Chapter 14
Fourteen
“You know what they say about guts?”
At the office, normalcy wrapped around me like a too-tight sweater.
Phones rang, Tom needed urgent help, and Kevin the Cactus glared from his pot. I dumped my bag onto my desk and collapsed into my chair, still feeling—right under my skin—the buzz of the surprising turn of last night’s events.
The afternoon was unusually warm, and the terrace behind Tommo was mostly deserted, just a few scattered chairs, the buzz of a vending machine humming in the corner, and a lazy seagull perched brazenly on the railing.
Mia shoved a coffee cup into my hands without preamble and plopped down beside me on the bench, one leg tucked under her.
“You look like a girl who needs a talk,” she said, lifting her own cup in a mock-toast.
I smiled weakly. “I look that bad?”
“No,” she said, studying me. “You look… gorgeous, more feminine, secretive: that mix is dangerous and scaring me a little.”
I blinked. “Dangerous?”
“Yeah.” She took a sip. “Like you’re about three seconds away from doing something wildly brave or stupid, or both at the same time.”
I stared out over the parking lot, where the ferry signs flickered in the early afternoon light. And because it was Mia, because she always knew the right moment to push or pull, I said it.
“I think I’m falling in love with him,” I whispered shyly, but just enough for her to hear.
Mia didn’t gasp or protest. She just waited for me to continue, sipping her coffee and giving me space.
I exhaled shakily. “I know what the talk around town is about him, but he’s different with me, and it’s more than sex, Mia.
Which is good, very good, better than good.
It’s like he sees my broken parts, and he doesn’t run away.
He just… holds them, like they’re nothing, like they’re beautiful. ”
Mia’s eyes softened.
“And when he’s around,” I said, my voice cracking slightly, “it feels like everything might just be okay. It makes me believe I could dream again… and fly.”
There was a long, quiet moment. A ferry horn sounded somewhere in the distance. Mia reached over and squeezed my hand. “That’s what falling feels like, babe. The good falling,” she corrected herself.
I swallowed the lump rising in my throat. “But there’s this knot in my gut, it’s tiny and probably stupid. I keep ignoring it, but it’s there. Can something be too perfect?”
Mia nodded, like she knew exactly what I meant.
“You know what they say about guts?” she said, voice low. “They’re smarter than hearts.”
I looked down at my coffee, studying the swirl of foam.
“How did you know?” I asked, voice barely a whisper. “When you met Liam. How did you know that it was real and that you could trust him?”
Mia smiled, not her usual teasing grin, but something quieter and more reflective in her eyes woke up.
“I didn’t, at first,” she said. “I loved him before I trusted him. It took time. Messy time! Late-night fights and ugly crying and stupid stubbornness.” She paused. “But when it mattered… he chose me, every single time.”
I bit my lip hard enough to taste blood.
“You’ll know, Alicia,” Mia said gently. “Not because he says it or when he kisses you like the world’s ending. But because when it really counts: when the ground shakes and everything falls apart, he’ll choose you. That’s what you need to feel, what your gut needs to see.”
“And if he doesn’t?” I asked, hating how small my voice sounded.
Mia squeezed my hand again. “You have no reason to believe that he won’t. But if he does, first of all, I don’t want to state the obvious, but he will be so wrong, and second, and most of all, you will survive it. And you’ll still be that girl who can fly.” A beat. “Maybe even higher.”
I laughed, a broken, grateful sound. “God, you’re annoyingly good at this.”
Mia grinned. “I know. Comes with managing toddler drama and a mortgage.”
We sipped our coffees in silence for a while, letting the breeze pull at the edges of our sleeves.
I didn’t say anything else. But somewhere inside, the smallest part of me: the part that still believed in warnings, in gut instincts, especially after what happened last year, imprinted Mia’s words into my heart, because I was falling for this man more sharply than I believed I could.
The next few weeks blurred into something that didn’t quite feel like real life. They felt golden, stretched out and slow, like the endless dusky days of late summer that you don’t notice slipping away until it’s already fall.
I still slept most nights at home, dealing with Dad’s passive-aggressive silence and Adam’s increasingly knowing looks.
Work was still there, more intense than ever, with tourists still storming Vancouver Island shores, broken coffee machines, and the office where Mia watched everything with narrowed, fond eyes.
Once, she passed me a sticky note that simply said:
“You’re glowing like something which should be illegal. Also, 1. You’re losing weight, 2. Drink more water.”
At the office, we were careful, at least we believed we were, with passing glances, hand grazing the small of my back when no one was looking. A message slipped under my keyboard once:
“Still thinking about last night. Incredible you.”
Because at least three or four nights a week, I found myself back at his place.
His small apartment on Bruce Avenue became a second home: the uneven floorboards, the sharp smell of his aftershave mixed with the clean scent of soap that clung to his skin, with Albert Camus overlooking our every move.
Sometimes, I showed up after work, sweaty and stressed and desperate for nothing more than his hands in my hair, his voice in my ear.
Sometimes he would text me something so indiscreet it made my hands shake under the conference table at work, and I would plan elaborate lies to get to him faster.
Sometimes, I didn’t even need an excuse.
But most days it was slow. Simple and homely. A lazy Sunday afternoon stretched wide open before us, sunlight slanted through the open balcony door, curling across his hardwood floor like spilled honey. Somewhere in the kitchen, Paul cursed quietly over a pot bubbling on the stove.
“Are you trying to poison me?” I called from the couch, grinning.
He stuck his head around the corner, a wooden spoon clutched in one hand. His hair was even messier than usual, the sleeves of his black T-shirt shoved up to his elbows.
“Tomato sauce I made from scratch, girl. Show some respect.”
“You cook?” I raised an eyebrow.
“I survive,” he said with a shrug. “Picked it up a few lifetimes ago. It’s edible, I promise.”
The smell: garlic, basil, red wine, something richer underneath, wrapped itself around the room. I tucked my feet under me on the couch, his leather jacket still slung over the armrest, a casual claim to territory I wasn’t even sure he realized he made.
“Keep it, girl,” he murmured, tapping my nose with a sauce-drenched spoon.
“Looks better on you.”
When he finally brought over two mismatched bowls of pasta, he handed me mine with an exaggerated flourish, like a waiter at some fancy trattoria.
“Signorina, your Michelin experience.”
I snorted and took a bite and promptly groaned.
“Okay. Fine. You could officially star in The Bear. This is seriously good, Paul.”
Paul grinned, satisfied, and dug in too. We ate on the couch, knees bumping, a record spinning low in the background: jazz guitar, old, lively, and crackling like a voice from another time, Paul called it gypsy jazz. No rush, no expectations, no golden bras: just being.
Later that night, when we were tangled on his bed, skin damp, limbs heavy with sleep and aftershocks, he picked up the old guitar that sat in the corner of his room and strummed a few tentative chords. I lay there, still naked but swaddled in his crumpled sheets, watching him.
“That’s beautiful,” I said quietly.
He shrugged, not looking up. “Just noise, a few chords I felt like playing, doesn’t matter.”
But it did matter. It mattered because for those few minutes, the walls around him dropped away. He wasn’t Paul the Tease, Paul the Beautiful Disaster, he was just Paul, laid bare for me to see through him. And I loved him for that even though I didn’t dare say it.
He glanced at me then, something vulnerable flickered through the usual teasing light in his eyes. For a moment, it felt like we were speaking a language no one else could hear.
And I didn’t ask whose song it was, I just let it be ours for a while.
Later, stretched across the bed in nothing but one of his old, too-big sweaters and my underwear, I felt the way his gaze lingered on me like he was memorizing.
His eyes, half-lidded from wine and sleep, dragged slowly from my bare thighs to my messy hair to the flush still high on my cheekbones.
“You have no idea,” he murmured, “how gorgeous you are, do you?”
I smiled, lazy and drunk on him. “Not yet, but you wake me up from my self-induced coma, day by day.”
He shook his head like he couldn’t believe it.
Like I was some absurd discovery he hadn’t meant to stumble on but didn’t know how to stop learning.
I didn’t know how to stop either. Some days we stayed tangled in bed until way past midnight, his hands teaching me things I didn’t know my body could ask for.
Sometimes we just lay there, his fingers tracing lazy patterns over my stomach, my thighs, whispering nonsense until we drifted off.
Sometimes the sex was slow and languid, like sinking into a warm ocean.
Other times it was rough, teeth scraping against skin, desperate, like we were trying to erase everything else in the world.
I finally decided to get on the pill, so we didn’t always use protection.
He asked, the first time—after we exchanged clean test results— in that low, hoarse voice, forehead pressed against mine, if I was sure.
It felt terrifying and right to be able to feel him fully.