Chapter 37
LAINE
The hospital has protocols for mass casualties, infectious diseases, and active shooters. I need a protocol for the farmer's market. A flowchart. A binder with color-coded tabs.
"Okay. Ground rules."
Reid kills the engine. I twist in the passenger seat to face them, my fingers digging into the denim of my jeans.
Reid is already grinning, vibrating with that kinetic energy he can never quite suppress.
Blake is in the back seat, arms crossed, effectively walled off behind three layers of invisible concrete.
"Ground rules," Reid repeats. "For the farmer's market. Are there going to be formations? A playbook? Should I have stretched?"
"Shut up." I poke his shoulder, letting myself enjoy the solid warmth of him for a second, then look back at Blake. "You. Uncross your arms."
He doesn't move. "My arms are fine where they are."
"Your arms are building a fortress." And I would know, because I've been building my own for weeks. "Last time we went somewhere together, you were so far behind us at the hardware store the cashier asked if you needed help finding your party."
"I was looking at router bits."
"You were being invisible on purpose and we both know it."
Something shifts in his jaw. Not quite a smile. Not quite not one.
"Three." I unbuckle. I have to force my arm to extend, bridging the gap between the seats to put my hand on Blake's knee. Make the first move, Laine. Establish the baseline.
"People are going to look. They're going to do the math. Two guys, one girl, too much physical contact. And that's fine." My stomach does a nervous little flip, but I push the words out anyway. "We don't owe anyone an explanation."
Blake's quiet. His eyes drop to my hand on his knee. I can see the gears grinding behind that stoic face. Threat evaluation. Risk assessment. He’s doing the exact same thing my brain is doing, just hiding it better.
"Blake." I wait until he meets my eyes. "I want to walk through that market holding your hand. Both your hands." My chest goes tight. So tired of being careful. So tired of running. "I want to buy stupid vegetables and eat samples and be us out there. The real us."
The parking lot hums around us. Someone's kid is screaming about kettle corn.
Blake uncrosses his arms. "Okay," he says quietly.
Reid squeezes my knee. "For the record, I was already on board. I didn't need the speech."
"You always need the speech. You just like hearing me talk."
"That's... actually true."
I grab both their hands after we climb out of the truck. Blake's fingers are stiff at first, rough with calluses, before they slowly curl around mine. Reid's grip is instant, easy, swinging my arm like we're heading to a carnival.
Two hands. Two men. One very public Saturday morning.
Who does this? Lunatics. I am a lunatic.
Sunlight hits my face the second we step into the main aisle. The market is a sea of canvas tents, dogs on leashes, and people. So many people.
We make it approximately fifteen feet before the first look.
A woman with a double stroller clocks us as we pass. Eyes on me, then left to Reid, then right to Blake, then down to our joined hands. I can practically see the arithmetic happening behind her sunglasses. Her gaze lingers a half-second too long before she looks away.
That’s one. My throat does a dry swallow. One person doing the math.
Reid’s thumb sweeps over my knuckles. He didn't miss the woman's stare—he never misses anything—but he doesn't look at her.
Instead, he swings our joined hands and leans right into my space.
"Okay, priority check. Are we doing coffee first, or are we diving straight into the baked goods?
Because I smell cinnamon, and I'm willing to throw down for a good pastry. "
I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding. He's doing it on purpose. Building a bubble.
"We can look for pastries," I say.
We drift toward the produce stalls, and this is where Blake comes alive.
Not in the way Reid comes alive—loud, social, taking up space.
Blake comes alive in the quiet way. His hand finally releases mine so he can pick up a tomato, turn it over, check the stem end, press gently with his thumb.
He does this with three tomatoes before selecting one.
I watch his hands. So capable. So precise. I love watching him work, even if the work is just evaluating salad ingredients. I bump my hip against his. "You are the most intense vegetable shopper I have ever seen."
"There's a difference between a good tomato and a grocery store tomato."
That little devil on my shoulder tells me to wind him up. "They're all red and round, Blake."
He gives me a look of such genuine offense that a laugh actually bubbles out of me. "They are not all—" He holds up the tomato he selected like he's presenting evidence in court. "This one was vine-ripened. Full color development. Firm but not hard. Smell the stem end."
I lean in and smell it. It smells like summer and dirt and green things. He smells like cedar and clean laundry. I want to press my face into his neck.
"Okay, that's an incredible tomato," I admit.
"Thank you." He sets it in the bag with the gravity of a man who has proven an important point.
Reid reappears from wherever he wandered off to. He slides an arm around my waist, pulling my back flush against his chest. "Try this one. Smoked gouda. It'll change your life."
He holds a toothpick in front of my mouth. I take the cheese, leaning back into his solid heat. This is nice. This is so nice. Just us, teasing Blake about tomatoes, eating cheese, existing.
Then I glance right.
An older couple at the adjacent stall. The man is examining green beans, but the woman is watching us. Not glancing—watching. When she catches my eye, she doesn't look away. Just pursed lips and a slow, disapproving shake of her head before she turns back to her husband.
That’s two.
The bottom drops out of my stomach. The urge to step away from Reid, to put three feet of polite, platonic distance between us, hits me so hard my knees actually lock. Why did I think this was a good idea? You can't just force people to accept this.
Blake feels it. His hand finds the small of my back—brief, heavy, grounding.
Reid steps sideways, casually but deliberately shifting his broad shoulders to completely block my view of the older woman.
He holds up another toothpick. "Okay, now the sharp cheddar," he says, his voice perfectly steady, ignoring the couple entirely.
"Open up, Laine. Focus on the cheese. It's going to change your life. "
I blink, forcing my eyes up to his hazel ones. "You say that about the other cheese."
"Every cheese does change my life."
I take a shaky breath and let him feed me the cheddar. He's trying so hard to protect me. They both are. Blake's hand is still a warm, solid weight at my back. Reid is an impenetrable wall of sunshine in front of me.
"Okay," I say, chewing. "That is good cheese."
"See? Life-changing." Reid grins, tossing the toothpick into a nearby trash can. Then his head snaps up like a bloodhound catching a scent. "Oh, hell yes. Hot sauce."
The vendor ahead is a bearded guy in his forties with a setup that looks like a chemistry lab—rows of bottles in graduated shades from sunshine yellow to don't-even-think-about-it red. Reid approaches with the focus of a man on a mission.
"Tell me everything," Reid says, leaning on the table.
The vendor blinks. "About... which one?"
"All of them. Start from the left. I want the full experience."
Blake and I hang back a step while Reid launches into what can only be described as a hot sauce seminar.
The vendor, initially cautious, quickly realizes he's found a kindred spirit and starts pulling out bottles from under the table.
"This one's got mango habanero—" "Oh, I'm in.
" "And this one's a ghost pepper blend, but we balance it with—" "Give me that immediately. "
"He's going to buy the entire table," Blake says, his voice a low rumble next to my ear.
"He totally is," I agree.
"Should we stop him?"
"Can you stop a force of nature?"
Blake considers this, his eyes tracking Reid's chaotic energy. "No."
I lean into Blake's arm, letting myself just watch Reid systematically work his way through every sample.
The vendor is fully won over now, laughing at Reid's increasingly dramatic reactions.
A small crowd has gathered—just two other shoppers waiting their turn, but they're smiling. Not judging. Just watching the show.
"Oh. Oh. Okay, this one." Reid turns to us, eyes slightly watery, holding a tiny plastic spoon like it contains the meaning of life. "Laine. You have to try this one. It's got mango and it's—just try it."
"Is it going to remove a layer of my mouth?"
"Your mouth will be fine. Probably. Blake, you too. Open wide."
Blake takes a deliberate step back. "I'm not involved in this."
"You're absolutely involved. Get over here."
Blake sighs—his long-suffering, why-do-I-live-with-you sigh—and steps up to the table. The vendor hands him a sample of something dark and ominous.
"That's the ghost pepper blend," the vendor says, in the tone of someone issuing a safety warning. "Fair warning."
Blake tries it. Doesn't blink. Nods once. "I'll take a bottle."
I peer closely at his face. "Your eyes are watering."
"No they're not."
"Blake. I can see actual tears."
"Allergies."
"You don't have allergies."
"I have them now. Seasonal."
"It's called pain. You're experiencing pain and calling it allergies."
Reid doubles over laughing, bracing his hands on his knees, and that sets off the small crowd around us. I start laughing too, a real, belly-deep laugh that chases away the cold knot of anxiety I've been carrying since the parking lot.
For a second we're just—people. At a market. Being stupid and happy and together. Nobody in this little circle is doing the math or the staring or the pursed-lip thing. We are just a girl and her two ridiculous men arguing about ghost peppers.
Reid ends up buying four bottles. Four. Blake gets his ghost pepper. I get the mango one because it actually is incredible and I'm not too proud to admit Reid was right.
We're walking away from the stall, loaded down with bags and hot sauce, and I reach for Blake's hand. I don't even think about it this time. His rough fingers slide between mine, deliberate and certain, while my other hand easily finds Reid's.
Then I see Joyce.
She's at the flower stall twenty feet ahead. Peonies in her hand, reading glasses perched on her nose, wearing that floral weekend blouse she wears when she's not in scrubs.
I told her. The thought hits me first. I sat in the breakroom and told her everything and she was fine. She accepted it.
But seeing her here, in the daylight, outside the safe, hypothetical bubble of a 3 AM confession—it's different. This is my permanent, professional life standing right in front of me. The real world.
She hasn't seen us yet.
And my hand drops Blake's.
I don't decide to do it. I don't think about it. One second his fingers are laced through mine and the next they're not, my hand snapping back to my side like a flinch. Like muscle memory. Like some deep-wired reflex that bypassed every brave thing I said in the parking lot.
I'm still holding Reid's.
No.
No no no no no.
She already knows. There is literally no reason to hide. But I didn't just let go—I'm still holding Reid's hand. I dropped Blake's and I'm still holding Reid's. Like he's the acceptable one.
Like Blake is a some dirty secret.