Brooks
Winning is supposed to feel better than this. Yet all I can think about is the moment she second guessed herself and erased the right answer. It replays in a loop I can’t shut off—the moment she revealed her dry erase board and I saw the erasure marks.
She had it. And I—
“Hey.” Jace’s voice cuts through the spiral like a rock through glass. I blink, dragged back into the present. He’s watching me over the rim of his glass, one brow lifted. “You gonna join us tonight, or are you planning to stare into that beer until it confesses something?”
Evan doesn’t look up, just adds, “You’ve been quiet for ten minutes.”
“I’m thinking,” I say.
“Yeah,” Jace replies. “We can tell. It’s unsettling.”
I huff out a breath and take another drink, letting the bitterness settle on my tongue, grounding. It doesn’t help.
Nothing about this feels settled.
“Snap out of it,” Jace says, nudging my boot under the table. “You absolutely smoked her.”
I take a drink of my beer instead of answering.
Amber ale. Solid. Clean finish.
“She didn’t get smoked,” Evan says, without looking up. “They tied. It came down to a tiebreaker.”
Jace waves a hand. “Semantics. He won.”
“I didn’t beat her,” I say.
They both look at me.
Jace tilts his head. “Pretty sure the whole town watched you do exactly that. You won.”
The word lands wrong.
I set my glass down harder than I mean to. The crack echoes across the table, sharper than it should be and something in my chest tightens with it.
I won. Yep, that’s what the town saw. That’s what everyone believes. Except it doesn’t feel like a win. It feels like I fucking cheated. I haven’t had full access to my sense of smell since I was a kid.
I drag a hand over my jaw, exhaling slowly. “Yeah,” I mutter. “Feels great.”
Jace snorts. “You sound thrilled.”
“I think I need to tell them I didn’t win fair and square. Tell them abou—”
“Brooks, no,” Evan snaps. “Don’t do this. You didn’t cheat.”
Jace snorts and takes a long pull of his beer. “Seriously, man. That’s an insane thought.”
A sharp bark cuts through the room, almost like the dog is agreeing with Jace and a flash of white and black spots barrels toward us like we’ve personally summoned him.
“Whoa—hey,” Jace laughs, lifting his boots just in time as the Dalmatian skids slightly on the worn wood floor before planting himself directly between us, tail wagging with full-body enthusiasm.
“Easy, Chief!” Dawn calls from the bar. “Don’t scare the customers.”
The dog ignores her entirely, nudging his head insistently against my knee like I’ve been neglecting him my whole life.
I reach down automatically, fingers sinking into the short, warm fur at his neck. He leans into it immediately, satisfied, tail thumping hard enough against the table leg to rattle the glasses.
Evan gestures vaguely upward with his glass. “This place used to be a fire station before they built the new one off of Main St. And Dawn over there was one of Orchard Falls’ firefighters before she retired.”
“You found all that out in the fifteen minutes we’ve been here?”
Evan shrugs and smiles as he takes a sip of his beer.
The bones of the building are still there.
High ceilings stretch farther than any bar really needs, brick walls worn smooth in places by time and use.
A polished brass pole gleams in the corner, catching the glow of string lights that have been strung up where hoses probably used to hang.
The bay doors are rolled open to the night, letting in a steady drift of cool early evening air and the low crackle of a firepit outside where people cluster in loose circles, drinks in hand, shoulders brushing, laughter rising and falling with the wind.
Chief huffs contentedly as I scratch behind his ears, completely at ease, completely certain he belongs here.
Unlike us.
“See?” Jace says. “We just need to hang out in places like this more. Become regulars. Make friends.”
“We’ve only just moved here,” Evan replies. “Let’s not rush our social integration.”
“Just moved here? We’ve been here a year!” Jace scoffs. “Besides, we cannot be the three weird guys who only hang out with each other.”
“We are the three weird guys who only hang out with each other, though,” I say absently, still staring somewhere past the dog, past the firelight, back into yesterday.
“Yeah, but we don’t have to lean into it,” Jace says. “We should branch out. Integrate. Be charming members of society.”
“You?” Evan says dryly. “Charming?”
“I am extremely charming,” Jace replies, offended.
“You’re a liability,” Evan says.
“I’m a fucking delight.”
I shake my head, but something in my chest loosens just a fraction.
They’re right. About the town. About the stakes. About all of it.
The front door opens behind us. And I feel it before I see it. The shift is subtle, but unmistakable.
Jace’s grin spreads slowly. “Well,” he murmurs, not even trying to hide it, “speak of the devil.”
I turn just in time to witness Willa Hartley stepping inside with her family and friends wrapped around her like a quiet kind of shield. The warm light catches her hair, her posture just as straight as it was yesterday. She’s composed, controlled, like nothing rattles her.
Like she didn’t stand in front of half the town and lose by a single word she already knew.
Her grandfather leads the way, shoulders back, still carrying that old-school orchard-owner confidence like it was stitched into his bones.
Her dad follows closely beside Patty, one hand low at her back as they pause just inside the door to let their eyes adjust to the warm light and flickering shadows.
Patty says something to Willa that I can’t hear from here, and Willa laughs softly.
Or at least, she makes the shape of a laugh.
It doesn’t reach her eyes.
Something in my chest tightens.
She looks composed. Put together. The same way she always does in public—like she’s built herself out of steel and autumn-colored stubbornness. But now that I know what to look for, I can see the crack in it, the thin line of tension she’s carrying across her shoulders.
Jace lets out a low whistle. “Well,” he says, dragging the word out like he’s enjoying himself entirely too much, “there’s your chance to stop brooding and go be a gentleman.”
“I’m not brooding.”
“You are one hundred percent brooding,” he says. “It’s very Byronic. Kind of hot if you’re into emotional repression.”
Evan doesn’t even look up from his beer. “Please don’t encourage him.”
“I’m not encouraging him,” Jace says. “I’m trying to get him to talk to the woman he’s been staring at like she’s an unsolved problem.”
I push my chair back before either of them can say anything else.
Jace grins. “There he goes.”
Evan’s voice follows me, low and dry. “Try not to make it worse.”
Yeah, no promises.
I don’t make a show of it.
I don’t cut across the room like I’ve got something to prove. I just set my beer down, step around Chief—who watches me go with sleepy disapproval from where he’s sprawled by the fire—and head toward the host stand where Willa and her family are waiting to be seated.
Willa notices me halfway there and I know the exact second it happens.
Her body goes still before her face does. Her hand gripping where it rests against the strap of her bag. Her chin lifts a fraction. The air between us tightens like a rope being pulled from both ends.
“Brooks,” Willa says when I stop a few feet from them. My name sounds careful in her mouth. Like she’s wrapping it in restraint so it doesn’t come out as something sharper.
“Hi, Willa.” There’s a beat where we just look at each other.
The noise of the bar hums around us—glasses clinking, laughter from the firepit drifting in through the open doors, someone feeding cash into the old jukebox in the corner.
Warm light catches in the loose strands of her hair.
She’s wearing a cream sweater tonight, soft-looking in a way that doesn’t match the set of her jaw at all.
That mismatch does something to me I don’t care to examine too closely.
Her dad clears his throat. Not subtle.
Willa glances toward him, then back at me. “Can I help you with something?”
Polite. And reserved enough to make the point.
I tilt my head toward the hallway that leads to the restrooms and the quieter back corridor where the old turnouts used to hang. “Can I steal you for a second?”
Her brows lift. “That depends. Are you planning to be insufferable?”
“Not on purpose.”
Her mouth almost twitches.
Almost.
Then she sighs through her nose and says to her family, “I’ll be right back.”
Her father looks like he’d like to object. Patty lays a hand on his arm before he can.
Willa brushes past me first and I follow her down the short side hall where the noise of the main room fades just enough to let silence breathe between us.
There’s an old framed photo on the wall of the building when it was still an active firehouse, doors open, truck gleaming, men in suspenders and soot-streaked shirts staring out at the camera.
And Dawn… the woman who served us our beers stands in the middle of the group smiling, Chief the dalmatian seated obediently at her feet.
Everything is quieter back here, too. Brick dust, old wood, smoke worked deep into the building’s bones.
Willa turns to face me beneath a sconce throwing honey-colored light over the wall. “Well? Are you here celebrating your victory?” She gestures toward the front room where my brothers are pretending they’re not stealing glances back here.
“Not as much as I thought I would,” I say.
She doesn’t like that answer. I can tell by the way her eyes narrow. Not in anger exactly, but in suspicion. Like she thinks I’m playing at humility for sport.
“That’s a strange thing to say to the person who lost.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” She folds her arms across her chest. “Because from where I’m standing, you looked pretty comfortable winning that title yesterday.”
I step a little closer. Not enough to crowd her. Just enough that my voice doesn’t have to travel. “You had it right.”
The words land between us and everything stills. For a second, even the muffled laughter from the other room disappears as Willa blinks.
“You had it right,” I repeat, quieter now. “The first answer.”
Something flashes across her face. Fast. Barely there. Recognition. Then denial slams over it. “What? No, I didn’t.”
“You did. You wrote down Fuji, then changed it… erased it.”
She goes truly still at this. Not performative stillness. Not public composure. The kind that feels like a body bracing around something tender.
She looks away first, but only for a second, her gaze dropping to the floor between us before dragging back up to mine. There’s a flush rising in her cheeks now, not from embarrassment exactly. Something closer to anger at herself. And because I know what that feels like, it twists low in my chest.
“I changed my mind,” she says.
“You second-guessed yourself.”
Her jaw tightens. “Does that make you feel better?” The words come sharper this time, honed to a point. Like she’s daring me to take something from her.
“No.” My answer comes easy and I don’t look away. “Just means I know what I saw.”
The silence stretches between us, thicker than anything that came before it. I’m not telling her who she is. I’m not telling her what it means. I’m just refusing to pretend it didn’t happen.
Her eyes search mine like she’s trying to find the flaw in that. The ego. The smugness. The win.
But there’s nothing for her to grab onto.
And somehow, that seems to unsettle her more.
Her shoulders shift, just slightly, like she’s adjusting to a weight she didn’t expect to carry into this conversation.
The noise from the main room drifts back in—a burst of laughter, the clink of glasses, someone calling her name.
Reality, knocking.
She glances toward it, then back at me. And for a second—just a second—the edge between us softens.
Less like we’re standing on opposite sides of something. More like we’re both standing in the middle of it.
She inhales slowly, then lifts her chin, composure sliding back into place like armor she knows how to wear too well. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says.
She steps past me then, close enough that her sleeve brushes my hand, the warmth of it lingering just long enough to be distracting.
I don’t turn right away.
I give myself one second.
Two.
Then I look back toward the main room.
Her father’s watching me like I just declared war.
Patty’s watching Willa.
Her grandfather is—God help me—smiling.
Across the bar, Jace is grinning like he’s witnessing the best entertainment of his life, and Evan’s expression has gone sharp, calculating, already five steps ahead of whatever this turns into.
I ignore all of them.
Because my focus is still on her.
She thinks losing yesterday was the worst part.
It wasn’t.
The worst part is that tomorrow, she walks into my world. And I don’t think I’m ready for what that’s going to do to me.