change of heart.”
“Mm-hmm,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning against the counter. “You even hung lights around the window. Looks good on you, Sauser.”
She turned to face me, coffee mug clutched in both hands, lips quirking into something halfway between a smirk and a confession. “I decided to pull them out this year. Felt weird not to.”
Something about the way she said it, soft and a little shy, hit me hard.
“Wouldn’t have anything to do with Reckless River rubbing off on you, would it?”
Her eyes flicked to mine, bright and startled. “What? No. I mean…maybe. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
She fumbled for words, and for once, the woman who always had a comeback looked like her tongue had gone rogue. “It just… felt right. That’s all. It’s December. People decorate.”
“People,” I echoed. “Not you?”
She shot me a look, then laughed. “You’re...wait. I’m not going to say it.”
And I saw it—the tiny flicker in her eyes she didn’t quite manage to hide. The one that told me she was remembering the same thing I was: late nights in The Rusty Stag, stringing up garland while pretending not to notice how close we were standing. The quiet between us wasn’t really quiet at all.
The six times we’d slept together and explored each other as if we had no place to go. How her lips felt against mine.
And for the first time in a long while, something in me loosened.
I’d come here not knowing what I’d find. Maybe distance. Maybe closure. Maybe the polite version of a goodbye that still stings when you replay it later. But this—this was something else.
This was a woman who decorated her apartment because a small town had gotten under her skin, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
I didn’t say any of that, of course. Emotional honesty isn’t exactly my default setting.
All I could manage, standing there with her lights glowing soft and gold against the gray Seattle sky, was a grin that probably gave me away anyway.
“Show me around your city,” I said.
Her brow furrowed. “What?”
“You heard me.” I gestured vaguely at the window, where traffic glittered like a restless constellation. “You’ve seen my town. My bar. Now it’s your turn.”
She blinked, clearly caught off guard. “You want to… go out? Into the rain?”
I shrugged. “Sure. You’ve got that look like you’re about to launch into a million reasons why.”
Her lips curved slowly, amusement warring with disbelief. “You’re serious.”
“As a snowplow in July.”
She shook her head, half laughing. “You really think I’m going to play tour guide right now?”
“Why not? You love this city, right?”
“I do,” she said, a little too fast. “I think I do.”
“Then show me why.”
The silence that followed stretched just long enough for me to wonder if I’d pushed too far. But she finally exhaled, set her mug down, and said, “Fine. But don’t blame me when you get soggy.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, trying not to sound too damn pleased.
She disappeared into the bedroom and came back bundled in a long camel coat, a red scarf, and a pair of boots that looked like they could handle both weather and impulse decisions. She looked at me, chin tilted like she was daring me to comment.
“Don’t say it,” she warned.
“Say what?”
“That I look festive.”
“You do look festive,” I said anyway. “And like a city girl.”
Her laugh filled the apartment, light and a little exasperated, and I wanted to bottle it. That sound. That ease. The thing I didn’t realize I’d been missing until right this second.
We took the elevator down together, and when the doors opened to the lobby, the doorman, Tad, looked up from his desk.
“Back so soon?” he asked me, dry as espresso.
“Couldn’t stay away,” I said. “Love this lobby.”
Tad blinked and returned to his paperwork.
Outside, the rain had downgraded to a mist, the kind that makes the whole city shine like it’s been lacquered. Cars hissed along the wet streets, with headlights reflecting off puddles. Sidewalks glowed under the halo of streetlamps. People hurried past, shoulders hunched, scarves pulled high.
Melanie turned to me, her eyes softening as she took it all in. “You really want the tour?”
“I’m all yours,” I said. “I mean the tour. The city. You know what I meant.”
She grinned, clearly enjoying my fluster. “Sure, Benedict.”
We started walking, and for the first few blocks, she pointed things out in that offhand way that comes from actually living somewhere. The bakery with the best croissants. The coffee shop that doubled as a jazz bar on weekends. The corner bookstore she claimed kept her sane.
Everywhere she looked, I could see the version of her that belonged here—competent, confident, completely herself. It made something ache deep in my chest.
The thought of pulling her from this world made me realize I couldn’t do it.
When we stopped at a crosswalk, she glanced at me and smirked. “What’s that look?”
“Just thinking,” I said.
“Dangerous.”
“Probably.”
“About what?”
I shrugged. “About how maybe there’s a way to have both.”
She frowned. “Both what?”
“You,” I said before my brain could veto it. “Your city. My town. Something in between us.”
She went quiet, eyes flicking to the red light overhead like she was trying to find the right words there. “That’s not simple.”
“Nothing worth it ever is.”
Her lips parted slightly, surprise softening her features. The light changed, and she turned away, stepping off the curb. “Come on, small-town philosopher. You’re blocking traffic.”
I followed her into the street, heart tripping, rain dampening the shoulders of my jacket.
We walked for another block in the good kind of silence, where every step felt like a conversation we hadn’t figured out how to have yet.
And when she finally glanced over her shoulder, the corner of her mouth curled up.
“You’re beautiful, Mel. You fit this city.”
“You think Seattle is pretty?”
“In its own way.”
“You're full of surprises.” The sound of her laughter mixed with the city, the echo of Reckless River still somewhere in both of us.
“Show me around your city,” I said again, quieter this time.
She looked back at me, eyes shining with rain and something like hope.