2. “You should give lessons.”
“YOU SHOULD GIVE LESSONS.”
YASMINE
Home.
I shut the deadbolt to my apartment and felt my shoulders come down an inch.
A real door. A real lock. No zipper, no latch, no wind trying to pry its way through the seams. After three months in Patagonia, that small click felt obscene in its luxury.
Patagonia had been brutal and beautiful. Sub-zero winds that cut straight through you with unreliable guides and terrain that tried to break your ankles and your will.
But I got the shot.
That mother puma and her three cubs moving through the dawn light like ghosts with fur. One cub mid-pounce, oversized paws flailing, terrible balance, perfect accidental grace.
Six days of waiting, barely breathing, for that single frame and worth every goddamn minute.
Still, there was no place quite like your own place. I dropped my cases, kicked off my sneakers, and fell back onto the couch.
Three months ago, I’d been desperate to leave. Now all I wanted was a real shower, takeout from my favorite Thai place, and this couch.
Spice Cabinet — Main chat
Me: Touched down. Home. Alive. Mostly functional.
The responses came fast, like they’d been waiting.
Annie: SHE LIVES
Tabby: welcome back!! how was it??
Ava: Just in time. My place tonight. No excuses.
Me: Bold to assume I’m even unpacked by then.
Annie: you’ll rally. you always do.
Me: How’s everyone? What’d I miss?
Tabby: SO MUCH
Annie: debrief in person
Tabby: we finally got a real candidate for Hale btw
Ava: Her name’s Sophie. Graphic designer. Cool as hell. You’ll like her.
Annie: Grant’s cooking brisket. just show up.
Tabby: we missed you
I smiled and set the phone down.
Part of me wanted one quiet night to adjust, to remember where everything belonged and stop feeling like I was still living out of a backpack.
The other part already knew I was going. Three months was a long time to go without my people.
Me: What time?
Ava: 6. You’re the best.
Tabby: wear something cute!
Annie: ignore her. just show up and look alive.
This was the pattern. The field stripped everything down to the bone—light, movement, the next breath, the next shot. Then I came back and remembered I was still a person who liked people.
Specific people.
Loud, messy, meddling, ride-or-die people who had apparently finally worn Hale down enough to let them set him up on a blind date.
That was going to be… interesting.
Hale didn’t do setups. He did easy, carefree women from bars who played pool, drank whiskey, laughed too loud and left before breakfast. I’d watched it happen more times than I’d meant to notice.
But not my business.
I went to find something that could reasonably be called “cute” after twelve weeks of living in thermal layers and dirt.
Something soft that didn’t smell like snow and effort and distance.
Something that made me feel like a woman again instead of just a pair of eyes behind a lens.
Ava and Grant’s house sat deep in the hills, a cabin that had outgrown the word two additions ago.
It was all limestone and cedar, with a deep porch big enough for a swing and two rocking chairs.
The smell hit me before I made it through the front door.
Smoke. Garlic. Butter. Brisket.
Ava opened the door and immediately wrapped me in a hug. “Hey. Missed you.”
“Same.”
She stepped back. “Caterers just left. They brought the sides. Help me set up.”
I squinted at her. “So this is what I get for being punctual? Manual labor?”
Ava snickered. “Fine. You get a pass. It’s mostly all done anyway.” She hooked her arm through mine and steered me inside. “Come on. Catch me up.”
Grant was at the back door in his apron, already headed out to the smoker with a pair of tongs. Between the beard, the motorcycle, and the tattoos climbing both forearms, Grant ought to have been intimidating. Then he’d look at Ava and suddenly he was just a man hopelessly gone over his wife.
He stopped when he saw me.
“Hey, Yasmine.”
“Hey, Grant.”
His gaze swept over me once. “Productive trip?”
“Yup.”
“Worth it, then.” He nodded toward the back deck. “I’ll save you the end piece.”
The end piece. The brisket equivalent of a love language.
“King. Always knew you liked me best.”
His mouth twitched. “Don’t tell Tabby.”
Then he headed back outside to check on meat that was almost certainly doing just fine without him. Left alone too long, Grant would organize a garage, build a deck, or accidentally start a business.
Havoc, Grant’s dog, was stretched across the living room floor, enormous and brindle and deeply committed to doing nothing. His broad head rested near Annie’s knee, one ear flopped inside out, while she sat cross-legged beside him with one hand buried in the loose skin at his neck.
He cracked one eye, decided that was damn near heroic, and let it drift shut again like the weight of the world rested on his lids.
“Hey, Annie.”
She blinked up at me from beneath a bushel of blue-tipped curls. “Sorry. Do I know you?”
I sighed. This was her warming up.
“You’ve got the look of my best friend,” she drawled, “but she vanished into Patagonia like a ghost, fired off one and a half texts, and got herself officially declared dead in my book.”
“Annie—”
“I’ve been very brave about it.”
“There wasn’t reception, Annie.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I was working.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“In the cold.”
“Tragic.”
“With actual wildlife breathing down my neck.”
She arched a brow. “Did any of that wildlife have claws sharp enough to stop you from typing, ‘Hey, Annie, still breathing, miss your gorgeous face’?”
I closed my mouth.
She looked unbearably smug. “I rest my case.”
I dropped down onto the floor beside her, and nudged her shoulder with my own. “Missed you too, pain in the ass.”
She kept scratching Havoc’s neck like she hadn’t heard me.
“Yeah, well,” she said. “Margaritas on Monday. I expect reparations.”
Ava appeared in the doorway with a dish of whipped feta drowning in honey and chili oil. She set it on the coffee table, looked at me, and pointed. “Eat something.”
And she was gone.
The front door opened and Carter came in. Clean-shaven, low fade, pearl-snap shirt tucked into dark jeans, he looked like a man who could discuss quarterly earnings and cattle prices with equal confidence.
Carter had been Grant’s friend long before he’d become mine. Long before Ava. Long before the rest of us somehow fused into a single overinvolved social unit. These days his arrivals barely registered, just a natural expansion of the room.
Behind him, a woman stepped inside, straight hair cut into a bob at her jaw, pretty brown eyes in a narrow face, taking in the room.
Sophie. Tonight’s candidate.
“I caught her in the driveway before she could escape,” Carter said, setting the bourbon on the counter.
Sophie smiled. “Hi everyone.”
“You made it.” Ava touched Sophie’s arm. “Everyone, this is Sophie.”
A chorus of hellos moved through the room.
“I’m Yasmine,” I said.
“The photographer,” Sophie said, brightening. “Ava said you just got back from Patagonia.”
“Couple hours ago.”
“And she already has you at a dinner party?”
I glanced at Ava. “You see what I deal with.”
Sophie leaned closer. “Blink twice if you need me to create a distraction.”
Okay. She was nice.
Carter spotted Grant through the back window, pointed at the bourbon, said, “Someone put that somewhere good,” and disappeared through the screen door.
Ava handed Sophie a glass of wine and guided her toward the couch. “Sit. You’re safe. Mostly.”
“Mostly?” Sophie asked.
Annie lifted her glass. “Depends on how fragile you are.”
Sophie took a fortifying sip of her wine and sat, tucking one leg beneath her.
Tabby and Nico filtered in a few minutes later, Tabby already talking, Nico a step behind her, quiet as always. She crossed the room fast, braids loose, and pulled me into a hug that was mostly hair.
“You’re here. Missed your face.”
“Same here.”
“Three months. One text.”
“Yes.” Apparently my one text had been a topic of discussion.
Nico hugged me next, brief and solid, then drifted toward the back window and the meat grilling beyond it.
Tabby watched him go, fond. “I really thought he was above the whole man-and-smoker thing.”
Ava refilled my glass, handed it over, and dropped onto the arm of the couch above us. I finally folded down onto the floor beside Annie, and Havoc rearranged himself across both our laps with great ceremony, like he’d been waiting all night for the spot to open up.
Then the front door opened again, and Hale appeared.
Jeans, boots, a twelve-pack loose in one hand. Deep brown skin warm under the entry light, locs pulled back off his face.
“You’re late,” Ava said.
“Thirty minutes. Basically on time.”
“It’s not.”
“Ava, honey, stereotypes exist for a reason. It’s the South.”
She pointed at him and lowered her voice. “Sophie’s here. Be charming. What am I saying, you’re always charming. Be good.”
“I’ll do my best.”
He was still scanning the room when his eyes found mine, and his face went warm and open. It felt different from the smile he’d walked in wearing.
Or maybe I imagined it.
“Well,” he said. “Look who’s back.”
He crossed the room in that loose-limbed stroll, never in a hurry about anything, and crouched down beside me.
“Hey.” The lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Glad you made it home, darlin’.”
“Takes more than Patagonia.”
“I missed you.”
“Did you?”
“Absolutely. You’re the only one ever remotely on my side. Your friends don’t regulate well without you around.”
“Hey, we do okay,” Annie said beside me.
His brow went up.
“Mostly okay,” she amended, taking a sip of her drink.
He turned back to me. “You get your shot?”
“Got it.”
His grin widened. “Knew you would. Show me later.”
“I will.”
Ava reappeared and tapped him on the shoulder. “Reunion over. Come meet Sophie before you spend the whole night avoiding the point.”
Sophie looked up from the couch as Ava arrived with Hale in tow, and her expression brightened. She opened up a little, leaned in without quite leaning in.
Beside me, Annie clinked her wine glass against mine. “Think she’ll last longer than the tattoo girl?”
“Tattoo girl?”
“You missed so much. Hale has been on a generational run of bad decisions, and that’s coming from me.”
I glanced across the room.
“How bad?”
“Girl.”
I laughed and tipped my head against her shoulder, taking a page from Havoc’s book. He was still draped across our laps like he paid rent. “Start at the beginning.”
“Oh, gladly.”
Dinner was loud and long. Plates passed without asking, wine poured without measuring, conversations overlapping and circling back in ways that only made sense if you’d been there for all of them.
When Nico asked about Patagonia, I passed my phone with the puma shot. It made its way around the table. When it reached Hale, he didn’t pass it on right away. He studied it, then looked up at me.
“This is beautiful, darlin’. Worth three months in the cold?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It was.”
He handed the phone back. His fingers brushed mine. Conversation rolled on and I was grateful for it.
At some point Sophie mentioned a difficult client.
“That’s wild,” Hale said. Then, smooth as silk, he nodded toward Carter. “Didn’t you just deal with something like that on that Austin thing?”
Carter launched into the story.
A little while later Sophie mentioned hiking.
“Carter’s your guy for trails,” Hale said easily. “Tell her about that waterfall in the Smokies.”
Sophie turned toward Carter again.
Most people wouldn’t have noticed, but I did.
I’d seen Hale charm rooms before. It was one of his gifts, the easy attention, the well-timed question, the laugh that landed exactly when someone needed it.
He made people feel like the most interesting version of themselves.
Women especially, but everyone really. Even Nico, largely immune to social weather, got funnier around Hale.
But this was subtler and more surgical and Ava’s face across the table told me she’d noticed too.
I’d just spent three months watching a puma move her cubs, minimum necessary motion, no wasted energy, the thing done before they knew it was happening.
Different species. Same strategy.
By the time plates were being cleared, Sophie and Carter were deep in conversation. Hale had drifted to the edge of it so gradually I wasn’t sure when he’d done it.
I found him in the kitchen, rinsing dishes. Conveniently out of the way while the other two found their rhythm in the other room.
“You should give lessons,” I said, leaning against the counter.
“At dishes?” He didn’t look up from the water running over his hands. “Think I’m just adequate myself, but sure, I can teach.”
“Not dishes.”
“Hm?”
“Sophie to Carter. That was slick.”
His hands stilled under the running water, then kept moving.
“Sophie likes hiking,” he said. “Carter does too.”
“How fortuitous.”
He turned off the tap and dried his hands slowly. “You just got back and you’re already studying the wildlife.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“Should I be worried?”
“Only if you start moving your cubs.”
His lips tipped up.
“You don’t like her?” I asked.
“She’s great.” He folded the dish towel. “Sophie’s genuinely great.”
“But.”
He looked up. “No buts, Yaz.”
“Then why?”
He set the dish towel down and leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “Carter hasn’t been out with anyone in a while. Man needed the help.”
“Fortuitous and generous.”
“Or lazy,” he said. “Now I don’t have to do the talking.”
“You love talking.”
He laughed, the real one, short and surprised and genuine. “I’m glad you’re home, Yasmine.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He pushed off the counter and pulled me into a hug.
Casual. Familiar. Normal.
My cheek brushed his shoulder, and for a second the rest of the house seemed to fall back, the party carrying on without us.
Hale’s hand settled warm between my shoulder blades, and my face found the side of his neck, the scent of engine oil and neroli making something low in my stomach go strangely quiet.
I counted one breath.
Then two.
He let go.
I lifted a brow. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you change the subject.”
His smile was easy. “We should get back out there.”
“Yup.”
He grabbed two beers and headed back to the party without looking back.
I stayed in the kitchen. Finished my drink.
The warmth in my chest was from the wine, the evening, and twelve weeks of solitude taking a toll.
That was the explanation I chose.
I set my glass down and followed him back to the noise.