12. Exposure
Exposure
Morgan
Morgan was at her shop very early on Thursday morning, because the shop was where she did her thinking, and there was a great deal to think about.
She had not, in the end, gone back to the hotel with Nora last night.
She’d stood in the Bean There parking lot in the warm mist and said no, not yet and braced for the cost of it.
People did not, in Morgan’s experience, respond well to being told no.
Hannah had treated every no as a defect to be corrected.
Most people heard a boundary as a rejection of them.
Nora had heard it as a boundary. Had said okay, I can do slow and meant it, and kissed her once, soft and unhurried. And then they had each gone home, separately, and Morgan had slept in her own bed in her own apartment—and woken up with something warm and unfamiliar sitting in her chest anyway.
She’d set a limit, and the thing hadn’t broken.
Nora had simply… adjusted. Recalibrated.
Nobody had ever done that before.
Morgan made coffee she didn’t especially want and let herself, privately, feel good. Rusty lifted his head from under the desk, tail thumping slow, like he approved of the uncharacteristic mood.
“Don’t get used to it,” she told him.
But maybe she could. Maybe having someone didn’t have to mean chaos.
Nora understood the shop, understood the quiet, understood that Morgan needed space the way an engine needed clearance—not as a flaw, just as a tolerance you designed around.
The guitar music under the sound of tools.
The comfortable silences. The questions that made Morgan see her own work as something with meaning instead of just function.
Forty days left on the building. Forty days to figure out where she and Rusty would go, what would happen to the business she’d built with her own hands.
She hadn’t started packing. Hadn’t let herself walk the apartment with boxes and a marker and make it real.
The thought of it still arrived with its familiar weight—but this morning, with the memory of a careful kiss in the mist still on her lips, the weight felt like something she could put down for an hour.
Still overwhelming. Just not, for once, crushing.
Her phone buzzed.
Ethan
Saw the pic from last night. You two look good together.
Morgan stared at the message, the warmth in her chest stalling. Picture?
What picture?
Before she could respond, her phone rang. Her mother’s photo filled the screen—that ridiculous Santa hat from last Christmas, her smile wide and genuine.
Morgan considered not answering. Early morning calls from her mother rarely brought good news. But avoiding Patricia only delayed the inevitable; she’d turn up at the shop in person if the calls went unanswered too long.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Morgan, honey!” Patricia’s voice carried that particular brightness that meant she was excited about something. “I just saw the most wonderful picture. Well, Jenny from the flower shop shared it from that Instagram account—you know the one that posts about local events?”
Morgan’s contentment began to curdle into unease. “What picture?”
“From last night! You and Eleanor at Bean There. After the performance, I suppose. You both look so happy, sweetheart. I had no idea you two were—well, I didn’t want to assume, but it certainly looks like—”
“Mom.” Morgan’s voice came out tighter than she intended. “What exactly does the picture show?”
“The two of you kissing, of course. The photo’s a little blurry, but Jenny recognized you and she said everyone’s been commenting about how sweet it is. I’m just so proud of you for putting yourself out there, honey. I know how hard social situations are for you, and dating is—”
Morgan stopped listening. Her mind had snagged on one word: kissing.
Someone had photographed them kissing.
In the parking lot. When she’d checked—she had checked, she’d looked around that lot before she let herself do it, counted the people, decided it was safe. That private moment, a kiss she’d chosen carefully with someone who mattered, had been captured. Distributed. Commented on.
“I have to go,” she interrupted.
“But Morgan, I just wanted to say how happy I am that you’re—”
“I’ll call you later.”
She hung up before her mother could finish expressing pride in social development Morgan hadn’t asked for and didn’t want.
Her hands were not quite steady as she opened a browser and searched for the account her mother had named. @RedwoodHollowDaily. A local gossip feed, documenting small-town life for people who found other people’s business entertaining.
The most recent post, time-stamped 11:23 p.m. last night, loaded on her screen.
When the image appeared, Morgan’s chest constricted with panic that came from losing control of a boundary she’d built carefully and on purpose.
There she was, in Bean There’s parking lot, kissing Nora. Not ambiguous. Not a friendly hug or innocent closeness. Kissing—Morgan’s hand in Nora’s hair, Nora’s hands at her waist, the lamp-glow and the mist around them, both of them unmistakably together in a moment that should have stayed theirs.
The caption read: Nora Carter’s Redwood Hollow romance? Spotted getting cozy after last night’s performance at Bean There! <3 #LocalLove #IndieRomance
Posted nine hours ago. 147 likes. 26 comments.
Morgan’s breathing had gone shallow. She tried to work it the way she’d learned to, tried to tell herself it was just a feeling, that feelings passed—but it didn’t land, because this wasn’t only a feeling. The violation wasn’t a panic attack she could breathe her way down from.
She scrolled the comments, each one making her skin crawl.
OMG they’re so cute together!
someone unknown? good for Nora, dating a normal person for once
Nora moves fast lol wasn’t she just with Cam like two months ago?
That’s Morgan Livingston. I went to high school with her. She was always so weird and quiet. This is WILD.
Small town mechanic and indie musician? I’m here for this romance novel plot
Each comment was a stranger’s hand going through her private life—making assumptions, discussing her like she was content rather than a person. People she’d never met analyzing her face, her posture, her worthiness to stand next to someone with a following.
Morgan set the phone down on the workbench with deliberate care, because the alternative was throwing it.
She had organized her entire adult life around not being this. Not being looked at or discussed. Not having the boundaries she maintained so precisely shattered by people who believed their curiosity entitled them to access.
And it was only going to get worse.
She most often avoided social media, but she understood enough about how it worked—the viral spread, the algorithms, the way public interest fed and multiplied on itself.
The photo would reach more people. More comments would accumulate.
Eventually someone would connect her to the shop, and strangers would come by wanting a look at Nora Carter’s girlfriend, or whatever story they’d built out of one stolen moment.
Her phone buzzed.
Ethan
You okay?
No. She wasn’t okay. She was—
Another buzz. Unknown number.
Hi Morgan! This is Sarah from the Redwood Hollow Gazette. We’re doing a feature on local artists and would love to interview you about your relationship with Nora Carter. Do you have time this week?
Morgan stared at it. A reporter. Wanting to interview her. About her personal life.
The phone rang again—a different number. She didn’t answer.
Another text surfaced, from Mrs. Henderson across the street.
Saw the picture of you and that sweet singer! So wonderful to see you happy, dear. Stop by for coffee and tell me all about it!
Then one from a customer.
Hey Morgan, saw you’re dating that musician. Can I get her autograph next time I bring the car in? LOL
The phone wouldn’t stop. Each notification was another stranger barging into the safe room she’d made of her own life.
Rusty whined softly, sensing her distress. Morgan sank onto the stool by her workbench, the phone still buzzing in her hand, trying to find her way back to the contentment she’d had thirty minutes ago and finding the route to it gone.
She’d felt safe last night. That was the cruel part.
She thought about the shop. Forty days. The whole logistical mountain of it—new location, moving equipment, updating licenses, hoping the customers followed—barely begun, because she’d been avoiding it and now she filled every spare hour with Nora.
Nora’s coffee, Nora’s music, Nora’s slowly offered vulnerabilities that had made Morgan want, against every instinct, to be vulnerable back.
And now this. Another enormous complication stacked onto a life that was already coming apart at the edges.
Her phone buzzed again. She turned it face-down on the workbench and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
What had she been thinking? That she could be with someone who carried a public profile and keep any privacy at all? That her carefully governed life could simply absorb a person whose existence was, by definition, visible?
Her entire private life, converted into material for other people’s consumption.
Gravel crunched in the parking lot. Morgan glanced up. Nora’s Honda, pulling in next to the truck.
Her chest did something complicated—relief and dread braided together. She wanted Nora here. She wanted the steadiness of her. She also, distantly and unfairly, wanted to be angry, wanted there to be someone to hold responsible for the way her privacy had been broken open.
Nora appeared in the doorway with two coffee cups and a paper bag from Bean There. She looked uncertain, hopeful, lit by the morning sun.
“Hi,” Nora said softly. “I thought maybe…” She trailed off, reading Morgan’s face. “You saw the picture.”
“Everyone saw the picture,” Morgan said, her voice flatter than she intended. “My mother. Ethan. Reporters asking me for interviews. Customers wanting autographs. Everyone.”