Chapter 9 #2
I stood at the edge of the room, watching her. Callie moved through the shop with that same quiet rhythm I remembered—stacking trays, adjusting a centerpiece, humming to herself like no one was listening. Maybe she didn’t care if they were. Maybe she was just…happy.
I didn’t think about it. I just moved closer to help. Didn’t ask. Didn’t speak. Just started stacking plates beside her. It felt natural. Easy in a way nothing else had in a long time.
Our shoulders brushed now and then, little electric shocks snapping through my nerves like reminders that I was still here—still feeling something I shouldn’t.
“Careful with that,” I muttered when she wobbled a tower of mugs too high.
She shot me a look over her shoulder—half smirk, half warning. “I’ve got it.”
“Didn’t say you didn’t. Just don’t want to mop cocoa off the floor.”
She laughed—light and sudden—and it pulled something loose in my chest. “You sound like my mother.”
I raised a brow. “Suppose I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She didn’t answer. Just smiled and kept working. The silence we slipped into didn’t feel heavy this time. It felt…shared. Lighter, even, with something softer underneath.
Then she turned to face me, holding a tray between us like a pause.
“I’m really glad you came,” she said.
And damn if she didn’t mean it.
I nodded once. “It was a good night.”
And it was. Not just the books and cookies and kids hyped on sugar—it was her. The way she looked in this space she’d made her own. The way it felt to be part of something she’d built, even for just one night.
She turned to tidy the cocoa station, and her eyes landed on the box near the donation table—the one I’d dropped off when I thought she wouldn’t notice.
“Hey,” she said, brow pinching slightly. “Where did this come from?”
My body stilled.
She moved closer, crouching near the edge of the box, her fingers brushing the faded spines. I didn’t answer. Not right away.
“You brought these, didn’t you?”
I could’ve denied it. Would’ve been easier. But she looked at me like she already knew. There wasn’t a lie in the world that would hold up against that stare.
I shrugged, voice low. “Thought they’d be better off here.”
She touched the corner of a book, soft and reverent. My mother’s books. Her favorites. She sent them to me when I was stationed in Egypt. The kind that got read until the pages curled and the covers wore smooth.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said.
“I know.” I shifted, resisting the urge to look away. “Still wanted to.”
Something flickered across her face—something I couldn’t name. Gratitude, maybe. Or something heavier. She straightened slowly, brushing her hands on her jeans, and looked at me like she saw something she wasn’t sure she was ready to believe in again.
Then, with a small smile, she said, “You sure you’re not secretly Santa?”
I let out a soft snort. “Don’t do red suits.”
She grinned, and for a second, it felt like maybe the past hadn’t ruined everything after all.
“Too bad,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, her smile casual but sharp enough to land. “You’d look good in one.”
A low laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it—unexpected and real. It caught me off guard. She always had that effect. One well-aimed quip and suddenly the air wasn’t quite so heavy. Just like it used to be—before everything got twisted and hard.
We kept moving around the shop, putting things back in their place. Wiping away the traces of joy we’d somehow managed to help create.
“So what’s next for you?” I asked, half to fill the silence, half because I genuinely wanted to know. “Planning more events like this?”
She shrugged, but her eyes betrayed the truth—there was a fire behind them, one that always sparked when she talked about this place. “Definitely—if tonight is any indication.”
I nodded, glancing around at the mess of empty mugs, crooked garlands, and forgotten mitten pairs. “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Didn’t even mean to say it. But it came out honest. Clean. And I meant it more than I knew how to admit. After everything this town had taken from her, she still built something worth showing up for. Worth staying for.
Her gaze flicked to me, softer now, like she heard more than I said. “I appreciate that,” she murmured, fiddling with an ornament on the edge of the table like it held more importance than it did.
We worked in silence for a bit, just the quiet clink of dishes and rustle of ribbon. Comfortable. Familiar. Then she spoke again, breaking it with something that tightened the air between us.
“You know… for someone who keeps saying he’s just passing through…”
I froze for a beat. My hands kept moving, but slower. My heart, though? It kicked hard in my chest.
“What about you?” she asked, turning toward me now. “You think you’ll stick around?”
There it was. The question I’d been circling for days. Maybe longer.
“I guess time will tell,” I said evenly, but my voice felt like it didn’t quite reach the ground. Because part of me already knew the answer—and it scared the hell out of me.
Sticking around meant facing what I’d left. What I’d ruined.
But tonight, in this room she rebuilt, with warmth clinging to the walls and her standing beside me again?
It didn’t seem like the worst idea I’d ever had.
Callie’s smile faltered just a little at my answer—didn’t vanish, just softened into something more cautious.
She turned away, busying herself with a stack of books left on a nearby shelf.
Maybe she needed the space to think. Or maybe she just didn’t want to press—didn’t want to ask for more than I was willing to give. Either way, I let her go.
But even as we worked in silence, side by side, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had shifted tonight. Something small, maybe—but real. Like the beginnings of something fragile rebuilding itself. A new rhythm. A second chance.
Not just a successful open house or a quiet moment over cocoa, but a piece of connection—tentative and uncertain, but there all the same.
Maybe it wasn’t just the warm lights or the scent of sugar cookies hanging in the air. Maybe it was the way her presence settled something restless in me. The way she never pretended things hadn’t been hard, but still looked at me like I hadn’t completely ruined everything.
“So, about those cookies…” she said, bumping my shoulder with a sticky finger, her voice teasing again.
I glanced down to see a smear of green frosting across her knuckle as she held up a poorly decorated reindeer. We both cracked smiles—wide and easy, like the kind we hadn’t shared in years.
Something inside me loosened. Just a little. Just enough.
And in that moment, I let it happen.
Let myself feel what it meant to stand beside her again—laughing, close, grounded in something real.
Even if I didn’t deserve it.
Even if I wasn’t sure I’d ever be brave enough to stay.