Chapter 16 Eliza
Eliza
I spend Sunday night and Monday morning replaying Reed’s face when he left Esther’s house. That expression of hope and confusion, like he wanted to believe something good might happen but couldn’t quite trust it.
I know that feeling.
By midmorning, I’ve fed the goats, mucked stalls, and run out of excuses to avoid what I need to do.
Reed looked destroyed at the cookie exchange, and I’m pretty sure I know why.
The timing of his mood shift, the way he went all polite and distant—he heard me talking about “someone like him” before he knocked.
Which means I hurt him, and despite all my fears about rich boys and power dynamics, the thought of Reed thinking I see him as some entitled asshole makes my stomach twist. Even more after the way he acted with my family. He folded right into our tornado.
I load Chiron and the girls into the trailer and head to the ivy-covered warehouse Reed hooked me up with, telling myself I’m just doing my job.
I am unable to let go of my guilt, but when I get the goats situated to finish their work—with a duly reinforced fence—instead of heading home, I drive north to the Sustainable Innovation Incubator.
Reed’s car sits in the parking lot, so I know he’s here. I sit in my truck for five minutes, trying to figure out what I’m going to say.
Hey, sorry you overheard me having a breakdown about my trust issues?
Delete.
Want to discuss how my abandonment issues make me sabotage good things?
Delete.
Sorry I’m a mess who can’t tell the difference between genuine connection and potential exploitation?
No fucking way.
Finally, I get out and walk to his greenhouse.
Reed’s hunched over a tray of seedlings, wearing a forest green Henley that really works for him. His hair looks adorably disheveled, and there are coffee rings on his worktable suggesting he’s been here a while.
“Reed,” I say, knocking on the doorframe.
He looks up, and his expression goes carefully neutral. “Eliza. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I step inside, closing the door behind me. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?” His tone is polite, professional, distant… everything I was afraid of.
“About yesterday. About how you seemed upset.” I take a breath. “About what you must have heard before you knocked on Esther’s door.”
Reed goes stills. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.” I move closer, noting how he doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “You heard me talking to my sisters. About getting involved with someone like you.”
He sets down his tablet. “I heard enough.”
“Reed—”
“It’s fine, Eliza.” His voice is steady, controlled. “You were being realistic. I appreciate honesty.”
“No, you don’t understand. I wasn’t—” I struggle for words. “That wasn’t about you specifically. That was about me being terrified.”
“Of me.”
“Of caring about you.” The words come out in a rush. “Of letting myself trust someone who could destroy my life if they wanted to.”
Reed finally looks at me directly. “I would never—”
“I know that. Logically, I know that.” I pace the rows of trees, needing to move.
“But my mother spent my entire childhood making me promises she had no intention of keeping. She’d show up with grand plans and stories about how things were going to be different, and I believed her every single time.
Until the next time she inevitably disappeared. ”
“Eliza…”
“So, when I started caring about you—really caring—my brain went into full panic mode.” I turn to face him. “Because if you decided I wasn’t worth the trouble, if you got bored or found someone more suitable or just remembered you’re Reed Nicholas and I’m the goat lady who destroyed your trees—”
“Stop.” Reed steps closer, his jaw tight. “Just stop.”
“I don’t think you’re a bad person. I’m damaged goods who doesn’t know how to trust without waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“You’re not damaged.” His voice is fierce, certain.
The conviction in his words nearly undoes me. “Reed, I’m sorry. For what you heard, for how I made you feel…”
“You were protecting yourself.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I get it. I do. But hearing you talk about me like I’m some kind of threat—”
“You’re not a threat. You’re the opposite of a threat.” I step closer, close enough to see the gold flecks in his eyes. “You’re kind and genuine, and you make me want to be braver than I am.”
“Just so you know, you aren’t the only emotionally stunted tree in this forest.” He shakes his head. “My parents did a number on me, too. And…” He blows out a breath. “It stung hearing you talk about me as if I’m like them.”
I smile. “I guess we’re a fucked-up pair.”
He purses his lips. “Yeah.” He meets my eye over the top of his glasses, and the sight sends tingles to my lower abdomen. “And I like you, anyway.”
I can feel him waiting for me to respond, to tell him I like him, too, to hold his hand and pick up where we left off in my kitchen.
I wince. “I just can’t get past the fact that I’m indebted to you, Reed. The liability thing. The thousands of dollars—”
“Oh, that?” His face brightens, and Reed strides to his desk, pulling out a manila folder. “Here.”
He hands me a sheet of paper with an official-looking letterhead. I scan the typed paragraph with bolded phrases: Reed Nicholas of Urban Forest Solutions hereby releases Eliza Storm of Mobile Urban Natural Clearing Herd from all liability related to the incident of November 15th…
“You’re releasing me from the debt,” I say, staring at the paper.
He watches my face. “The damage was an accident. You’ve more than made up for it by helping me recover in time for the pitch. I never, ever want you to feel you owe me anything.”
“Reed…” I look up at him, this man who’s been quietly protecting me while I’ve been spinning paranoid fantasies about his motives.
“Sign it,” he says. “Then we’re equals. No power imbalance, no debt, no obligation. Just two people deciding if they want to… go to a fancy party together.”
I sign my name with a shaky hand, and when I look up, Reed is watching me with an expression so hopeful it makes my chest tight.
“Now what?” I ask.
“Now I acknowledge I have never done a prom-posal, and I ask you if you’ll be my date for the Yule Gala. If you think Mandy Warnick will let us back on the premises.”
I’m about to laugh and tell him yes when the greenhouse’s automatic sprinkler system activates with a mechanical whir. Water rains down on us from multiple directions, soaking through my jacket in seconds.
“Shit!” Reed lunges for the control panel. “The timer must be malfunctioning—”
But I’m laughing, because of course this would happen. Of course, the universe would choose this moment to drench us both. Reed’s Henley clings to his chest, water dripping from his hair, and when he turns to me, his eyes drop to where my wet t-shirt has become essentially transparent.
His gaze lingers on my chest for just a moment—not long enough to be inappropriate, but long enough for me to see exactly what he’s thinking. When his eyes meet mine again, there’s heat there that has nothing to do with embarrassment.
“Eliza,” he says, his voice rough.
The way he’s looking at me—like he wants to touch me, taste me, take me apart and put me back together—sends panic shooting through my system. This is real. This attraction, this connection, this thing between us that’s been building for weeks.
I’m terrified of how much I want it.
“I have to go,” I say quickly, backing toward the door.
“Wait—”
But I’m already fleeing again, leaving Reed standing in his flooded greenhouse with water dripping from his hair and that same expression of hope and confusion I’ve seen too many times.
I make it to my truck before I allow myself to look back.
Through the greenhouse windows, I can see Reed standing exactly where I left him, watching me drive away.
I guess this has nothing to do with me owing him money and everything to do with what I thought earlier: my mother has fucked me up beyond repair.
I can’t be anyone’s sweetheart. I’m not Yule Gala material because I have nothing emotional to offer.
And Reed Nicholas deserves the kind of girl who can bang him against one of his tree trunks and support him with all the other stuff in a relationship.
It’s better that the universe threw cold water on this before we caught fire.