Chapter 3 #2
“Right, okay,” he repeated like he was worried, but I liked staying busy. He left with a nod to Maya.
By late afternoon, I could feel the tired behind my eyes. Work didn’t stop because I wanted a different life; it stopped because the last tray was done and there wasn’t anything else to bake. I wiped the counter, checked three timers out of habit, and made myself stop checking.
Harmony crossed the street with a small vase and a card: A little green keeps people calm. Maya put it by the register. It looked right there. Nobody commented on it. That was for the best.
The next day, Noah from the Community Trust showed up with a laminated badge and a tech, who moved like a guy who’d done this a hundred times. Sandy met them at the her door with her clipboard ready.
“Fifteen minutes, business hours,” she said. “No alley. Copy Officer Thorne on anything else.” Her response made me smile. Dad was clearly teaching her how to be careful and take care of herself. She had been good for Dad too. He wasn’t a grump anymore, which was both shocking and inspiring.
“Understood,” Noah said. He kept his smile, kept his hands visible, kept his words short. The tech ran a clean line, labelled the breaker, and handed Sandy a single-page contact sheet. Harmony slid the sheet into a folder marked VENDORS and wrote the date on the tab. No speeches, no fuss.
On our side, I stood at the door and watched the sidewalk. Not because I thought they were going to try anything, but because it never hurts to stand here and make eye contact with people who deal in access.
Becket’s electrician came an hour later to fix the alley light and swap the back latch for something stronger. “If anyone wants that door now, they’ll need tools and time.”
“They won’t get either,” Sandy told him.
Harmony checked the light through the back window and came back to the counter. “We’re good, but I feel terrible my presence has everyone on edge.”
“Don’t be silly, sweetheart. Pierre taught his boys to be cautious of everyone and everything. They would be taking these precautions, even if you weren’t here.”
Harmony exhaled, looking relieved.
Sandy was lying but it was for a good cause, so I kept my mouth shut. I wrote a quick note on our block sheet: Alley light replaced. Latch replaced. It was simple and didn’t involve any drama, which is exactly what we all wanted.
As the dinner rush hit, the line moved and the room settled into the rhythm I trust. I kept the distance with Harmony, but I didn’t pretend she wasn’t there. If she or Sandy waved from their door to ours, I lifted my chin and kept it moving. We didn’t need to pretend a friendship we didn’t have.
At close, I told Maya what to rotate in the morning and left the rest of the plan on the prep table for the new kid.
When I clipped on my radio for my volunteer shift, I caught Harmony’s reflection in the florist shops glass across the street.
She was turning off her sign. We made eye contact for half a second.
She lifted a hand in a small “good night.” I gave her one back and kept walking.
The station smelled like rubber and metal and the kind of clean that isn’t about citrus.
I changed, checked my gear, and timed myself on two drills I’d done a hundred times.
We caught one false alarm and one car fire with more smoke than anything else.
I still rolled hose and checked a valve because it’s the kind of habit that keeps you useful when it counts.
I drove home with the radio quiet and the road empty.
The house windows were yellow in the dark.
Inside, Becket’s jacket was on the chair, where he always left it, and Asher’s keys were in the bowl, where he never remembered to put them.
I set my phone on the counter face down and pulled my sketch back out.
I pictured the home I was going to build.
I could see a short path to the creek and a space by the door, where boots could dry without tripping anyone.
It was simple. It looked like a place I could sleep and wake up and still be myself.
“You’re really going to do it?” Asher said from the doorway, bare feet and a glass of water.
“Yeah,” I answered.
He leaned in to study the drawing. “Don’t make it too nice. Phoenix will want to have dinner there every night and I’ll never see you.”
“You’ll see me at the orchard at five,” I said. “In shoes.”
He grinned. “Mean.”
“True.”
He clapped my shoulder and wandered off. A minute later, Becket came through, looked once, and nodded. “Call before you sign,” he said. “I’ll read the contract.”
“Thanks.”
The house got quiet again. I could reach out to some friends in town and meet them for a drink. I could swing by the brewery and hang out with Phoenix and Cooper. I could do a lot of things. But instead, I poured myself a finger of whiskey and thought of Harmony.
She was there first, hood up, knees tucked, breath white in the air.
Harmony Bellerose wasn’t pretty the way yearbook photos like; she was pretty the way you notice by accident and then couldn’t stop.
Auburn hair escaping the hood, green eyes, a scatter of freckles across her nose that showed more when she was cold.
She watched the ice like it had answers.
I meant to keep walking. I sat two rows down instead, again, for the second day in a row. I spent the night thinking of our interaction yesterday, all the while something inside me felt like it was pulling me to see her again. My luck, she was here.
“You’re going to freeze,” I said.
“Already did,” she said. “Still here.”
We sat like that, not friends, not anything, until I said the thing I wasn’t saying at home. “My mom left and my dad pretends the house isn’t missing pieces.”
She didn’t look at me, just nodded once. “My mom died and my dad pretends the town owes him for it.”
Silence, but not the bad kind. I heard other students in the distance.
“What’s it like in your house?” I asked.
“Loud when it wants to be. Quiet when you need loud.” She tipped her chin at the rink. “What’s it like in yours?”
“Order,” I said. “Rules that sound like safety until they feel overwhelming and overboard, and it just makes you want to run.”
She huffed a laugh. “Sounds familiar.”
That’s how it started: not with a line, with agreement.
A week later, we ended up at the gas station on the highway at the same time after school.
She bought a hot chocolate and an apple “Balance,” she said.
I paid for both before she could argue. Outside, we leaned against the brick wall and split the apple.
Her hair smelled like cold and shampoo. The freckles were darker up close.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she said.
“Me either.”
She looked at me like she’d decided something. “Let’s be bad at the same time, then.”
It should’ve been a joke. It wasn’t. I kissed her because it felt like we were already falling, and pretending we weren’t was just another rule. She kissed me back like she was done with rules too. It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t smart. It was real in a way nothing had been for a long time.
After that, it was small stolen places: my truck by the lake, the back row at the old theater, the far corner of the library—where the heater clicked and no one looked.
We didn’t say “girlfriend” or “boyfriend.” We said “here” and meant” I see you.
” She’d trace a line over my wrist and say, “You don’t have to carry everything. ”
I’d touch the freckles on her nose and say, “You don’t have to be the problem you were born into.”
We knew the cost. Her father. My father.
The town that sees and remembers. Maybe that’s why it burned fast. Maybe that’s why losing it still feels like I left a door open in winter and can’t get the heat back.
I finished the whiskey in one gulp and went upstairs to take a warm shower.
Having Harmony back in town wasn’t easy.
Not when we had unfinished business. Add to it, she was everywhere I looked.
I felt like I was at my wits’ end. After my shower I spent too much time staring at my ceiling until I fell into a dreamless sleep.
The next day started the way they all do, early and already moving.
I unloaded fruit, checked proof windows, and made sure the new kid could tell “pale” from “done” without me breathing down his neck.
Across the street, Harmony unlocked the floral shop, flipped the sign, and stood for a second at the window like she was checking the reflection for anything that didn’t belong.
When she turned, she didn’t scan our door for me.
That was a relief I didn’t want to name.
Maya handled a line that didn’t end for twenty minutes. In between orders, she said, “Vendor chat is quieter. Becket trimmed the list. Also, that guy who was spreading rumors about Sandy came back and apologized to Sandy and bought a plant.”
“Good,” I said.
“He still called Pierre ‘Chief,’” she added.
“He’s allowed to be wrong twice in one morning,” I said. “As long as he pays.”
Harmony stopped by with a paid invoice for a pastry order for the festival committee. She set it on the counter and kept her hand on it until I looked up. “Call me if delivery windows change,” she said. “We’ll be staffed, but I don’t want anyone waiting in the alley.”
“No alley,” I said. “Daylight only. If anyone even says ‘after close,’ it’s a no.”
“I know,” she said, rolling her eyes a little playfully.
I was all about safety and rules now. Just the way Dad wanted me.
I learned the hard way that living outside the box didn’t get me anywhere.
Harmony left with no extra words. It was better this way, even if a part of me wanted more.
Maybe an explanation, an apology. I blinked and cleared the thought.
There was no point going down that road.
Around noon, my phone buzzed with a link.
Isabelle: Luc says this one finishes on time. Good subs. He’s used them off-season near Montreal. They won’t vanish mid-foundation.
Isabelle: Eat something green today.
Typical.
Me: Tell Luc thanks. Stop managing my vegetables.
Isabelle: Someone has to. See you at the wedding. Philly is chaos.
Me: Chaos can be good.
I pocketed the phone and got back to work. The afternoon passed without anything special happening. That counted as a win. Although I may have peeked across the street to watch Harmony at work. A young guy came in. I watched her laugh and watched him leave with a plant.
At closing, I scrubbed the last sheet tray and set it to dry.
The alley light behind the florist’s clicked on like it was supposed to.
I texted Becket a quick picture and got back a thumbs-up and a short: Good.
Keep routing access through me. My brother, who was forever the protector, knew Harmony’s return was a lot more complicated than we realized.
I asked Becket to keep an extra eye on her, but even if I hadn’t, my brother knew what was on the line and did his job too well.
I stood at the front window a second longer than I should have.
Harmony pulled her shade, checked her lock twice, and disappeared up the narrow stairwell.
I was not in charge of whether she was safe every minute of the day.
I was in charge of making sure the parts I could control stayed controlled. That was enough for now.
On the drive back to Maple Valley, the sky went the color it gets before the first cold week.
I thought about the ridge and the porch and the way the house would look in that light.
I thought about Thursday nights at the fire station and not giving them up.
I thought about keeping the bakery and the orchard steady by hiring help where I had to, instead of pretending I could do all of it myself.
When I got home, Dad was on the steps, jacket off, staring at the rows of trees like they might answer him back.
We didn’t talk. We didn’t need to. Harmony was back in town, and nothing about that was simple.
I could feel it every time I looked across the street and pretended I wasn’t looking.
I didn’t reach for things I couldn’t fix.
I didn’t chase what already walked away.
I focused on the work in front of me and let the rest stay where it was. That was how I’d always survived.