Willa
I wake up before the sun. Not because I want to, but because my brain refuses to let me stay asleep long enough to forget my loss and that today is my first day working over at the Calder brother’s orchard.
When I should be here getting things in order for our orchard.
The house is quiet in that deep, pre-dawn way where everything feels suspended.
Like the world hasn’t decided what kind of day it’s going to be yet.
The floors creak softly under my feet as I make my way down the hall, pulling my sweater tighter around me, the chill of early morning slipping through the walls like it belongs here more than I do.
I halt, midstep when I see the kitchen light is already on.
Grandpa sits at the table with a mug of coffee cradled in both hands, elbows planted like he’s been there for hours.
The window behind him frames the orchard in shades of blue-gray and silver, rows of trees stretching into a low fog that clings to the ground like it’s not ready to let go of the night.
He doesn’t look up when I walk in, just simply lifts the coffee pot slightly in silent offering.
With a nod, I grab a mug and sit down opposite him at the table.
For a minute, neither of us speaks. The coffee is hot and strong, bitter in a way that feels earned. I wrap my hands around the mug and stare out at the orchard, watching as the first hint of light starts to edge along the horizon, turning the mist faintly gold.
This is my favorite time of day. Usually. Today it just feels… quiet in the wrong way.
There’s so much I wish I could do here at Hartley & Sons.
So many fun and exciting things we could try.
And yet, there’s a thick air of tradition that sits like a weighted blanket on me.
Maybe that’s why Calder Cider bothers me so much.
They get to play. Experiment. They get to do things that are exciting and new while I’m stuck in a regime that, although runs like a well-oiled machine, can be creatively crushing.
Grandpa takes a sip of his coffee. “Press looked good yesterday,” he says, like we’re picking up a conversation from last week instead of standing in the aftermath of something I can’t stop replaying. “Better than the other night when we had a few apples past prime in there.”
I blink. “You noticed that?”
He snorts. “I notice everything.”
I smile because of course he does. “That batch should be ready to rack by Thursday,” I say automatically. “Sugar levels were right where we wanted them.”
“Mm.” He nods once, satisfied. “Good.”
That’s it. No mention of the competition. No mention of the loss. No soft, careful handling of my ego like I’m something fragile that might crack if he breathes too hard in my direction.
It should feel like relief. Instead, it makes the thing sitting in my chest feel heavier. Because if he’s not going to say it—that means I have to.
“I had it right.” I stare down into my black coffee as the words slip out and land between us, heavier than they should be for something so simple.
Grandpa doesn’t look surprised. He doesn’t even look particularly interested, if I’m being honest. He just takes another sip of his coffee and says, “I know.”
That’s it.
No It’s okay.
No You’ll get it next time.
Just, ‘I know.’
My throat tightens. “I don’t understand why I changed it.”
He finally looks at me then, eyes sharp and clear and entirely too knowing. “Because… you got in your own way,” he says.
I huff out a breath, frustrated. “That’s not exactly helpful.”
“It’s not supposed to be helpful,” he replies calmly. “It’s supposed to be true.”
I look back down at my coffee, watching the steam curl up and disappear into the air.
“I knew it,” I say, quieter now. “The texture, the sweetness. It didn’t sit like Gala. I could feel it. And I still—” I cut myself off, pressing my lips together.
Erased it.
Second-guessed it.
Handed the win over to Brooks on a silver platter.
Grandpa leans back slightly in his chair, studying me like I’m one of his trees and he’s trying to figure out what’s gone wrong in the growth pattern. “Knowing something and trusting it aren’t the same thing,” he says. “And you were lacking a pretty important sense there.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “So was Brooks. And he got it right.”
“You’ve always known your apples,” Grandpa continues. “Since you were little. Couldn’t keep you out of the rows. You’d bite into one and tell me exactly what it needed—more sun, more water, more time.” His mouth twitches faintly. “Half the time you were right.”
“Half the time?” I shoot back with a snort.
He shrugs. “Other half you were just being bossy. You weren’t necessarily wrong… but that also don’t always make ya right.”
I almost smile.
“But you never hesitated back then,” he adds. “Didn’t look around to see if someone else was going to agree with you first. You just told me like it was. Or how you thought it was.”
I stare out the window again, the orchard slowly coming into focus as the light strengthens. “That was different.”
“Was it?”
“Yes,” I say, more firmly now. “It wasn’t—” I gesture vaguely. “Public. It didn’t matter in the same way.”
Grandpa hums softly, unconvinced.
“Funny thing about pressure,” he says. “It don’t change what you know. Just changes whether you trust yourself enough to stand by it.”
The words settle uncomfortably into me, heavy and unyielding. I take another sip of coffee, letting the bitterness ground me.
“He didn’t celebrate, you know,” Grandpa says after a moment.
I glance at him. “What?”
“That Calder boy,” he says, like it’s an afterthought. “At the firehouse. He didn’t look like someone who was celebrating or even someone who thought he beat you.”
Something in my chest tightens. I look away too quickly. “He won.”
“That’s not what I said.”
I snort. “Are you arguing he didn’t win?”
Grandpa lifts a shoulder, unconcerned. “All I’m saying is, I’ve seen a lot of people win a lot of things in my life. They usually look happier about it.”
I don’t like where this is going. I don’t like that part of me already noticed the same thing about Brooks. “I don’t care how he felt about it,” I say.
Grandpa’s eyes flick back to me, amused now. “Didn’t say you did.”
I press my lips together. It’s such a Grandpa response.
The silence stretches again, softer this time.
Outside, the sun finally breaks over the horizon, light spilling across the orchard in slow, golden lines that make everything look steadier and more rooted than I currently feel.
Grandpa drains the last of his coffee and sets the mug down with a quiet clink. “You going over there today?” he asks.
I tighten my grip on my own mug. “I don’t have a choice.”
He snorts, pushing back from the table as he stands. “Sure you do.”
I frown up at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He pauses by the sink, glancing back at me with that same steady, knowing look. “Means you get to decide how you show up,” he says. “That’s always been the part that matters. Besides, it’s better that you’re the one on his orchard, not the other way around.”
My hand stills just as I’m lifting my mug for another sip and tilt my head. “How do you figure?”
“Well, would you really want our competition over here working our apples? Seeing what we do, how we do it, and why? I sure as hell wouldn’t.
But you? You’ve been handed the golden ticket into the chocolate factory.
” Grandpa crosses over to me and cups my cheek, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
“So lemme ask you again. Do you really think that Calder boy won now?”
He exits the kitchen and I sit there for a moment after he leaves the room, the house still quiet around me, the orchard now fully awake beyond the window with birds flitting around and singing their morning songs.
My stomach knots.
Because he’s right. This isn’t a loss. It’s access. It’s proximity. It’s a front-row seat. It’s a chance to see what Brooks Calder has built… and exactly where it might break.
I get to walk straight into Brooks Calder’s world and see it for what it really is.
See him for what he really is.
I push back from the table and stand, the chair legs scraping softly against the floor as the weight in my chest shifts into something sharper and more focused.
Brooks Calder thinks he won. But he actually just handed me the keys to his entire operation. And this time—I’m not second-guessing a thing.
By the time I pull up to Calder Cider, the sun is fully up and I’ve already given myself three separate pep talks in the car.
None of them worked.
The building sits back from the road just enough to feel intentional. Not tucked away like Hartley & Sons, not softened by time or tradition or the kind of history that lets things settle into the land.
No, this building looks like it was placed here.
Deliberately.
The sign—Calder Cider—is mounted on clean, dark wood. Modern, but not flashy. The kind of understated that only works when you know exactly what you’re doing.
I cut the engine and sit there for a second, fingers still curled around the steering wheel.
This is fine.
This is temporary.
This is strategic.
I step out of the car, my boots hitting gravel, the morning air cooler here than it was at home. Or maybe that’s just my nerves. The orchard stretches behind the building in clean, deliberate rows. Younger trees standing more uniform like little cadets lined up for duty. Less wild than ours.
Less… lived in.
But not careless.
Not sloppy.
Intentional.
The front door to his tasting room is propped open and I step inside.
The space is bright, clean, and—annoyingly—beautiful.
Sunlight pours through wide windows, catching on polished wood and steel.
Everything has a place. Everything stays in its place.
The tasting bar runs the length of the room, set with glasses that actually match, shelves behind it lined with bottles arranged like someone considered symmetry before they placed a single one.