Chapter 1 #2
“What were you celebrating?” he asked, nodding at the two glasses. “Or was it a wake?”
“A potential job.”
“Potential is honest. Most people toast a maybe and turn it into a yes.”
“Most people haven’t watched a yes vanish after getting it in writing.”
He nodded, not pushing for details.
“What’s the role?”
“Operations. Health-tech.”
He waited. There was no rush in him; none of that glazed look people get when they’re just waiting for their turn to talk.
“Software for clinics,” I added. “That’s the long version.”
“And they call you Monday.”
“That’s the plan.”
“When they offer it to you, what’s the first thing you’re buying?”
“You’re assuming they’ll offer it.”
“No. I asked a hypothetical question. Not the same thing.”
I considered inventing an expensive indulgence, something safe that gave nothing away. The truth came out first.
“A standing desk for my brother. He’s finishing his degree at night and studies on an ironing board.”
“You’re the older sister.”
“By six years.”
He nodded, making no move to turn that into a therapy session.
“Ironing boards get a bad rap. Adjustable height, stable surface...”
“You’ve studied this?”
“I respect a solid workaround.”
I laughed. Cole’s gaze dropped to my mouth for just a fraction of a second, but I caught it. The heat that hit me then had nothing to do with my mother.
“What about you?” I asked. “What’s the first thing you buy when the season ends?”
“Gas. I drive east and don’t answer my phone until I reach the orchard.”
“What orchard?”
“Family orchard near Yakima. Apples.” His voice shifted as he said it, shedding the banter without turning somber. “My dad used to spend all of March glued to the radio, waiting on the frost forecast. One hard freeze in April and we ate differently for the rest of the year.”
“Doesn’t sound like a great system for someone who likes having a plan.”
“It isn’t. It’s farming.”
The deadpan delivery pulled a laugh out of me before I could stop it. Cole looked pleased, though he hid his smile behind his glass.
“The first time they let me help, my dad dragged us out of bed at two in the morning to light the smudge pots against a freeze. The whole valley was awake. You could see the rows of fires on our ridge, then the neighbor’s orchard, then the one past that.”
“Did it work?”
“That year, yeah.”
“Cautious answer.”
“I’ve learned a few things since preschool.”
The noise on the rooftop surged around us. Cole leaned in closer so I could hear him, his knee brushing mine. I could have pulled back. I didn’t.
“And what do you do when you’re not dazzling executive panels?” he asked.
“Spreadsheets.”
He laughed so hard several people turned our way. A woman at the next table smiled at me as if we were sharing a private joke.
“You’re trouble,” Cole said. “You’re funny on purpose.”
“I am not.”
“That makes it worse.”
He lifted his glass toward me. I tapped mine against his, the crystal ringing between us. This time, Cole was the one who looked away first.
After that, the conversation found its groove.
He wanted to hear about the case study: a clinic network drowning in administrative backlog, my specialty.
When I mentioned the absurd budget figure, he laughed at the exact spot I’d laughed at midnight while building the proposal. No one else had caught the joke.
I asked why he’d chosen to play flanker.
“Because I’m too slow to be trusted in open space and too stubborn to play anywhere else.”
I laughed again. He asked about my first ninety days in the role and actually listened to the answer. When I asked what next season looked like for him, he nudged his lime wedge across the napkin before answering.
“During the season, I don’t plan past Saturday.”
The line sounded practiced. The first one all night.
I didn’t push. He hadn’t pushed about my mother, either.
“What’s left on the kitchen calendar these days?” he asked.
“Nothing. It’s all in ‘the cloud.’” I gave him the air quotes.
Cole toasted my surrender.
Later, he asked what I did before the city woke up.
“I run. Green Lake.”
I’d let slip more than I intended. I brought my glass to my lips to keep from adding to it.
“I cook,” he said, accepting the boundary. “At unreasonable hours.”
He told me about a house on the lake with a weathered dock and a kitchen too good for one guy. I told him about the radiator in my apartment and the neighbor who practiced trumpet on Thursdays. Small, quiet details that, thirty minutes in, already mattered more than they should have.
Cole leaned in as he spoke. Every now and then, his sleeve brushed my forearm, the white athletic tape on his wrist scraping lightly against my skin. I stopped pretending I didn’t feel it. His eyes kept returning to my mouth just as often as mine went back to his hands.
I clicked my watch clasp twice. He caught the motion, but didn’t ask. Instead, he lined up his glass with my coaster. That quiet restraint did more for me than any witty line.
The wind picked up around eleven, and people started asking for tabs. I’d planned to leave at ten. Then ten-thirty. I’d spent the last hour shifting my own boundaries.
I knew what happened when you trusted a plan you couldn’t control. I’d learned it at six, staring at a kitchen calendar with a line crossed through it and a suitcase by the front door. My father hadn’t known how to handle a surprise. My mother had, but she’d spent decades pretending it hadn’t hurt.
Cole glanced down at my lips again. This time he didn’t pretend he was looking at his glass. A tightness coiled in my lower belly. It had nothing to do with the whiskey.
A single night could have boundaries. No promises, no fallout, no room for either of us to mess with the other’s schedule. I could leave before six, run at dawn, grab coffee, and take the ten o’clock call. It didn’t have to become anything else.
I stood up before I could talk myself out of it. Cole stood too. Even in heels, I barely reached his sternum. We ended up close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look at him. He looked at my mouth a third time.
“One night,” I said. “No breakfast, no exchanging numbers, and no looking for each other afterward.”
The smile dropped from his face. He slowly turned his glass until it aligned with the coaster, studying me as if checking whether I meant it.
“All right.”
The silence hung for a beat.
“Though the ‘no breakfast’ clause almost makes me reconsider.”
“It was the most attractive part of the offer.”
“I disagree.”
His gaze drifted down my frame and traveled back up, unhurried. I didn’t need to ask what he meant.
“Are you coming?” I asked.
Cole set down his glass.
“Yeah.”
At the top of the stairs, I looked back once: the blue and green scarves, the dead candle, our glasses sitting together on the table. Then I stepped into the warm stairwell with Cole right behind me, close enough that I could feel his heat without him touching me.
One night. A beginning and an end. Nothing I couldn’t control.
I recited the terms at the second landing, and again when we reached the door, like someone checking a lock they already knew was locked.
I checked them a third time.