Chapter 10 #3
Iris’s expression shifted, subtle but undeniable.
The sparkle in her eye dulled to something warmer, more grounded.
Her teasing posture softened, and for a moment, she just looked at Hazel.
Saw her. Saw every unspoken detail clinging to the light in her eyes, the curve of her lip, the ache in her jaw.
“Oh, Hazel,” she murmured. “That’s a caretaker move. That’s soil deep. He’s got it bad.”
Hazel looked down instead of answering, letting her fingertips drift along the edge of her water glass, tracing a slow path through the condensation.
The chill bit at her skin, grounding her.
She shifted the glass, then adjusted her fork, more for the sake of movement than order.
The sweater sleeves bunched at her wrists, soft and worn, still carrying the faintest trace of cedar and flannel and something else— something warm. Something him.
She exhaled and ran her tongue along her bottom lip, then bit it, trying to steady herself against the current rising in her chest.
Because it hadn’t just been the tea, or the toast, or the bed he gave up without hesitation.
It was the silence and how it never felt like punishment.
It was the steadiness and how it never once faltered.
It was the way he never asked her to explain her fear— he simply saw it, acknowledged it, and stayed.
“He dropped you off here?”
Hazel nodded, the motion small.
“And how did it feel? Being with him?”
Hazel didn’t answer right away.
She leaned back in her chair, spine straight but fingers still fidgeting— this time, her fingertips shifted to the ends of her hair, toying with the dark, curling locks. She’d pulled it free from the braid on the drive over.
She glanced around the restaurant, eyes skating over the rose gold cutlery, the gleaming tile behind the bar, the black and white menu with its looping, curated calligraphy.
She tried to focus on the hum of the brunch crowd, the sparkle of overcast light drifting through the windows, the muted jazz filling the space.
But none of it could anchor her.
Because the only thing she could feel was him.
The quiet steadiness of his presence. The way his voice never rose, even when things broke. The way he looked at her like he saw her. The way he didn’t flinch when she panicked. Didn’t hesitate when she called, just showed up.
And stayed.
She swallowed, her throat tight.
“It felt like…” her voice wavered, and she blinked down at the table. “Like I’d been picked up and put back together without realizing I’d come apart.”
Iris exhaled like she’d just seen the first bloom of spring.
“That’s it,” Iris whispered. “That’s the headline.”
Hazel let out a soft breath. Not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh.
Her thumb stroked idly over the seam of the sweater, comforted by its weight.
Her chest felt tight, but not with fear.
With longing. With the ache of something unfamiliar beginning to grow inside her, something warm and steady and terrifyingly real.
“So… what are we calling this, then?” Iris asked, chin resting on her hand, eyes twinkling with far too much glee for Hazel’s liking.
Hazel blinked, her hand stilling on its path towards her water glass. “What do you mean?”
Iris leaned forward, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Is this a situationship? A slow-burn epic? Or maybe—“
“Iris.” Hazel shot her a look, somewhere between a plea and a warning.
“What?” Iris raised both palms innocently, though her grin betrayed her.
“Oh, don’t give me that look. I’ve been married, happily, for like a billion years.
Let me live vicariously through you. I haven’t felt a romantic rush in a decade unless you count when my wife comes home with an extra bag of organic fertilizer I didn’t have to ask for. ”
Hazel shook her head, but her mouth tugged at the corners. “There’s nothing to call it. It’s… it’s not a thing.”
“No?” Iris arched a brow. “Because it sure sounded like a thing. Feels like a thing, too. You’re wearing the man’s clothes, Hazel.”
Hazel looked down at the sweater, as if she could pretend for a second that she hadn’t noticed it still wrapped around her like a second skin. As if it hadn’t comforted her the whole morning.
“I don’t know what it is,” she admitted, softer now. “I don’t know what he wants. Or what I want, really.”
Iris’s expression gentled.
“Well,” she said, folding her hands on the table like she was preparing to deliver some great, cosmic truth.
And knowing Iris, she probably was. “It doesn’t have to be a thing yet.
But whatever it is, it matters. You don’t look the way you just looked talking about him and then walk away untouched. ”
Hazel didn’t answer right away. Her fingers found the rim of her glass again, slow and steady.
She knew Iris was right. But knowing something and being ready to say it aloud were two very different things.
Still, she felt her voice tug toward honesty, even just a little.
“I think I’m scared it is something,“ she admitted, her voice so quiet it barely crossed the table. “Because what if it is real and it disappears? What if I get used to it and then he leaves? People do that with me. They let me down. A lot.”
Iris reached across the table and covered Hazel’s hand with her own, her touch warm and steady.
“Then you let yourself feel it anyway,” she said, her voice softened by the weight of Hazel’s admission.
Iris’s dark eyes were wide and warm as they stared into hers, comforting and reassuring in all the ways she didn’t know she needed.
“Because sometimes, the scariest things end up being the best ones.”
And just as Hazel began to open her mouth, to say something else, something truer, the atmosphere shifted.
Not gradually but suddenly, like a door opening somewhere unseen and letting in a draft.
Hazel felt it first in Iris, whose expression dimmed from soft to sharp in a single breath.
She sat straighter, her hand withdrawing from Hazel’s, and folded her napkin with the kind of practiced grace that belonged to a different version of her.
She had fixed her gaze on a point just past Hazel’s shoulder.
Then came the sound of heels, sharp and decisive against the polished floor. Not hurried, but measured. Intentional.
A moment later, the blonde woman from the day before— and from the opening day of the bakery— appeared like a trick of light, conjured rather than born, pressed from the pages of a lifestyle magazine where nothing bled, nothing bent, nothing broke.
She wore a bone-coloured turtleneck and dark trousers, cropped to reveal the precise slope of her bare, pale ankles. Her shoes were cheetah print mules with pointed toes and a low, gold heel— an unexpected flourish, like something beautiful with teeth. Her posture could have sliced glass.
When her gaze landed on Hazel, it was cool and familiar. Not hostile, not yet. Just... searching for cracks. Evaluating.
She smiled, almost, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Hazel. So nice to see you again.”
Hazel straightened automatically. The sound of her own name in that voice felt like being handed a slip of paper with something unpleasant written on it. “Hello,” Hazel offered, lifting a brow. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”
“I’m Imogen. I run Fork she smelled faintly of sandalwood and something citrusy, expensive and cold, like a minimalist candle in a house no one lived in.
Her eyes landed on Iris and Hazel could feel the drop in temperature. Whatever was there, between them, held history. History she would have to grill Iris on, just as soon as Imogen stepped away.
“Hi, Iris.” Her smile went tight, no longer pretending, and her voice slipped lower, dipping into something saccharine and razor-edged. “Surprised to see you here without a soiled apron on. Not working today? Business slowing down?”
Hazel had just reached for her cup of water but she froze mid-sip, the glass cool against her fingertips. Her eyes darted to Iris, searching for a reaction.
But Iris didn’t shrink, she didn’t even blink. Instead, she tilted her head, that familiar smile curling at the corners of her lips— sweet as jam, with something bitter hidden underneath.
“No apron today,” she replied, voice as smooth as honey on a knife. “But don’t worry, Imogen, I still brought the dirt.”
Hazel choked on her water, eyes wide.
At her side, one of Imogen’s hands twitched— her long, slender fingers curling up into her palm in a fist.
“Well,” Imogen said, her voice crisp, already turning away. “Enjoy your brunch, ladies.”
And then, to a passing server, barely audible but unmistakably clipped, she said, “Table four’s still waiting on water. Get to it.”
Her heels punctuated the air as she disappeared, sharp and steady and utterly unbothered, at least on the surface.
Silence fell like a curtain in her wake.