Chapter 18 #3
This is Maisie, pure and true. She’s brought delight in the form of flowers; a note that shares her heart; her smile stealing the light, wide and full of mischief; and the eagerness that I will embrace her again fully, as I did last night.
I run my thumb over the petal of a coral rose. Its edges have begun to curl slightly, softness giving way to fragility.
“You ever figure out who left that rose at your shop?”
She lifts an eyebrow, lips twitching. “Oh, I always had my suspicions.”
My ears burn. I shift my weight, boots crunching faintly on the porch boards.
“I briefly thought of leaving a note,” I say, eyes fixed on the flower.
She steps closer, and the scent of citrus, roses, and rosemary wraps around me. “You were shy?”
“I thought…” I shake my head. “I hoped you’d understand without a note.”
Her gaze softens. “I didn’t need words. It was a beautiful gesture.”
My head lifts.
“I kept it on the counter for a few days,” she says, voice calming. “And then I pressed a few of the petals between the pages in a heavy book. It will remind me that someone thought of me in a way that deserved even a small token. Someone saw me. You saw me.”
My throat tightens. “The rose was a bit last minute, an idea that just popped into my brain. But you wouldn’t leave my mind. I thought of you the whole walk there. And just about every minute since then.”
Her smile deepens and the corners of her mouth pull up. Small crinkles form around her eyes.
I clear my throat, searching for composure in the face of her joy.
“Would you want to—”
“Yes.”
A quiet laugh escapes me. “You didn’t even let me ask.”
“You didn’t need to.”
I grin. “Old-fashioned way it is, then.”
She leans in, brushing a knuckle against my arm. “I like old-fashioned.”
The Griddle & Grain buzzes with its usual cozy clatter—cutlery tapping against plates, chairs scraping across wood floors, Marty whistling off-key in the kitchen. The booths are alive with chatter and clinking coffee mugs.
We slide into one across from the window. The vinyl squeaks beneath us. A chocolate cherry milkshake arrives, absurdly oversized, in a frosted glass goblet.
Marty eyes me as he sets it down. “That’s a lot of dairy for a man on a date.”
“I plan to share.” I slide the milkshake an inch closer to her side of the table.
“Smart,” Marty grunts. “Pen would’ve had my head if you keeled over from milkshake brain freeze.”
Maisie giggles and hands me a straw. Our fingertips meet again, briefly. She doesn’t pull away.
Pen approaches with fries and her usual sass. “I still can’t get over the potluck challenge.” She leans closer. “You saved his booty, you know. Real smooth work, flower girl.”
Maisie shrugs. “Spontaneous teamwork.”
Pen waves a hand. “Same thing in romance.” She smirks. “So it’s official now?”
A blush rises on Maisie’s cheeks. I rub the back of my neck.
“We’re figuring it out.”
Pen gasps. “After that kiss? Oh, honey. That was fire.”
Marty calls out from the kitchen, “Aren’t the kids saying something else now?”
Pen snorts. “‘Rizz.’ That’s the new one. Means charming. As in, ‘Beau rizzed Maisie for a kiss.’”
Maisie laughs so hard she nearly chokes on her straw.
“Used to call that being smooth,” Marty mutters, back at the table next to Pen now.
Pen shrugs. “We’re elders, my Mart man. Can’t keep up with the young ones in body or lingo.”
She leans in conspiratorially. “Did I ever tell you how we ended up married?”
Maisie grins. “Accidentally?”
“Vegas,” Pen announces. “A dare gone sideways. Silly T-shirts from some novelty casino shop. We were giddy with infatuation and filled out the paperwork while laughing too hard to take it seriously. I knocked a bottle of water over, soaking the officiant’s clipboard.
He nearly walked out thinking it was some kind of joke. ”
“To be fair,” Marty cuts in, sliding into the booth with his towel flung over his shoulder, “it looked like a prank. You were wearing a shirt that said ‘Buy Me Tacos and Tell Me I’m Pretty.’”
“And yours said ‘Game Over’ with a cartoon groom,” Pen fires back, grinning. “We were a walking warning label.”
“The officiant wasn’t wrong to hesitate,” Marty adds with a chuckle. “I had to bribe him with a bag of vending machine Oreos and swear we’d stick it out for at least thirty days. That convinced him.”
Pen nods thoughtfully as she listens. “We planned to annul it in a month.”
Marty checks his watch casually. “But then she kissed me in the hotel elevator and changed everything.”
Pen squeezes his arm. “And now we argue about buttercream versus cream cheese icing and live happily-ever-after in a kitchen.”
I raise my milkshake. “To accidental love.”
Maisie lifts her coffee cup, her eyes dancing with amusement. Marty raises his mug as in a solemn oath, then grins at Pen. “It wasn’t the Oreos that convinced the officiant,” he says. “It was your promise to cook him dinner if we made it to our first anniversary.”
Pen snorts. “He never collected. Probably for the best. I hadn’t figured out how to make anything but boxed mac and cheese back then.”
I lift the milkshake—still cold in my hands, still ridiculous in size—and meet their cups halfway. The glass bumps gently against Maisie’s mug.
“To accidental love,” I say again, and add quietly, “or maybe not so accidental.”
“And to sticking it out,” Marty echoes.
Pen winks at Maisie. “And to knowing when an impulsive choice turns out to be the best decision you never saw coming.”
We toast again, laughter softening into something slower, deeper.
When we’re all quiet again, Pen looks at Maisie and then at me.“Word of advice?” We nod in sync.
“A successful relationship means falling in love again and again, but always with the same person,” she says with a glimmer in her eye but a tone full of wisdom.
Marty adds, “Don’t ever go to bed angry. Stay awake and fight it out…or just forgive the other person already, then laugh together about it afterwards.”
Later, we walk slowly through the empty streets of Sweetpines. The early evening air is crisp, clean, and wrapped in the scent of soil and distant woodsmoke. Porch lights flame to life. Our shoulders brush. Her hand finds mine, fingers curling around mine with certainty.
“I think I’m in love with Sweetpines’ most mysterious man,” she says.
I glance at her. “That so?”
“Tall. Reserved. Hides a secret identity. And a guitar. Definitely suspicious.”
I bump her shoulder gently. “You’ve got your secrets, too.”
“True.” She looks up at me. “But you still picked me.”
“I think I was always going to.”
She quiets, and our steps slow, as we stop outside Botaniq?e. A few blooms press against the glass, as though they’re listening in.
I take a breath, grounding myself.
“I’ve spent years hiding pieces of myself.”
Maisie stays still, watching, absorbing my confession.
“You already know more of me than anyone ever has.” I reach up, knuckles caressing her cheek. Slow. Soft. “I want to spend whatever time I’ve got left learning everything about you. And letting you see all of me in return. Not the past. Not the secrets. The real me. The man in front of you now.”
Maisie doesn’t answer with words.
Instead, she steps forward and rests her palm lightly against my chest, right over my heart. Her eyes search mine, steady and open, as if waiting for me to stiffen or pull away after such a vulnerable admission.
I don’t.
Peaches barks once, then trots in a circle around us, tail swishing.
I place my hand over hers and press it more firmly into my chest.
Maisie smiles, and all remaining fear about us vanishes, especially the fear that showing her what matters most would cost me everything.
I’ve seen what happens when someone takes what I’ve made, what I’ve offered, and twists it for themselves.
But Maisie’s different. She takes what I give her of myself and stays.
I exhale. A release. A promise.
I’m staying, and so is she. Right here, in this moment. Not dragging our past wounds into it to define our relationship or bracing for what might go wrong. We’re just two people, choosing each other exactly as we are, and letting that be enough.
The night stands still around us, full of breathless potential. I wrap my arms around Maisie and rest my cheek on the top of her head, swaying slightly in a dance that only we know. There’s no music, no audience—just closeness. And that’s all we need.
As I hold her, something stirs in the back of my mind, in the same place where a song is born. Whatever it is, it’s not clear, not nameable, but definitely connected to the part of me that makes sense of life by creating and shaping things into something tangible.
I don’t rush it or try to understand. I trust that if it’s significant, it’ll find its shape when I’m ready.