Chapter Three #2
But the silence felt different now. Less like peace and more like absence. For three hours, someone had been asking me questions I didn't know I wanted to answer. Filling the spaces I'd thought I preferred empty.
I went back to the Harrison arrangement. White lilies, white stock, soft ferns. Clear purpose. No ambiguity.
Jamie
The Ridgeline Tavern smelled like wood smoke and old beer, and I was pretty sure everyone in the place was watching us.
Wednesday evening, the dinner crowd had filled most of the tables: families, couples, a few guys at the bar nursing their drinks with the dedication of regulars.
The jukebox played something country from before I was born.
And Holden Hutchinson sat across from me in a booth near the back, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.
I'd changed three times before leaving my apartment.
The navy sweater felt too casual. The button-down felt like I was trying too hard.
I'd landed on something in between, a dark green henley that brought out my eyes, according to Landon back when Landon said things like that.
Nicer jeans. Boots instead of my beat-up Converse.
Holden wore the same flannel he'd worn at the shop. Gray and blue plaid, sleeves rolled to his elbows, work-worn in a way that said he'd forgotten to change. Or didn't think he needed to.
“So,” I said. “First fake date. How are we doing?”
“You tell me. You're the one who wanted this.”
“Fair point.” I picked up my menu, scanned it without reading. “What's good here?”
“The burger's good. Pork chops are great if they've got 'em.”
A waitress came by. Mid-forties, gray threading through her ponytail, a nametag that said DENISE. She had the look of someone who'd worked here long enough to know everyone's business and the smile of someone who enjoyed that knowledge.
“What can I get you boys?” The way she said boys landed somewhere between affectionate and amused.
Burger for me, same for Holden. She lingered a beat too long before walking away, and I caught her glancing back at us from the kitchen doorway.
“She's going to tell everyone,” I said.
“Probably already texted three people.”
I laughed, surprised. Holden's mouth quirked, not quite a smile but closer than usual.
The firelight from across the room caught the angles of his face, softened the sharp line of his jaw.
Made him look less like a man braced against the world and more like someone who might, occasionally, let his guard down.
“Okay.” I leaned back in the booth. “We should know things about each other. Couples know things. Tell me something I wouldn't guess.”
We'd spent three mornings working together at the shop, but mostly in separate rooms, moving around each other.
Sometimes I found myself watching Holden as he put his arrangements together, carefully selecting stems and inserting them here and there, like he was filling in a picture he'd had in his head.
I didn't want to interrupt when he was in that headspace.
It felt like watching something private.
“Like what?”
“Anything. Favorite movie. Worst date you've ever been on. Secret talent.”
Holden was quiet for a moment, his fingers tracing the condensation on his glass. “I restore furniture.”
“What?”
“In the apartment. When I can't sleep.” He shrugged, the movement almost self-conscious. “There's a dresser I've been working on for two years. Victorian. Someone left it on the curb.”
I tried to picture it. Holden in his apartment at two in the morning, hands moving over old wood the same way they moved over flower stems. Careful. Precise. Patient.
Of course he rescued furniture. Of course he did.
“That's not what I expected,” I said.
“What did you expect?”
“I don't know. Brooding? Staring out windows? Standing alone in the dark?”
His mouth twitched. “I do that too.”
“Now you're just playing to type. My own private Mr. Darcy.” I took a sip of my beer, something local that tasted like pine needles and poor life choices. Holden's low chuckle told me he got the reference. Good. “Okay, your turn. Ask me something.”
He considered me for a moment. “Why graphic design?”
“That's what you want to know?”
“I don't know, I feel like I know all about you already.” Holden narrowed his eyes playfully. “Unless there's something else that you want me to know.”
The honesty of it caught me off guard. I set down my beer, thinking about how to answer.
“Just... I'm not as pathetic as my story might lead you to believe. My reasons for moving here are ridiculous, but I'm not—”
“I don't think you're pathetic, Jamie. Sounds like you know what's important to you and you're willing to prioritize the good things in your life. I respect that.”
The words were more perceptive than I’d given him credit for. I nudged his foot under the table, and he nudged back.
The burgers came. We ate, and the conversation kept going, easier now, less aware of being watched.
I learned that Holden's grandmother had taught him to cook but he mostly lived on sandwiches.
That he'd read the same three books every year since college and couldn't explain why.
That he'd never been further west than Utah and had no particular desire to change that.
He learned that I'd switched majors three times before landing on design. That I called my mom every Sunday without fail. That I'd once driven fourteen hours to see a meteor shower and fallen asleep in my car before it started.
“You drove fourteen hours and missed it?”
“I was tired. It had been a long week.”
“That might be the saddest thing I've ever heard.”
“It gets worse. When I woke up, there was a cow looking at me through the windshield.”
Holden laughed. A real laugh, low and startled, like he hadn't expected it to escape. Like his body had betrayed him into joy.
The sound did something to me, cracked open a box that I'd been trying to keep closed. I wanted to catalog it, file it away, figure out how to make it happen again.
Small victory. Worth remembering.
By the time we paid the check, the Tavern had emptied out. Denise wished us a good night with a warmth that felt genuine, and then we were outside in the January dark, breath fogging in the cold air.
“That wasn't terrible,” Holden said.
“High praise from you.” I shoved my hands in my pockets against the cold. “I'll see you in the morning. I've got a video call at nine, but I can be there by ten.”
“Ten works.”
We stood on the sidewalk, wood smoke hanging in the air from the Tavern's chimney. The distance between us felt charged, electric. I thought about the plan. The performance. The kiss goodnight that was supposed to sell our story to anyone watching from a window.
“People might be looking,” I said.
“Might be.”
“So we should probably—”
“Yeah.”
Neither of us moved. Holden's jaw was tight, his breath visible in the cold. The streetlight caught his cheekbones, the dark of his hair, and I thought about how he'd looked in the park that first day. The certainty of him, the way he'd bent down like he knew exactly what he was doing.
I went up on my toes.
Holden met me halfway, one hand coming up to cup the back of my head, his fingers threading through my hair. The kiss was soft at first, careful, almost questioning.
Then I grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him closer, and it stopped being careful.
His mouth was warm against the cold. His other hand found my waist, steadying me, and I leaned into him. The height difference should have been awkward. It wasn't. He bent to me like it was easy, like he'd been waiting.
I forgot, for a moment, that this was supposed to be for show. Forgot that anyone might be watching. There was just his mouth and mine, his hand in my hair, the solid warmth of his body against the January night.
The delicious feeling of kissing a lovely man.
His hand was still in my hair when I broke the kiss.
“See you tomorrow,” I said. It came out rough.
“Tomorrow.”
I spent every second of the walk home replaying the kiss.
The way his hand had felt in my hair, how he'd pulled me close to him. The way it had started as an act and ended as something else, something that made my pulse race and my thoughts scatter.
If this was real, I'd be in serious trouble.
Good thing this wasn't real.