Chapter 2
Rachel had been thinking about the courtyard for nearly a year.
Not obsessively. She wasn’t the sort of person who clipped magazine articles or spent evenings comparing varieties of native grasses, and she had once managed to kill a rosemary plant despite living in a climate where rosemary seemed capable of surviving minor natural disasters.
But after eight years at the studio, she’d developed a quiet conviction that people decided how they felt about a place long before they consciously realized they were making that decision.
Atmosphere mattered.
It mattered in yoga. It mattered in homes. It mattered around dinner tables.
And, she suspected, it mattered in gardens.
The space itself wasn’t bad. That was what frustrated her.
It simply felt unfinished.
The lavender bushes had become woody and overgrown.
The old fountain no longer worked consistently.
There was one lonely bench positioned in a spot that somehow managed to feel both awkward and strangely exposed.
Students often lingered after workshops or evening classes, cups of tea in hand, looking vaguely reluctant to return to real life, and Rachel always found herself wishing there were places for people to settle naturally.
Somewhere softer.
Somewhere that invited people to stay.
Which was why she found herself carrying two coffees through the side gate on Thursday morning and feeling mildly ridiculous about being nervous.
Ben stood near the old fountain with a notebook tucked beneath one arm, crouched low beside the irrigation valves. One knee rested against the stone path, and his attention appeared wholly devoted to something happening beneath a cluster of overgrown lavender.
She slowed without entirely meaning to.
There was something remarkably unhurried about him.
Not slow.
Not lazy.
Just… present.
He wasn’t checking his phone. He wasn’t multitasking. He wasn’t carrying on a conversation while mentally answering emails.
He was simply there.
“Coffee?” she called.
Ben looked up immediately and smiled.
“Now that’s good news.”
“I wasn’t sure how you take it.”
“Honestly? However you’re handing it to me.”
She laughed.
“Very adaptable.”
“Age teaches flexibility.”
He stood, brushing dirt from his jeans before accepting the cup with obvious gratitude.
“Thank you.”
Something about that simple thank you made her smile.
No performance.
No exaggerated appreciation.
Just thank you.
He took a sip and closed his eyes briefly.
“Oh, that’s excellent.”
“You say that like you’ve suffered.”
“I had gas station coffee yesterday.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s important to talk about these things.”
She laughed, and he smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly.
It was odd, Rachel thought, how immediately comfortable he seemed. Not overly familiar. Not charismatic in the way some men mistook for personality. Just… easy.
Easy wasn’t something she’d expected to notice anymore.
“Well,” she said, nodding toward the courtyard. “I should probably start by confession that I have opinions on the garden.”
Ben’s expression grew solemn.
“That sounds serious.”
“It might be.”
“Good. I was worried we’d have to make things up.”
The smile that spread across his face transformed the remark from teasing into something gentler.
“Tell me.”
And the strange thing was, he actually meant it.
Not the polite version people used when they were waiting for their turn to talk. He simply stood there, coffee in hand, looking at her with the relaxed attention of someone who had nowhere else to be.
“I want people to feel like they want to stay,” she said.
His gaze moved around the courtyard.
“Mhm.”
“After evening classes, everyone stands around awkwardly because they don’t really want to leave, but there’s nowhere comfortable to sit. Workshops end and people scatter immediately, and I always think…” She shrugged. “Why?”
Ben nodded slowly.
“And I know it sounds silly because it’s landscaping—”
“No.”
The word came gently, but with enough certainty that she stopped.
“It doesn’t sound silly.”
Rachel blinked.
Most people, she had discovered, prefaced understanding with a small amount of dismissal.
Not silly, but…
Not crazy, but…
Not unreasonable, however…
Ben simply stood there waiting.
“It’s just that…” She smiled slightly. “People come here because life is hard. And I think maybe it would be nice if there were spaces that made things feel a little softer.”
He nodded again.
“That makes perfect sense.”
“It does?”
“Of course.”
He glanced around thoughtfully.
“Outdoor spaces tell people things.”
She smiled.
“What do you mean?”
“They tell you whether you’re supposed to hurry. Whether you’re welcome. Whether someone expected you to stay.”
He gestured toward the bench.
“Right now this says, ‘Enjoy your yoga and then kindly disappear.’”
Rachel burst out laughing.
“See? Exactly.”
“Terrible hospitality.”
“Honestly.”
“And if people are emotional after classes — and I’m guessing they probably are sometimes — there’s nowhere private to sit for a minute.”
Rachel stared at him.
He looked mildly alarmed.
“What?”
She smiled.
“Nothing.”
“No, that’s definitely a look.”
She laughed softly.
“I just wasn’t expecting you to think about that.”
“About benches?”
“No, about…” She waved a hand vaguely. “People being emotional.”
Ben looked genuinely puzzled.
“It’s a yoga studio.”
“As opposed to?”
“As opposed to a hardware store. Different percentages.”
That made her laugh.
“Fair.”
“I mean, I don’t know much about yoga, but I’m guessing people cry occasionally.”
“Occasionally.”
“Mhm.”
He took another sip of coffee.
“My mother used to cry at Hallmark commercials. I grew up with a pretty broad definition of normal.”
Rachel smiled.
“There are definitely tears.”
“Then people probably deserve a place to sit for a minute.”
Simple.
Matter-of-fact.
No speeches.
No emotional intelligence award.
“I wasn’t expecting that.”
“What were you expecting?”
She paused.
Good question.
Rachel found herself smiling.
She wasn’t entirely sure what she’d expected when Allison hired a landscape architect. Someone with opinions about drainage, certainly. Someone who could explain native plants and irrigation schedules.
Not this.
Not a man who considered where people might want to sit after difficult conversations.
Not before ten in the morning, anyway.
“I’m honestly not sure.”
He smiled.
“Good answer.”
She found herself smiling back.
And that was odd too.
Because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a conversation with a man that didn’t involve some degree of management. There was usually an awkwardness to navigate or an ego to accommodate or a conversational imbalance to gently compensate for.
After the divorce she’d gone on just enough coffee dates to understand that she preferred her own company.
Not dramatically.
Not bitterly.
She’d simply retired from dating sometime after the third man spent an hour explaining cryptocurrency to her.
Ben had wandered toward the far side of the courtyard now, studying the sunlight and making occasional notes in his book.
“What time of day gets the most use?” he asked.
“Late afternoons.”
“And mornings?”
“Mostly people rushing.”
He nodded.
“What about events?”
“We do workshops and fundraisers. Outdoor classes sometimes.”
“And evening light?”
“Beautiful.”
“Good.”
He crouched beside one of the stone borders, absently rubbing soil between his fingers while he thought.
Rachel watched him for a moment.
There was something deeply physical about the way he moved. Not performative. Not in a masculine magazine sort of way.
Simply comfortable.
As though he inhabited his own body without arguing with it.
The realization caught her by surprise. They’d known each other all of forty-five minutes, and yet she’d already begun categorizing him differently from the men she’d occasionally met after the divorce, which felt premature enough to make her mildly suspicious of herself.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Sure.”
“How does someone become this interested in native grasses?”
His laugh surprised her.
Warm.
Quiet.
Not loud.
Not self-conscious.
“I ask myself that sometimes.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He stood and leaned lightly against the low wall.
“I used to work in tech.”
Rachel frowned.
“Really?”
“Mhm.”
“What kind?”
“The kind that requires PowerPoint and chronic eye strain.”
She smiled.
“So, the bad kind.”
“The lucrative kind.”
“Ah.”
He smiled into his coffee.
“Which turns out isn’t always the same thing.”
There was no bitterness in his voice.
No dramatic emphasis.
Just a statement.
“What happened?”
He shrugged.
“I got tired.”
The simplicity of the answer made something inside her soften.
Not because she understood technology.
Because she understood tired.
“I woke up one day and realized I’d built a life I wasn’t particularly interested in living anymore.”
Rachel grew still.
Not visibly.
Just inside.
Because she knew that sentence.
Not the details.
The feeling.
She’d spent years lying beside Robert wondering what was wrong with her. Wondering why she felt guilty all the time. Wondering whether wanting more made her selfish.
And eventually she’d realized she wasn’t unhappy.
She was absent.
Funny how many people confused the two.
“I know that feeling,” she said quietly.
Ben looked at her then.
Not intensely.
Not curiously.
He simply looked at her.
And after a moment, he nodded.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I thought maybe you might.”
Rachel grew still.
Not visibly. Ben had already returned his attention to the courtyard, squinting slightly at the angle of the afternoon sun as though the placement of future lavender somehow required this much concentration.
But she stood there with her coffee in both hands and found herself unexpectedly grateful that he hadn’t asked questions.
He hadn’t asked why.
He hadn’t offered his own version in return.