Chapter 16
The snow had picked up again. Not frenzied, but steady, the thick flakes tumbling through the streetlamp glow.
It was the kind that dulled sound and thickened silence.
Hazel’s boots moved through it carefully, muffling her footsteps, the powder brushing up over the toes of her boots in a fine, quiet line.
Beside her, Beck walked with his coat collar turned up against the cold, one hand tucked in his pocket, the other loose at his side.
His gait was steady, but not even, she noticed it now more clearly than she had before.
The slight favouring of his right leg, the subtle tilt of his weight each time they stepped off a curb or shifted direction.
It wasn’t dramatic, just familiar. Like a rhythm his body had learned and made peace with.
And suddenly she understood. The stiffness on colder days, the way he leaned into railings or sat with care.
It all came together— not as a flaw, but a fact.
A quiet truth stitched into him, weathered and worn smooth by time.
She found herself watching the shape of him as they walked.
The broadness of his shoulders, the rise and fall of his breath, the way his jaw was dusted in faint stubble and half-turned toward her, like he was listening for something even when neither of them were speaking.
They hadn’t said much since leaving Verdance. He’d offered to walk her home, and she’d accepted.
And yet, the silence between them wasn’t empty. It felt charged, almost sacred, like a stillness you didn’t dare break with anything too sharp.
Hazel’s coat was cinched at the waist but beneath it, the velvet dress still clung to the warmth he’d pressed into her.
Her skin was nearly buzzing beneath the layers, like it hadn’t yet stopped registering his touch.
His kiss. The press of his palm low at her back.
The heat of his breath against her mouth.
She felt altered by it. Rewritten, somehow. And beyond that, she was terrified that if she said the wrong thing now, the spell would lift and he’d slip back into the quiet, unreachable version of himself she’d known for months.
So instead, she reached for the gentlest thing she could think of. Except it wasn’t gentle at all, not in the way it mattered. It was simply different, a diversion from whatever was building between them, seething just beneath the surface, spitting and hissing like water meeting a hot coil.
“You and Leigh… are you close?” she asked, her voice barely loud enough to be heard above the world around them. “I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”
Beside her, Beck tilted his head— not in surprise, but in consideration. He was quiet for a few steps more before answering.
“We’re not,” he admitted, his chin still turned in her direction. “Not really. She’s been helping me with my injury. Giving me some exercises and stretches to help relax and build the muscle up again.”
Hazel glanced at him, brows lifting.
“She’s studying online to get her physiotherapist license. She wants to offer it through Northlight,” he added. “Eventually. She’s been letting me come in during off-hours when the place is quiet.”
Hazel nodded, the pieces falling into place.
It was so Leigh— gentle, grounded, deliberate.
Of course she’d want to help people rebuild their bodies as well as their strength.
And of course she’d never mention it to anyone, because she likely knew as well as Hazel did, that that was the way Beck would like it to be.
“And she’s been helping with your leg?” Hazel asked, quieter this time.
Beck nodded. “My leg, my hip, my knee. There was… damage, after my last posting. I almost lost the leg. There was a lot of surgery and a long recovery. It’s better now, mostly. Just flares up when it’s cold or if I overdo it. Which I do, sometimes.”
The admission was matter of fact. No self-pity, no false bravado. Just Beck, saying something difficult the same way he might describe the weather.
Hazel didn’t reply right away. Her gaze drifted down again, following the subtle pattern of his steps, the way one foot dug deeper than the other, the way he moved with the awareness of his own limitations— not in fear of them, but in practiced accommodation.
Something in her stilled, like her body recognized the weight of what he’d shared before her mind had time to catch up.
It wasn’t shock. It wasn’t even sadness.
It was something deeper than either of those.
An ache that bloomed slow and sure behind her ribs— not because he’d been hurt, but because he’d carried it so quietly, for so long.
And she’d seen it, hadn’t she? In the way he stood, always just slightly angled to one side.
In how his fingers curled around stair rails or workbenches like anchors, and in the way he moved through the world with careful intention, like every step had been measured and earned.
She’d noticed, sure, but she hadn’t known.
Now that she did, it was like another piece of him clicked into place.
She glanced sideways, studying the shape of him through the falling snow again.
The set of his shoulders, the subtle tightness in his jaw.
There was no embarrassment in his posture, no need to explain further.
He wasn’t giving her a wound to cradle, he was offering her a fact, a truth carved into him by fire and healed over in silence.
And that, somehow, undid her more than anything else.
She didn’t reach for his hand, didn’t step closer, but her breath slowed. Her heart did that strange, fluttering tilt it always seemed to do around him. And all she could think— absurd and quiet and clear as glass— was: I see you.
She hoped, somehow, he could feel it.
“I wondered…” she admitted, her eyes still on him. “Sometimes you move like it hurts.”
His brow lifted, like he was surprised, but he didn’t look away. “Sometimes it does.”
Silence stretched between them for a few more moments, stretched thin in the small space that separated them.
With each step, their arms would brush, but neither of them seemed bothered by the brief beats of connection.
They made their way down the street where Hazel’s grandmother’s house sat at the very end, the snow continuing to fall and press tiny, cool pinpricks to Hazel’s exposed skin.
“You think you’ll ever tell me more about it?”
The words left Hazel before she could second-guess them. They came quiet and careful, offered like a match held to the dark, not demanding light, but hoping for it.
Beside her, Beck slowed just a fraction. He didn’t stop walking, but something in his shoulders shifted. The set of them grew tighter for half a heartbeat, like the question had landed somewhere tender, somewhere still healing. He didn’t answer right away.
Hazel looked over, her chest tightening.
Maybe it was too much, too soon. Her fingers fidgeted inside her coat pocket, picking at the frayed edge of a seam she hadn’t stitched up.
She suddenly felt the weight of it, that fragile balance between closeness and overreach, between witnessing and asking to know more.
And just when she opened her mouth to say Never mind, or You don’t have to, he spoke.
“I will,” Beck said, voice low and level.
Hazel stilled, her own footsteps slowing.
He turned his head just enough that their eyes met. His profile was half-illuminated and half-shrouded in shadows, the porch light from the top of the driveway just barely reaching this far. His gaze didn’t dart away, didn’t dodge. It simply held, locked onto hers.
“I want to.”
There was a beat of silence, and then Beck exhaled slow through his nose, and lifted a hand to the back of his neck.
His fingers raked through the ends of his hair, tugging at the loose curls that had formed there.
It was a gesture she’d seen before, usually when something in him twisted tight, or when he was holding something in, trying to keep it from slipping out too soon.
“Just not tonight.”
His hand dropped but their eyes hadn’t broken.
Hazel gave a slow nod. She felt it in her throat first, then in the soft part of her chest. “Okay.”
And it was. It really was.
Because what he gave her in that moment wasn’t just permission to ask, it was the promise of an answer, eventually, when it could be given with both hands. When he was ready. And that was all she could hope for.
When they reached the house just a minute later, Beck stepped forward first. Without speaking, he moved to the porch stairs and tested the railing, his hand curling around the wood, giving it a slight, thoughtful shake.
Hazel smiled as she watched him from a few paces behind, her cheeks straining with the effort.
Still bent over the banister, Beck looked back at her, brows raised, seemingly perplexed by her amusement.
“This version’s better than the last one,” she said, voice dry but warm.
He huffed a low laugh, straightening. “Didn’t take much.”
She stepped up beside him, her boots quiet on the wood, and turned to face him fully in the porch light. She gave her head a shake, meeting his eyes.
The glow caught the edge of his jaw, his brow, and the tips of his lashes, which were dusted faintly with snow.
His hair curled slightly at the edges, wind-tossed and damp, and his mouth— soft and unsmiling— was parted just enough that she could see the quick, shallow draw of his breath as she neared.
He looked at her like he didn’t know what to say. Or maybe like he did, but didn’t trust himself to say it out loud.
Hazel’s heart knocked against her ribs.
And then, with slow and purposeful deliberation, she closed the space between them.
Her fingers reached for the lapel of his coat, tugging gently, just enough to tilt his mouth toward hers. His hands came up— one to her waist, the other to her cheek— and in the next breath, he kissed her again.
But this time, it wasn’t tentative.
This time, it was full. Heated.