Chapter 8
Jace
I’m here to pick up the key I left behind yesterday after fixing the walk-in cooler. Quick trip. In and out. Except Dotty has other plans, and she’s blocking the counter space with the precision of someone who’s thought this through.
She slides my coffee across the counter. Dark roast. Black. The care you’d use for something that might explode.
“You’ve fixed that oven four times,” she says, not looking up from the espresso machine she’s aggressively cleaning. “In the past month. It didn’t break four times.”
I take a sip. The coffee is perfect. Dotty’s coffee is always perfect, which makes her commentary harder to dismiss as simple business owner gossip. This is someone who pays attention to details.
“Oven was faulty,” I say, which is technically true. It was faulty. The initial inspection revealed a temperature calibration issue that needed addressing. “The thermostat wasn’t reading properly. Could’ve caused real damage.”
“Right,” she says, and her voice carries the weight of fifteen years running a business, three kids raised solo, and an immunity to bullshit that would make a lie detector jealous. “And the third repair was also absolutely necessary.”
The third repair was creative maintenance. I can admit that internally. The oven didn’t actually break. I went by to check the seal on the door—which was fine—and while I was there, I might as well have replaced the gasket anyway. Preventive care. Totally reasonable.
“Fourth one was just good practice,” I continue. “Kitchen equipment needs regular maintenance checks.”
Dotty sets down the cleaning cloth and leans against the counter, her smile knowing enough to make me want to disappear into the woodwork I’ve been building in my workshop.
A desk, by the way. Unnecessarily intricate desk with joint work that definitely has nothing to do with procrastination or nervous energy or needing something to do with my hands at night that isn’t thinking about a woman in heels arriving in my town.
“Right,” she says again. Her tone suggests she’s done being gentle about this. “How many times does a woman have to accidentally lean against a broken oven for you to understand that she’s fine? That the oven was an excuse to be near her while she works?”
The kitchen suddenly feels warm.
“That’s not—” I stop. Start again. “I’m not—”
There’s no comeback to Dotty. She sees through people like X-rays. The load-bearing walls of bullshit visible from across a room.
“I had legitimate maintenance concerns,” I attempt weakly. My hands are around the coffee cup—good. Hands that are occupied are hands that can’t fidget or betray anything else.
“Sure you did.” Dotty refills my cup without asking, the pour precise and even. “And I’m sure you’re just very invested in her oven health as a community member. That’s why you went in three times last week to check things that have never broken.”
“The seal needed—”
“Jace.” She sets the pot down. Her expression softens slightly, which is worse than the teasing. “Talk to her. Or don’t. But stop pretending the oven is the problem.”
I leave seventeen dollars on the counter without waiting for change.
The universe, however, is not done with me.
Jax Moretti is at the firehouse when I stop by Wednesday afternoon with the shelf unit he ordered for his office. The shelf is solid oak, built to his specifications, and the joinery is clean. It’s good work. He’ll be happy with it, which is its own kind of satisfaction.
Except Jax has that look—the one that means he’s been thinking about something stupid and decided to act on it. His entire body language suggests he’s won something and is about to make sure I know it.
“Jace!” He claps me on the back like I’ve done him a personal favor by existing. His voice is loud enough to draw attention from the other guys hanging around the garage. “Perfect timing. I’m starting a betting pool.”
I set the shelf unit down carefully against the wall. If I don’t set it down carefully, I might pick it back up and use it as a weapon. That would be bad for the shelf unit and worse for my reputation.
"No," I say.
“Not even on whether you’re going to actually ask Gabby out before she opens her own café chain and becomes moderately famous?
” He holds up a paper covered in names and numbers.
The handwriting is messy, but the dollar amounts are clear.
“Current odds are three-to-one you’ll spend another month finding reasons to check the oven.
Cost you ten bucks to get in at that rate. Could win fifty.”
“Stop.”
“Five bucks says you don’t make a move before August.” He’s enjoying this way too much. “Fifteen bucks says you’ve already thought about what you’d say if you did. Twenty bucks says—”
“Jax.”
“Twenty bucks says right now, you’re thinking about her.
” He grins, and it’s a grin that makes me remember why we’re friends despite moments like this.
Jax Moretti operates on pure instinct and absolute confidence.
He has no internal filter between thought and speech.
“You’re thinking about that face she made when I told her about Morris. ”
I go still.
“That’s not—I wasn’t thinking about—"
But I was.
“What did you say?” The words come out too fast, too intense. Too honest. I don’t bother trying to hide it now. The damage is already done.
Jax’s grin widens. He’s won something and he knows it. He’s probably already won money from someone based on exactly this reaction.
“Told her Morris should get a second job as a pastry critic given how many times he’s shown up when she’s baking.
” He’s clearly enjoying every word of this.
“Told her that moose with better timing sense would skip the breakfast rush. She laughed so hard she had to sit down. Genuine laugh. Not her polite laugh. The real one.”
I imagine Morris crashing through the brush at exactly the wrong moment.
I imagine Gabby startled, dropping things, and then getting annoyed, and then—somewhere in the story—finding it funny.
The real kind of funny that comes from recognition and absurdity and just accepting that sometimes life includes moose.
I don’t like that Jax Moretti knows what her real laugh sounds like.
“The odds are five-to-one you didn’t hear that,” I tell him, attempting to reclaim some control of the conversation. “And they’re twenty-to-one you didn’t just spend my morning obsessing over it.”
“If I’m obsessing, so are you.” He’s still grinning. “You came in here with carpentry and you’re leaving with dating advice. I’ve won this already. You realize that, right? I’ve just won.”
He’s still laughing when I leave, and he’s right—he’s absolutely right—which is the part that makes this difficult.
Piper Lockwood materializes at my elbow three hours later with a timing that suggests coordination with Jax. They probably have a group chat. Possibly the entire town has a group chat. They’re definitely discussing me.
She appears at my workshop like she owns the place, holding two cups of coffee and enough confidence to fill a room.
Piper’s married to Ryder—an unexpected match that works perfectly—so her involvement in this can’t be anything sinister.
It’s worse. It’s friendly. It’s matchmaking disguised as neighborly interest and actual social concern.
“Coffee?” she offers, appearing at my workbench like we have standing plans. She sets both cups down without asking, which is Piper. She doesn’t ask permission. She decides what’s happening and moves forward with absolute certainty.
I’m working on the desk—the same desk I’ve been working on for weeks, the same desk that doesn’t actually need this much attention but gives me something to do with my hands that isn’t thinking. The joinery is intricate. Too intricate. But the level of detail keeps me focused.
“I’m working,” I say, not looking up from the joint I’m fitting.
“I can see that. You’re doing intense joinery on a piece that nobody ordered.
” She sits on the edge of my workbench, completely unbothered by the fact that I haven’t invited her to.
“Gabby mentioned she hasn’t had any help with social media.
Thought I’d offer to walk her through setting something up.
Building her bakery’s presence online, that sort of thing. ”
“That’s kind of you.”
“I’m offering,” Piper continues, her voice taking on that thoughtful tone that means she’s done with subtlety, “because she’s mortified about a photo of her in town and she’s pretending she’s not, which is very Gabby of her, and I think having some control over her own narrative might actually help.
People don’t like feeling like they’re being watched.
But people like it when they can decide what people are watching. ”
I keep working. The joint is nearly perfect. Another ten minutes and it’ll be done.
“She mentioned the moose,” Piper adds, and I can hear her smiling. “Said he showed up during the salmon croissants. She seemed to think it was hilarious. Also seemed to think you’d find it hilarious too, which is interesting for someone who’s ‘just here temporarily to settle an estate.’”
I look up. Piper’s watching me with that expression that means she’s done with subtlety and is now moving directly into personal excavation.
“What?” I ask, though I know exactly what she’s doing. I’m hoping maybe if I ask, she’ll explain herself and I can find a way to push back.
“You already know this,” she says. “That’s what’s making you fix the oven four times.
And don’t look at me like that; the entire town knows.
That’s what’s making you build furniture with an unreasonable attention to detail.
Not because the work needs doing, but because you’re—” she pauses, searching for the word, “—aware. Of her. In a way that’s making you do unnecessary maintenance and stare at your coffee like it personally wronged you at breakfast.”