Chapter 6
EZRA
After lunch, I rinse out Willow’s food bowl and set it on the floor. The ceramic clatters against the tile, and I realize how quiet it is in this big house. I turn on one of my playlists on my phone to fill the silence.
When I was a child, this house was filled with music, laughter, and love.
Mom loved her garden, pottery, holidays, and me more than anything else in life.
She taught me how to be a man and how to be compassionate.
My mother treated every day as if it were a treasure.
Life without her has been hard, and the world is much dimmer without her smile or the sound of her laughter.
Her loss shook the world, but no one felt it more than I did.
That’s not entirely true. My aunt Millie was just as upset. The two of them, sisters only one year apart in age, were thick as thieves until the very end.
Fuck cancer.
Years have passed, and some days are harder than others.
Today, my mom is on my mind.
I grab the container of kitty beef jerky and shake it. “Treats! Willow!”
I wait to hear the bell around her neck jingle, but it doesn’t. She’ll find them when she comes in here to scavenge later. If I had to guess, she’s upstairs in the window, watching the birds in the tree, soaking up the sunshine.
As I set the container back on the counter, I notice movement flickering outside the kitchen window, just past the hedges.
Scarlett.
She’s barefoot and walks the stone path between the cottage and the house. Loose pants swish at her ankles. She’s holding her new gray mug in one hand and a small voice recorder in the other, talking into it with a look that’s all focus and no hesitation.
I lean forward, hoping I can hear better what she’s saying.
“New line,” she mutters. “Start with him at the door—more tension there. Make it needy.”
Her sunglasses cover half her face, but I can still see the crease between her brows and the concentration in her mouth.
She’s hyper-focused on the task at hand. She talks faster, like the scene won’t wait, like the words will vanish if she doesn’t say them mid-thought. Her voice drifts through the open window in pieces—some dialogue, a few notes for herself, one long pause followed by an exhale.
“God, that’s good,” she says, loud enough for me to hear.
She lifts the mug to her lips as she passes the window, then disappears down the path.
When she’s out of sight, I realize I’m holding my breath.
I wipe my hands on the towel and stare at the empty stretch of yard like she might come back into view.
Somehow, without meaning to, she took the afternoon with her.
As I stare out into the garden, the ripe blackberries hanging low on their vines snag my attention. I grab a bucket and make my way to the bushes, needing something to keep my mind busy.
Aunt Millie loves making cobbler with them. I spend an hour picking berries, trying not to let the stickers snag me. Some of them are so ripe, they burst between my fingers. I even pop a few in my mouth, enjoying the sweet juice on my tongue, then spit out the seeds. They’re the only part I hate.
Once I’ve cleared the vines of the ripe ones, I return to the house. On the way, I run into Scarlett.
Her eyes trail down to my hand. She leans forward, her brows lifting when she sees the blackberries that are still warm from the sun.
“You picked those?”
“Along the back fence line by the garden,” I tell her, pointing in that direction.
Scarlett moves back to sitting on the edge of the porch. Her notebook and pen are in her lap.
“Want to try one?”
She looks up at me with big doe eyes and smiles. Somehow, it’s flirtatious and makes my heart do a pitter-patter. I tilt the bucket toward her.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” she asks hesitantly.
I chuckle. “If it weren’t, I wouldn’t be standing here.”
I snag one, lifting it to my lips and biting it in half. Then I reach forward, moving it to her mouth. She opens her lips and allows me to feed it to her.
Her eyes swirl with something as she chews and swallows. “Mm. Delicious.”
The tension is sharp enough to slice straight through me.
“I’d say so,” I mutter, wishing I could taste the juice on her lips. She picks up her recorder, keeping intense eye contact.
“And then he placed a berry in her mouth, and she was tempted to suck his fingers, wanting him to understand what he’s missing. But that would be too risky,” she says, stopping her recorder.
I cock my head at her. “Are you narrating your life?”
“Only when inspiration calls,” she says, sipping her tea. “You’ve got main character energy, though. Strong brooding energy. Top-shelf scowl. A-plus forearms. Bad boy tattoos. But I know there’s this other side to you, too. One you haven’t shared with me yet. That’s the Ezra I want to know.”
I hand her a blackberry, palm open, mostly to shut her up.
Her brows pop upward. “You’re not going to feed it to me again?”
Scarlett straightens her back and opens her mouth.
“Fuck,” I whisper, hearing the growl in my voice.
Scarlett notices, too, and I watch a smirk slide across her lips as I move closer to her, grabbing the blackberry and placing it in her mouth. This time, her lips wrap around my fingers, and her cheeks hollow.
My cock springs to life, and I push the thoughts away as I pull my fingers from her mouth.
“You don’t want to play games with me, Scarlett.”
“Mm. You don’t get to tell me what I want,” she snaps back.
There’s a stretch of silence that continues on while we stare at one another.
“Cat got your tongue?” she asks, and I bend down to my knee, where I’m eye level with her. I place my fingers under her chin, forcing her to look into my eyes. I breathe in, then move forward and press my lips against hers.
The kiss deepens, and I slide my tongue into her mouth. Scarlett grabs my shirt, needy, nearly desperate to have more of me. She whimpers, and it nearly undoes me. When I pull away, we’re breathless, and my heart is racing.
“Now, I’ve got your tongue,” I say, cocky as fuck.
“Well, fuck,” she whispers, and she places her fingers over her mouth. “That felt like…”
“I warned you,” I tell her, standing.
“You crossed a line we can never uncross.” She’s still holding the notebook in her lap, but the pen falls out of her hand. Her hair’s falling out of whatever clip she tried to wrangle it into, and a bit of ink smudges the edge of her thumb.
Scarlett grabs her things and then walks to the cottage without looking back at me.
I laugh.
“Just admit you fucking loved it,” I holler.
“I can’t!” I hear the cottage door slam closed.
I get the frustration. I felt it, too. I also don’t have time to jump into a long-distance relationship. But at least we both fucking know this spark between us can’t be ignored.
She left behind the ghost of yesterday’s soap, and the sweetness of her still lingers in the air.
The silence hums, and I decide that I won’t let her escape this.
I move to the cottage and knock on the door.
It swings open, and we both pause.
Her hand is still curled around her mug, the sleeve of her shirt pushed up just enough to show the edge of a freckle. I have a sudden irrational urge to trace it with my thumb.
She opens her mouth. Then closes it.
“You’re a distraction I can’t afford right now,” she finally says.
I lift a brow. “Me?”
“Oh, don’t play innocent. I write about men who are just like you.”
“Yeah?” I smirk, somewhat surprised she admitted that. “What’s my next move?”
She licks her lips and shakes her head. “Don’t think so. I am not falling for that.”
I lean a little closer, just enough to make her eyes flick up to mine. “It would be dirty, wouldn’t it?”
“Probably. But I can’t. I’m wasting precious time, and trust me when I say you do not want to get involved with me in any way,” she warns.
“That’s usually my line,” I tell her, amused.
“I’m serious, Ezra,” she says. “I would never be good for you, not even as a fling. I will ruin your perfect life.”
“Aah, see, my life is far from perfect. Also, considering you’re a romance writer, you know that you don’t get to choose who you fall for. It’s going to happen, regardless,” I explain to her.
For a second, we stand there, surrounded by the scent of warm grass and Harry’s distant crow.
She tugs her bottom lip between her teeth, then backs away.
“Thanks for stopping by,” she says, closing the door.
It feels final, but my feet don’t move. Not right away, at least.
I head toward the house, but I’m not focused on anything.
She’s still in my head—barefoot, walking the stone path while mumbling into that little recorder like she’s chasing something urgent.
I know the signs well enough to recognize she’s under too much stress. It’s the jittery pacing, the dry coffee cup, the short temper, and the second skipped meal.
I’ve lived that day a hundred times as deadlines loom in the distance like storm clouds.
When I’m back in the kitchen, I open the fridge even though I’m not hungry, and I think about Scarlett. I ate lunch, but did she?
There’s a fresh loaf of sourdough from my aunt’s bakery on the counter, and I cut two thick slices of it.
I take out some turkey and spread a thin layer of hot mustard for a culinary kick.
I build the sandwich without thinking, wrap it in parchment, and grab one of the cotton napkins from the drawer that looks too nice to use, but I do anyway.
I tie it closed with twine because my hands want something to do, and maybe because it’ll make her smile.
She seems like the type of woman who pays attention to detail and notices small things.
Ten minutes later, I knock on her door.
She opens it, her hair messier than before, cheeks pink from concentration. A pen is tucked behind her ear, and her eyes flick between me and the bundle in my hands.
“I didn’t order anything,” she says, but there’s a curve at the corner of her mouth.
“You look like someone who forgot to eat lunch,” I say. “I do it, too, when I’m in the zone.”
Her expression shifts, like she wasn’t expecting to be so transparent today.
She takes the sandwich with both hands. Her thumb brushes the edge of the napkin.
“You made this for me?”
I nod. “Of course. Let me take care of you while you work.”
Her mouth quirks. “If you don’t stop…”
“Just being myself.” I almost said something more meaningful. Almost. But she looks at me with soft eyes, and I forget to speak.
“Well,” she says, adding, “thank you. I did forget to eat.”
She glances down at the sandwich, then back at me.
“You know, if you keep doing things like this, you might need to update your listing to a bed-and-breakfast and charge more.”
I lift a brow. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
She presses a hand to the doorframe and leans forward, her voice lower now. “Seriously. Thanks, Ezra. I tend to lose track of time.”
I nod. “Set an alarm.”
She laughs under her breath. “I’ve tried that. I snooze it every time.”
“You’re that stubborn?” I ask.
“Ten out of ten,” she admits. “I owe you one.”
“You don’t,” I say. “Now, back to work.”
“You’re going to make this fun for me,” she says.
“Oh, babe, you have no idea.”
And this time, when she closes the door, it’s gentle.
I stand there longer than I should, but when I walk away, I feel lighter than I did.
By the time I return inside the house, I’m smiling because I felt a spark, even if it’s too early to acknowledge it.
Willow watches me from the top of the stairs with the judgmental calm of a cat who knows I’m in over my head.
I return to the tower.
When I sit at my desk, my phone buzzes in my back pocket.
I pull it out and open the message from an unknown number.
It’s a picture of a half-eaten sandwich. Next to it is the crumpled parchment, and the napkin is tossed sideways like it barely survived the first bite. In the corner is the edge of Scarlett’s thigh, her notebook, and the recorder. I program her into my contacts, then save it with a smile.
Scarlett
Evidence of excellence. 9.5/10. Lost half a point for no pickle.
I stare at the screen, exhale through my nose, and type back.
Ezra
This number is reserved for emergencies and sandwich feedback of a 9.8 or higher.
Three dots appear.
Scarlett
Aah. Is that the polite way of saying lose my number?
Ezra
Aren’t you under a deadline? I’m beginning to believe you can’t get enough of me.
Scarlett
You’re right. Thanks for the reminder.
I stare at her last text, wondering if another will come through. Then I grow some balls and text her.
Ezra
Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?
I lean on my elbow, staring at the phone, my thumb hovering over the screen like I should say more.
Scarlett
Sure. What time?
I let out a chuckle. She said yes. This is game over for us. I glance up at the clock. Suppertime is roughly five hours away.
Ezra
How’s seven-thirty-ish?
Scarlett
That’s perfect. Should I bring anything?
Ezra
Just yourself.
Scarlett
That I can do. I’ll see you then!
I move to the window and glance down at the cottage, catching a glimpse of Scarlett smiling. She’s as excited as I am. And suddenly, the thought of that makes me feel nervous.