Chapter 11 #3
“I asked what you thought about the ending,” Michelle says, watching me a little too carefully. “When she finally confronts him.”
“Oh. I thought it was...satisfying. She gave him a chance to explain instead of just assuming the worst.”
“But she almost didn’t,” Amber points out. “She almost walked away without asking. She was so convinced he’d been manipulating her that she nearly missed the truth—that he’d been trying to be brave enough to tell her the whole time.”
“He should have just told her,” I say, more forcefully than I intend. “Instead of all the secret letters and anonymous confessions. If he really cared about her, he would have been honest from the beginning.”
The kitchen goes quiet.
“You okay?” Hazel asks gently.
“Fine. I’m fine. I just—” I set down my wine glass. “I think secrets are complicated. Even well-intentioned ones.”
Grandma Hensley is studying me with her knowing eyes. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain landlord, would it?”
“What? No. We’re talking about the book.”
“We’re talking about a book where a woman falls for her anonymous pen pal while simultaneously developing feelings for a man she sees every day.” Michelle raises an eyebrow. “Sound familiar?”
“That’s not—I’m not—”
“You’ve been checking that brass mailbox seventeen times a day,” Jo says. “Caroline told us.”
“Caroline needs to stop gossiping about my mail habits.”
“And you’ve been making eyes at Scott Avery at every planning meeting,” Amber adds. “The whole town’s talking about it.”
“I have not been making eyes.”
“Yes, you have,” everyone says in unison.
I drop my head into my hands. “This is an ambush.”
“This is a book club meeting that has naturally evolved into a discussion of your love life,” Michelle corrects. “There’s a difference.”
“A subtle one,” Grandma Hensley adds. “But important.”
Amber’s cat, Butterscotch, chooses this exact moment to leap onto the kitchen island.
Right onto the cheese board.
Brie goes flying. Crackers scatter like shrapnel. Grandma Hensley shrieks and throws her hands up, sending her book arcing through the air. It smashes against Jo’s wine glass, knocking it over.
“Butterscotch!” Amber lunges for the cat, who has already snagged a piece of gouda and is making a break for it across the counter.
The cat knocks over the cracker box, and it hits the fruit bowl which tips, and suddenly grapes are rolling everywhere, bouncing off the granite and onto the floor like tiny green escape artists.
I try to catch a grape. Miss. Step on another grape. My foot shoots out from under me.
Michelle grabs my arm to steady me, and somehow we both end up stumbling into Hazel, who catches herself on the island but sends the napkin holder flying.
Napkins flutter down around us like the world’s most domestic confetti.
“Nobody move!” Amber commands, still chasing Butterscotch, who has retreated to the top of the refrigerator with his stolen cheese, looking enormously pleased with himself.
We freeze.
“I am so sorry,” Amber says, slightly out of breath. “He’s usually better behaved. Brett spoils him with deli meat, and now he thinks all food is his food.”
“The book is ruined,” Grandma Hensley mourns.
“I’ll buy you a new copy.”
“I had notes in the margins!”
“I’ll buy you two copies.”
We spend the next ten minutes cleaning up grape casualties and rescuing what’s left of the cheese. Butterscotch watches from the top of the refrigerator, still guarding his gouda like a tiny orange dragon.
Once we’re resettled—cheese board reassembled, wine glasses refilled, Grandma Hensley clutching a replacement book borrowed from Amber’s shelf—Michelle steers us back on course.
“So. Jessica. You were saying something about secrets being complicated.”
“I wasn’t saying anything. I was making a general observation about the book.”
“The book that mirrors your exact situation.”
“It doesn’t mirror my—” I stop. Sigh. “Okay. Fine. Maybe there are some parallels.”
“Some parallels,” Jo repeats. “You’re exchanging anonymous letters with a local author. You’re developing feelings for your landlord. That’s not ‘some parallels.’ That’s a one-to-one adaptation.”
“Are you saying you think Scott is her secret penpal?” Grandma Hensley asks, leaning forward.
“I was actually just thinking that,” I admit.
“Tell us everything,” Amber says. “From the beginning.”
So I do.
I tell them about Coastal Quill’s letters—the vulnerability, the honesty, the way he writes about struggling with authenticity. I tell them about Scott showing up at the planning meetings, making chaos columns and looking at me like I’m a puzzle he can’t solve.
“What else?” Michelle prompts.
“Coastal Quill wrote about watching fireworks with someone. Scott was at the Fourth of July. With me.” I take a breath.
“The question is,” Grandma Hensley says, “what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. Ask him, I guess?”
“Directly?” Jo looks impressed. “Bold.”
“What’s the alternative? Keep wondering forever?”
“You could set a trap,” Mads suggests. “Like in the book. Drop a reference to something only Coastal Quill would know and see if he reacts.”
“That feels manipulative.”
“It’s information gathering,” Grandma Hensley corrects. “Very different.”
“Here’s what I think,” Amber says, pouring herself more wine.
“If Scott is Coastal Quill, then yes, he’s been keeping a secret.
But he’s also been showing you who he really is—just through letters instead of conversation.
The question isn’t whether he lied. The question is whether you can love both versions.
The businessman and the letter writer. The armor and what’s underneath. ”
“What if I can’t?”
“Then you can’t, and you move on, and you’ll have your answer.” She shrugs. “But what if you can? What if the man who writes you those beautiful, vulnerable letters is the same man who makes you a chaos column because he wants to make space for you in his carefully organized life?”
“That would be...”
“Romantic,” Hazel supplies.
“Terrifying,” I counter.
“Same thing, honestly.”
Michelle reaches across the island and squeezes my hand. “You know what I think? I think you already know. I think you’ve known for a while. You’re just scared to be right.”
She’s not wrong. But the problem is, I’m not sure I have the courage to ask him about it.