Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Sadie
Tiny School Chairs
I fully expect Colby Reid to cancel.
The snowstorm clears by morning.
By noon, the roads reopen.
By evening, we're back to real life.
The bakery. The customers. The rules. At least that's what I tell myself.
The almost-kiss in Colby's cabin becomes something neither of us mentions.
Not when we unload supplies.
Not when he helps me carry boxes into the bakery.
Not when Jillie spends an alarming amount of time talking about blanket forts.
Life resumes.
Almost.
Because every time our eyes meet, I remember.
And judging by the way he sometimes looks at me before remembering himself, I know he remembers too.
Men don't move toward things that matter, they move away from them.
Which is exactly why I expect Colby to cancel.
Not because he’s cruel. That would actually be easier.
Cruel men make clean villains. They disappoint you openly. They give you something simple to point at later and say, See? That. That is why I knew better.
Colby is not cruel. That is exactly the problem. He is careful. Thoughtful. Annoyingly sincere.
He fixes broken mixers without waiting to be thanked.
He remembers my coffee order. He asks Jillie questions and then actually listens to her answers.
He makes my bakery customers laugh, charms elderly women without seeming to try, and somehow turns standing in my kitchen at five in the morning with burned cinnamon rolls into something that feels dangerously close to intimate.
Which is why I expect him to cancel. Because men like him do not belong in elementary school cafeterias under paper snowflakes.
Hockey stars attend galas. Press conferences. Charity games. And award shows where women in expensive dresses lean close for photographs.
They do not attend Briar Cove Elementary’s Winter Song Spectacular, where the chairs are plastic, the stage is temporary, and half the kindergarten class will forget the words to Jingle Bells.
Especially not fake boyfriends. Especially not fake boyfriends who are already beginning to feel less fake by the hour.
“Mommy, stop looking at your phone,” Jillie says from the back seat.
“I’m not looking at my phone.”
“You looked twelve times.”
“I’m checking the time.”
“The time did not change twelve times.”
Unfortunately, my daughter is both observant and correct.
I set the phone face down in my lap and grip the steering wheel a little tighter.
Snow drifts lightly over the windshield, soft and pretty, the kind of snowfall Briar Cove seems to specialize in during December.
Main Street glows behind us, but the school sits a few blocks away on a hill above the town green, its windows are especially bright against the dark winter evening.
From the outside, it looks harmless.
Inside that building, every parent in town will watch me walk in with the child they all know and without the man they all think I’m dating.
If Colby doesn’t come, which he probably won’t, which would be fine…
It would be reasonable.
It would be normal.
It would also crush Jillie.
“Do you think he’ll sit in the tiny chairs?” she asks.
“I’m sure they’ll have regular chairs too.”
“No, they won’t. Grown-ups suffer at school events. Miss Angie said.”
“Miss Angie said that?”
“She said it with her face.”
I glance at her in the rearview mirror.
She is wearing a red velvet dress, white tights, and sparkly shoes she has declared “fancy but not running-safe.” Her pink coat is zipped all the way to her chin, and her hair is pulled into two curls that will not survive the evening.
Her eyes are bright and full of that hopeful kind of trust children give the world before the world earns it.
My chest tightens.
“Jillie,” I say carefully, “you know Colby is very busy.”
“I know.”
“And sometimes grown-ups have things they can’t get out of.”
“I know.”
“So, if he can’t come tonight, that doesn’t mean he didn’t want to.”
Her little face stills. And there it is. The mistake. The way hope can become fear in an instant.
“Did he say he wasn’t coming?” she asks.
“No.” I soften my voice. “No, baby. I’m just saying—”
“You’re saying maybe he’ll leave.”
The words land like a slap.
I pull into the school parking lot and shift into park.
For a moment, I can’t move. Because no matter how carefully I try to build walls around her heart, she still notices the shape of every missing person.
Her biological father left before she could hold onto memory. Darren stayed just long enough to teach her that men could leave twice. And now here I am, pretending I can manage the emotional fallout of Colby Reid walking through our lives like temporary winter magic.
I turn in my seat. “I’m saying grown-up schedules can be complicated.”
She studies me. Too wise. Too small. Then she nods, but I can tell she doesn’t believe me.
Before I can say anything else, someone knocks lightly on my driver’s side window.
I startle hard enough to nearly honk.
Colby stands outside in the falling snow, holding three hot chocolates in a cardboard tray and wearing the expression of a man who absolutely knows he just scared five years off my life.
Jillie screams.
Not yells.
Screams.
“COLBY!”
He grins. My heart drops directly into my boots.
Because he came. He came early. And he came with hot chocolate.
I roll down the window, still recovering. “Do hockey players usually lurk in elementary school parking lots?”
“Only when invited to high-stakes musical events.”
“You’re early.”
“I was told seating was competitive.”
Jillie is already unbuckling. “It is. Mrs. Young saves seats with her purse and lies about it.”
Colby’s eyebrows lift. “Scandalous.”
“Very.”
I get out slowly, accepting the hot chocolate he hands me because apparently my willpower has no defense against warm beverages and famous men who show up when they say they will.
“You didn’t have to bring these,” I say.
“I know.”
That’s what he always says. Not defensively. Not proudly. Just quietly.
It’s like the wanting to do something matters more than whether anyone asked.
Too easy to want. Too hard to stop.
Inside Briar Cove Elementary, chaos reigns.
Coats hang from every hook. Boots squeak on linoleum. Children dart around in sparkly dresses, button-down shirts, reindeer antlers, and one full snowman costume that looks like a safety hazard. Parents cluster near the cafeteria entrance, whispering, waving, scanning the room for seats and gossip.
The second Colby steps inside, the entire hallway changes.
Not dramatically.
Briar Cove people have dignity. Sort of.
But conversations stutter. Phones appear. A volunteer mom carrying a stack of programs walks directly into a bulletin board. “Oh, my goodness,” she whispers.
Jillie looks up at Colby proudly. “They know you.”
He leans down toward her. “They know your mom too.”
She considers this, then nods. “Because cookies.”
“Strong brand.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. No laughing. Laughing encourages him.
We make it approximately twelve feet before Miss Angie, Jillie’s teacher, hurries over with an expression somewhere between professional composure and barely contained hysteria.
“Sadie! Jillie! And… Mr. Reid.”
“Colby,” he says easily.
Miss Angie turns pink.
I cannot blame her, which annoys me.
“We’re so happy you could attend,” she says.
“I hear there’s one line delivered with excellent expression.”
Jillie beams like she has been knighted. Miss Angie presses her hand to her chest. “Oh, she told you?”
“Of course.”
Like a six-year-old’s winter recital line is the most important information on earth.
I glance at him. He’s watching Jillie, not the people watching him. That detail slips beneath my ribs before I can stop it.
We enter the cafeteria, and the room basically implodes. Not loudly.
Again, Briar Cove dignity.
But the energy shifts so fast even the children sense it. Parents whisper behind gloved hands. Grandparents pretend not to stare. A teenage boy wearing a youth hockey jacket drops his cookie.
Colby notices every bit of it, but he doesn’t flinch.
He simply walks beside us at Jillie’s pace.
Not ahead.
Not behind.
With us.
Mrs. Bellamy waves wildly from the third row, where she has apparently saved three seats using a scarf, a tote bag, and what looks like emotional intimidation.
“Over here,” she calls.
I lean toward Colby. “You can run now.”
“No chance. I heard there are tiny chairs.”
“You are taking this far too bravely.”
“I’ve faced overtime in Montreal.”
“That will not prepare you.”
It doesn’t. The chairs are absurd. The kind of tiny molded-plastic seating designed to make adults question every decision that led them to parenthood.
Colby lowers himself into one beside me with the grave concentration of a man defusing a bomb. His knees nearly touch his chest.
Jillie giggles so hard she has to cover her mouth.
“You okay?” I whisper.
“No.”
“Do you need rescue?”
“My pride does.”
Mrs. Bellamy leans around me. “You look precious, dear.”
Colby gives her a solemn nod. “Thank you. I feel compact.”
I laugh. Softly. Accidentally.
His gaze cuts to mine. For one second, I forget the cafeteria. Forget the whispers. Forget the cameras outside. Forget that we have rules.
Then Jillie runs off to line up with her class, waving over her shoulder. “Watch me the whole time!”
“I wouldn’t dare blink,” Colby calls back.
My throat tightens.
The program begins with kindergarteners ringing bells approximately three seconds behind the music. A first-grade boy sneezes mid-song and nearly loses his antlers. Two second graders spend an entire verse arguing silently over who gets to stand on the snowflake taped to the floor.
It is messy.
Sweet.
Human.
The kind of thing fame should not fit inside.
And yet Colby fits.
He watches like he means it. Not like a celebrity enduring a wholesome obligation. Not like a man performing family devotion for strangers. He watches the stage with full attention, his phone raised when Jillie’s class appears.
I lean closer. “Are you recording?”
“She asked me to.”
“She asked you when?”
“Earlier. In the hallway. Right after she informed me Mrs. Young is a seat criminal.”