Chapter 7 Talia #2
I wanted to reach over and take one of those hands in mine. Wanted to close the careful distance he maintained and see what happened when we stopped being quite so respectful of each other’s boundaries.
Instead, I said, “Tell me about the people who come into the bookstore. The ones you help.”
He looked surprised by the subject change, but followed my lead. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to understand how you do what you do. How you know what people need when they probably don’t know themselves.”
“I just pay attention.” He gestured back toward the bookstore, invisible from here but present in his mind.
“Someone comes in looking angry, I think about books that acknowledge rage as valid emotion. Someone comes in looking lost, I think about stories about people finding their way. It’s not complicated. ”
“But you do it for everyone. Every single person who walks through your door gets your full attention and your careful consideration.” I turned to face him more fully. “Don’t you ever get tired? Don’t you ever want someone to pay attention to you that way?”
The question hung between us, more vulnerable than I’d intended. He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read, something warm and startled and slightly afraid.
“Sometimes,” he admitted quietly. “More often lately.”
“Why lately?”
“Because lately someone’s been coming into my bookstore who makes me want to be seen as more than just the guy who recommends books.
” His voice had dropped, gone softer. “Someone who makes me remember what it feels like to want things for myself instead of just helping other people get what they need.”
My breath caught. We were treading into territory we’d been carefully avoiding, acknowledging attraction that had been building for weeks under the cover of literary discussion and chamomile tea.
“Hollis...”
“I’m not asking for anything,” he said quickly. “I just wanted you to know that bringing you here, sharing this place, it matters to me. You matter to me. In ways I wasn’t expecting.”
The honesty of it made my chest tight. This careful, gentle man who helped everyone but never asked for help himself, telling me I’d gotten under his carefully maintained defenses.
“You matter to me too,” I said, and watched relief and pleasure flicker across his face.
We sat there in the golden afternoon light, not quite touching but closer than we’d been before. The garden sprawled around us, slightly wild and absolutely beautiful, tended by someone who was trying his best despite being terrified he wasn’t enough.
Just like me with the bistro. Just like both of us with life in general.
“I should tell you something,” Hollis said eventually. “Cassian Black came into the store yesterday.”
The name caught me off guard, pulling me out of the intimacy we’d been building. “Cassian?”
“He was looking for field guides. Turned out he wanted references on sustainable forestry practices and watershed management.” Hollis smiled slightly. “We ended up talking for over an hour. He’s more interesting than people give him credit for.”
“He is,” I agreed, trying not to think about how much time I’d been spending with Cassian lately. The contractor meetings and permit discussions that had started feeling like more than professional courtesy.
“He mentioned he’s been helping you with the bistro planning. Said you were incredibly competent and determined.”
Heat climbed my neck. “He said that?”
“He did. With genuine respect, too.” Hollis studied me carefully. “He seems lonely. Isolated. Like he’s trying to build something new here but doesn’t quite know how to connect with people. I can understand that.”
“That sounds accurate.”
“I liked him,” Hollis said simply. “I think he and I might become friends. He needs them, and I...” He paused. “I’m realizing I might need them too. I’ve been spending so much time helping strangers that I forgot how to have actual relationships with people.”
The admission felt significant. Hollis recognizing his own isolation, actively choosing to build connections instead of just maintaining helpful distance.
“I’m glad,” I said honestly. “I think you’d be good for each other.”
We stayed in the garden until the light started to fade and the temperature dropped enough that I shivered despite my cardigan. Hollis noticed immediately, and we walked back to the car in comfortable silence.
On the drive back to my cottage, he said, “Thank you for coming today. For seeing the garden and not judging me for letting it get away from me.”
“You’re selling yourself short, Hollis. I think your grandmother would be really proud of what you’ve accomplished in the garden and in other things.”
He pulled up in front of my cottage and turned to look at me in the dimming light. “I meant what I said earlier. About you mattering to me.”
“I know.” I wanted to lean across the console and kiss him, wanted to see what would happen if we stopped being quite so careful with each other, but something stopped me.
Some fear that it would ruin this fragile thing we were building together.
“You matter to me too, Hollis. More than I expected.”
Something heated flared in his eyes before he banked it carefully. “Good night, Talia.”
“Good night.”
I watched him drive away, then stood in my driveway and tried to sort through what had just happened.
The garden and the grief and the vulnerability he’d shown me.
The admission that I mattered to him in ways he hadn’t expected.
The careful restraint that had kept us from crossing lines we both clearly wanted to cross.
Inside, I made myself dinner and tried not to think about warm hazel eyes and careful hands and what it would feel like to be held by someone who paid such close attention to what you needed.
Tried not to think about how confused I was getting about multiple men who each made me feel different things.
Tried not to think about how much I’d wanted to kiss Hollis Green in his grandmother’s garden while afternoon light turned everything golden and possible.
But thinking about all of it was inevitable. Because something had shifted today. Something that made the careful friendship we’d been building feel insufficient, like we were both holding back from something we might actually want.
And I had no idea what to do about that when I was already confused about Jace’s cooking lessons and Cassian’s late-night contractor discussions.
I fell asleep thinking about gardens and grief and gentle men who created sanctuary for everyone but themselves.
Thinking that Hollis Green was far more complicated than the role he played, and that maybe he needed someone to tend to him the way he tended to everyone else.
Thinking that I was in so much trouble, and it was only getting worse.