Chapter 25 #2
“Stevie.” His hand comes up, hovers near my face, then settles on my shoulder. Warm. Steady. “You’re not wreckage. You’re just hurt. There’s a difference.”
Easy for him to say. He hasn’t seen me spiral over a mug like it’s the fucking One Ring.
I lean into his touch without meaning to.
He doesn’t pull away.
We spend the afternoon trying to convince this witness protection Barbie Dreamhouse that someone actually lives here.
Saul organizes. I emotionally spiral, but with throw pillows.
He disappears for an hour and returns with groceries, cleaning supplies, and a throw blanket that looks like it was handwoven by forest nymphs with seasonal depression.
“The beige was killing my will to live,” he says, tossing it over the couch like a dramatic interior decorator with unresolved feelings.
I think about the teal blanket from Beth Taylor’s greatest hits collection. Still folded like a relic in the bottom of my bag, next to Dario’s pen and all my unprocessed emotional baggage.
“You have a thing about blankets,” I say. “You nesting? You wanna talk about it? Because between this and the groceries, we’re one Yankee Candle away from domestic.”
“I have a thing about you being comfortable.”
God. He says it so casually, like he didn’t just commit a war crime on my heart. The words hit me like a weighted blanket made of feelings I don’t know how to fold.
I dig out the teal blanket. Add it to the couch, layered with the green one. Two colors clashing. My old life and new one trying to coexist without throwing punches.
“There,” I say. “Look at us. A whole throw-blanket montage away from a Hallmark plotline. The couch looks like it has emotional depth now. Or a Pinterest board.”
Saul looks at the blankets. Then at me.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Now it’s home.”
That night, I fail spectacularly at sleeping. Olympic-level insomniac. Gold medal in Overthinking While Hugging Stolen Property.
Saul’s on the couch because he’s a gentleman and a menace.
The kind of man who insists I take the bed with that calm U.S. Marshal tone that makes me feel like arguing would be disrespecting the flag.
I can hear him through the paper-thin wall, breathing like a responsible adult with a moral code and probably a savings account.
He keeps shifting. Restless. He’s not sleeping either. Probably also emotionally spooning his regrets.
I stare at the ceiling like it has answers. It does not.
Just cracks and one stain that looks like it judges me for my internal monologue.
Dario, who left his door unlocked for me. Who handed me a shirt and affogato like I was someone worth having soft things.
Who said he was glad I had Enzo, and somehow didn’t sound like he wanted to murder anyone about it.
Enzo. Who came back every day like he had nowhere better to be. Who had a mug in my kitchen, had because I’m a romantic thief.
Who loved me like it wasn’t the most dangerous thing either of us had ever done. Fair. It was.
And Saul.
Who showed up at the start and never stopped showing up. Baking supplies. Pillows. Plants. A literal bakery.
A man who said “no more beige” and meant it with his whole chest.
He’s on my couch.
Which sounds like the setup to a rom-com but ends with heartbreak and no sex scene.
He’s here for one more week. Then he vanishes like a hot, emotionally available ghost.
Three men. Three different versions of being seen.
And I can’t have any of them.
I pull the teal blanket up like it might protect me from consequences.
It will not. But it smells like kindness and coffee and maybe a little hope, so I let it lie to me.
He coughs softly. Shifts like he’s wrestling with guilt or trying to find the least tragic position to sleep in.
Either way, we’re both losing.
Tomorrow I’ll start setting up the bakery. Tomorrow I’ll figure out how to be Zoey Carter, small-town baker, woman of mystery and emotional baggage sold separately.
A pastless cupcake peddler with no mafia men in her bed.
Living the beige dream, baby.
Holding Enzo’s mug like it’s a goddamn emotional support chalice. Listening to Saul breathe like a sexy metronome. Trying not to think about all the ways I’m fracturing like a dropped cookie with too much butter and not enough warning.
I dream about cookies.
Not eating them. Not sharing them. Just making them.
Which feels rude, honestly. Even my subconscious won’t let me have nice things.
But every time I reach for the baking sheet, it’s empty.
Like my brain is doing interpretive grief theater and did not ask if I wanted a front-row seat.
I wake up at 4 AM with tears on my face and zero memory of what set them off.
Love that for me. Big fan of crying as a mystery genre.
The apartment is dark. Quiet. Through the window I can see stars. Actual stars.
Colorado really said, “Here, have wonder. You look like you need it.”
I get up. Pad to the kitchen. Fill the kettle, because sleep is canceled and emotional tea consumption is Plan B.
“Hey.”
I spin around.
Saul’s standing in the doorway, hair mussed, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, looking soft and rumpled and not at all like a U.S. Marshal.
“Sorry,” I say. “Did I wake you?”
“Couldn’t sleep anyway.” He moves into the kitchen, leans against the counter. “Bad dream?”
“I don’t remember.” A lie. I remember the empty baking sheets. The reaching and finding nothing. “Just restless.”
He nods. Doesn’t push.
The kettle starts to hum.
We stand in my kitchen in the dark, waiting for water to boil, not talking. It should be awkward. Two people who maybe want things they can’t have, pretending 4 AM tea is normal.
But it’s not awkward. Which is suspicious.
It’s just… quiet. The kind that doesn’t ask you to explain yourself.
“I have a thing,” I say suddenly. “Where I bake when I can’t sleep. Or think. Or exist without vibrating.” I shrug. “It’s cheaper than therapy and the results are edible.”
“I know.” He almost smiles. “The 2 AM cookie incidents.”
Plural.
Rude of him to keep receipts.
“You drove by my apartment at 2 AM to check if my light was on. Multiple times.” I squint at him. “Sir. That’s either very sweet or deeply illegal.”
His smile becomes real. “Fair point.”
The kettle clicks off. I pour two mugs, not Enzo’s mug. A neutral mug.
I can’t emotionally raw-dog tea out of that cup. I’m fragile, not reckless.
I hand one to Saul.
Our fingers brush during the transfer. Neither of us pulls away.
“Tomorrow,” I say, “I’m going to go downstairs and figure out that kitchen. Make a list of supplies I need. Start planning a menu.”
“Okay.”
“And,” I say, “I’m not going to think about the recipes that emotionally suplex me.”
He tilts his head slightly.
“Peanut butter chocolate chip.” My voice is steady. Mostly. “Those are emotionally copyrighted. And amaretti. I can’t make those. Not yet. Maybe not ever.”
“That makes sense.”
“It does?”
“You’re not ready.” He says it simply. Without judgment. “Someday you might be. Or you might never make those recipes again. Either way is okay.”
I wrap both hands around my mug. Let the warmth seep into my palms. “How do you do that?” I ask.
“Do what?”
“Make me believe I might not die of cookie grief.”
He’s quiet for a moment.
The kitchen is so dark I can barely see his expression, but I can feel him thinking.
“Because I’ve survived things,” he says finally. “Not the same things. But enough to know that it’s possible. And enough to know it doesn’t happen all at once.”
I think about his divorce. The woman who said he was like a ghost. I think about how he’s here, at 4 AM, drinking tea in my kitchen like this is exactly where he wants to be.
“Saul?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For being here. For all of it.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I know.” I take a sip of tea. “I’m doing it anyway.”
He laughs. Soft, surprised, the sound filling the dark kitchen.
I file it away. Another detail. Another piece of Saul Bennett.
Apparently I collect men the way I collect mugs, by accident and with long-term emotional consequences.
We drink our tea in silence.
And when the sky starts to lighten outside the window, we’re still standing there.
Together.
For now.
Which is all I can ask for at 5 AM with tea and a heart that’s still learning how to stay in one piece.