20. Taven
TAVEN
The scraped legs of a folding chair screech across the hardwood floor.
The community hall is a ghost of the party it hosted just hours ago, the air thick with the scent of spilled punch and exhaustion.
I stack another chair onto the dolly, the metal cool against my hands.
Across the room, Ben methodically breaks down tables, his movements economical and silent.
Lachlan is near the stage, wrestling a string of stubborn lanterns from the rafters, humming something that is definitely not a real song.
We work in a shared silence, punctuated by the clatter of cleanup.
But my attention snags. My eyes keep finding the front doors.
Every time they swing open, my head jerks in their direction, a reflex I can’t seem to control.
It’s her. Again. Chasity carries another box labelled DECORATIONS toward the storage closet, her cheeks flushed with a high colour that has nothing to do with the cold night outside.
A strand of chestnut hair has worked its way loose from a clip and rests against the soft skin of her neck.
I slam the next chair into place, the clank of metal echoing in the cavernous room.
It’s a useless exercise, trying to push this feeling away.
This… thing. This attachment. It’s a weed that has taken root in my chest, and I can no longer pretend it’s just a passing curiosity about the town’s newest resident.
I watch her now, pausing to laugh with Rosa from the diner as they pack up unsold baked goods.
She listens with a genuine focus, her head tilted.
Old Mrs. Gable shuffles over and practically shoves a whole apple pie into Chasity’s hands, patting her arm like she’s her own long-lost granddaughter.
She fits here. She just… fits. The sight triggers something painful and close to longing inside me, a sharp ache for a picture I didn’t know I wanted.
Then she drifts toward Lachlan as he finally frees the last lantern.
He says something low, and her head tips back as a genuine laugh spills from her.
A moment later, she settles beside Ben, offering him a bottle of water.
Their shoulders brush. They stand in an easy, comfortable quiet that says everything without a single word.
A hot, toxic thread twists deep in my gut.
I try to shove it down, to rationalize it, to deny the raw, territorial instinct I thought my divorce had burned out of me for good.
It doesn't work. The jealousy is still there, sharp and undeniable, coiling tighter every time her orbit shifts toward them.
The door clicks shut behind her, the sound loud in the sudden quiet.
Amy and Rosa’s voices die away as they cross the car park, and then it is just us.
The hum of the fluorescent lights overhead feels deafening.
Ben continues his work, his motions steady as he stacks the last of the chairs against the far wall.
Lachlan, over by the stage, carefully folds a dark blue tablecloth, his movements slow and deliberate.
I grab a broom and start sweeping up confetti and crushed paper napkins, the bristles scratching against the wood floor.
The air is thick. It isn't an angry silence, not exactly. It’s heavier than that.
It’s the silence of three men who have spent weeks circling the same truth, pretending not to see what has become painfully obvious every time she walks into a room.
I expect someone to make a joke, to cut the tension with a sharp comment, to do what men do when they find themselves in a situation like this.
I expect avoidance. Denial. I brace for the quiet drawing of battle lines as I sweep dust into a neat pile.
The only sounds are the swish of my broom and the quiet thud of Ben locking the casters on the chair dolly.
Lachlan sets a perfectly folded tablecloth into a cardboard box. He doesn't look at either of us. His focus is on the next cloth, smoothing the wrinkles from the fabric with the flat of his hand.
“You know, I’m done pretending this is simple.” His voice is quiet, but it carries through the empty hall, landing right in the heavy space between us. He places another cloth in the box. “I care about her. A lot.”
He finally looks up, his gaze moving from me to Ben.
There is no challenge in his eyes. No embarrassment.
He says it like he is stating the time or the day of the week, a simple fact that has settled into his bones.
The confession itself doesn't shock me. We all have eyes. We all have a pulse. It’s the delivery that catches me off guard—the complete lack of competition.
He isn’t claiming her. He’s just admitting the truth into the open air, as if it’s a weight he has decided he no longer needs to carry alone. The broom stills in my hands.
The broom stills in my hands. The confession stays in the air between us, plain and unadorned. My knuckles are white where I grip the wooden handle. I wait for the spark. The challenge. The inevitable moment where this boils over into something ugly.
But it never comes.
Ben pushes the last dolly of chairs against the wall and the wheels lock with a quiet click. He wipes his palms on the thighs of his grease-stained jeans, his broad shoulders slumping just a fraction. He meets Lachlan’s gaze, then his eyes drop to the scuffed floorboards.
“I didn’t expect it,” Ben’s voice is low, rough around the edges, but as solid as the ground we stand on.
“Her being here. Now… the engine’s fixed.
Has been for days.” He finally looks up, his blue eyes holding a deep-seated ache that I recognize all too well.
“The thought of her driving away from this town… it’s a physical hurt. ”
There it is. The second admission. Just as honest. Just as unguarded.
I stand here, holding a damn broom like a weapon I don’t know how to use, listening to two men lay their hearts bare.
I wait for the anger to rise in my own throat, for the territorial instinct to kick in and tell them to back the hell off.
But it’s muted. Drowned out by a cold wave of something else.
It isn’t resentment that settles in the dust dancing in the fluorescent light.
It’s fear. A quiet, collective dread that unites the three of us in this ridiculous, empty hall.
We aren’t rivals fighting for a prize. We’re just three men terrified of the silence she’ll leave behind.
That shared vulnerability cracks something open inside me.
The jealousy is still there, a hot coil in my gut when I picture her laughing with Lachlan behind the bar or standing in the comfortable silence of Ben’s garage.
That fire doesn’t just go out. But I can’t ignore the truth anymore, because I see it every single day.
With Lachlan, a lightness breaks through her anxiety; she laughs without thinking, she trades barbs, she forgets to be perfect.
With Ben, a deep-seated tension releases from her shoulders; she’s soft, she’s cared for, she breathes out in a way she doesn’t with anyone else.
And with me… with me, she drops the act.
The carefully constructed walls crumble and she’s just…
honest. She lets her sharp edges show. She argues, she pushes back, she doesn’t apologize for the space she takes up.
We don’t own different pieces of her. We just get to see them.
And looking at these two men, I realize none of our connections threaten the others.
They build on them. It’s a pattern I have no name for, a kind of emotional geometry that makes no sense.
But I am a part of it. And I can’t deny it any longer.
The heavy door of the community hall clicks shut behind me, the sound final in the mountain quiet.
The cold air bites at my skin, sharp and clean, a welcome shock after the stale, confession-thick atmosphere inside.
My hands are shoved deep in the pockets of my hoodie, the broom handle’s phantom weight still impressed on my palms. The confessions from Lachlan and Ben echo not in my ears, but in my ribs, a low thrum that has settled beneath my own heartbeat.
Across the asphalt expanse of Main Street, the diner glows.
A warm, yellow rectangle cut out of the deep blue of the night.
My feet stop on the pavement’s edge. Through the large plate-glass window, I see them.
It is a scene painted under fluorescent lights.
Chasity is perched on a bar stool, her back to the window, but I can see the shake of her shoulders as she laughs, a full-bodied joy that makes even the old vinyl of the seat seem to bounce.
Rosa stands opposite her, wiping down the counter, a smile cracking her tired face.
Then I see the others. Lachlan leans against the counter next to Chasity, his hip angled toward her, a smirk playing on his lips.
He’s in his element, the charming host holding court even after hours.
And just behind him, near the coffee machines, is Ben.
He moves with that quiet purpose of his, refilling a sugar dispenser, his broad-shouldered frame a silent, steady anchor in the bright room.
He tops off Chasity’s mug without her even seeming to notice, a small act of service so ingrained it’s like breathing.
I watch the lazy, gravitational orbit they all share.
It’s effortless. Lachlan makes a comment, and Chasity’s head whips toward him, a retort ready on her tongue.
Ben sets a fresh napkin beside her plate, and her hand absently finds his arm in a gesture of simple thanks.
They circle her, and she circles them, a constellation that burns brightly in the otherwise sleepy town.
Watching them doesn’t feel like a punch to the gut.
The hot coil of jealousy is still there, a pilot light I can’t extinguish, but it’s no longer a consuming fire.
Instead, a strange sense of clarity settles over me.
This isn’t a battle. It was never a choice between one of us.
To see it that way was wrong. This, whatever this is, feels…
inevitable. It feels like standing at the edge of a new territory, with no map and no name, and recognizing the landscape as something real, something undeniably honest. And I find I have no desire to turn back. I am already in it. We all are.