46. Chapter 46
Milo
Iwalk into Caldwell Fine Foods with one objective: find matcha.
The store assistant in the baking aisle wears a green apron that clashes violently with her bright magenta lipstick.
Her plastic name tag reads SUZANNA. She pauses halfway through stacking a row of flour bags, tucking a sharp, asymmetrical wedge of dark hair behind her ear when I hold up Daisy’s scrawled list.
“Excuse me,” I say politely. “Could you direct me to the matcha and tell me what it looks like?”
Suzanna narrows her eyes at the paper. “The powder requires a bamboo whisk and entirely too much patience. Save yourself the grief and go buy a matcha latte from Honeybee’s down the street.”
“I have been strictly instructed to acquire the powder.”
She shifts her attention from the paper to my wire shopping basket.
I’ve already collected an arsenal of relaxation items. She scrutinizes the sheet masks, the absurd volume of peppermint tea, and the sheer number of tealights.
Her perfectly arched eyebrows inch upward as she pieces the inventory together.
“Hold up.” She looks back up at my face. “You’re Milo, right? Evie’s fella.”
“I don’t believe she’s called me that.”
“You’re setting up a date for her?”
“Thank you for the matcha advice.” I take a step back, but Suzanna snatches the paper out of my reach. “I can manage from here.”
“Oh, honey. You need supervision.” She reaches into my basket and extracts a bag of chocolate chips. She tosses it onto a nearby shelf without a second glance. “If you’re wooing Evie, we’re not cheaping out on the cocoa percentages. Follow me.”
“That’s very kind. But I don’t want to disrupt your shift.”
“My inventory can wait.” Suzanna marches toward the next aisle with my list still in hand. I follow because asking her to return it now seems rude.
As she walks, she fills my basket with salted caramels, honey-roasted almonds, different cheeses, and a box of dark chocolate truffles wrapped with a bow.
“Those look expensive.”
“They’re excellent.”
“That wasn’t my concern.”
A woman at the end of the aisle pauses her inspection of canned soup. I recognize her from the festival. Rebecca. She spots me, gives me a slow, delighted smirk, and pulls a cell phone from her purse. Her thumbs fly across the screen.
“Romance rarely respects a budget.” Suzanna raises her voice while inspecting two packets of face masks. “Hydrating or brightening?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does Evie’s skin need?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Hydrating, then.” She drops both packets into the basket anyway. “And no matcha powder. You’ll make paste and somehow end up ruining a towel. Trust me on that.”
Suzanna keeps talking as she adds three bags of gourmet popcorn to the basket. “Sea salt, caramel apple, and white cheddar. Excellent snacks, minimal effort, and people always eat more than they think they will.”
I pick up a bag of truffle parmesan.
“Not that one. It tastes like wet socks.” She takes it from me and puts it back. “Do you have dessert?”
“Not yet.”
“Flowers?”
“No.”
“Music?”
“I hadn’t reached that section of the list.”
Within five minutes, half the store knows my plan.
The residents of Brindlewood possess a terrifying, predatory level of investment in my business.
Still, as recommendations begin arriving from every direction, I can’t bring myself to mind.
Being folded into the town’s concern is unexpectedly comforting, even if it comes with an alarming disregard for privacy.
When we finally reach the register, Suzanna scans the absurd mountain of relaxation supplies, the register beeping with each item.
I pull a crumpled paper envelope from my jacket pocket.
Evie shoved it into my hands last week, thick with dollar bills, and declared that she refused to let me keep working without wages.
I’d reminded her that she feeds me, lets me stay with her, and has already done far more than necessary.
She wouldn’t take the money back, and claimed she’d deducted a cut for room and board.
I’m fairly certain that was a blatant lie, though my understanding of human labor laws remains too poor to prove it.
At least now I get to spend her money on her.
I smooth the bills against the counter and begin counting them out.
Suzanna pauses with the chocolate truffles in her hand. “Absolutely not.”
My fingers stop over a ten-dollar bill. “Is there a problem?”
“Yes. You’re paying full price.”
“I thought that was customary.”
She lifts the box of copper-foiled truffles and turns toward the register. “Not for promotional samples.”
“They’re sealed.”
“So are most things given away for people to try.”
She scans them, presses several keys, then removes something from the total with a decisive tap.
“You’ve taken off too much.”
“I applied my employee discount.”
“Are you permitted to do that?”
Suzanna gives me a level look. “Do you want to argue with me or successfully woo Evie?”
“I wasn’t aware those were the available choices.”
“They are now.” She reaches beneath the counter, adds two miniature chocolate hearts to the bag, and sighs as though my love life has become an exhausting personal responsibility. “Honestly, this is painfully romantic.”
Behind me, the paper handles of a shopping bag rustle. An elderly woman in a lavender coat leans over my shoulder, her silver curls tucked neatly beneath a rain bonnet.
“It is.” She beams up at me. “The younger generation doesn’t court each other properly anymore. All those little messages and whatever else they do on their phones.” Her gaze settles on me. “A fine young man who puts in this kind of effort is rare.”
“Thank you.” The crumpled envelope crackles in my grip. “But I’m not entirely certain I qualify as—”
“You do,” Suzanna says, dropping the receipt into the bag. “Don’t ruin it.”
The woman pats my arm. “She’ll love it.”
“I hope so.”
Suzanna pushes the bags toward me. “If she doesn’t like them, bring the unopened chocolates back. I’ll take them home.”
I step out onto the sidewalk and nearly walk straight into a pink bakery box.
“For your date night,” Nora announces, lifting it until the little cellophane window is level with my face. A flour-dusted apron covers her blue dress, and several copper curls have escaped the scarf she knotted around her hair.
I catch the cardboard before it plummets to the concrete. “Excuse me?”
“Rebecca texted me.” Nora offers me a bright, unapologetic smile. “She said you were putting together a really special evening for Evie. I thought you could use this.”
I stare at her. The speed at which these women transmit information across town borders on supernatural.
“That is very considerate.” I reach into my jacket. “How much do I owe you?”
She slaps my hand away. “Absolutely not. Evie treats herself to a slice of strawberry shortcake from Honeybee’s most weekends. Letting you plan a romantic evening without her favorite dessert constitutes criminal negligence. It’s on the house.”
“I can pay.” I try to offer her a crumpled bill.
She pushes the money back against my chest. “Put that away. If you ruin this, I’ll personally sabotage your coffee supply.”
Nora spins around and practically skips toward her café before I can formulate a counterargument.
Ten minutes later, I experience the same fiscal defeat when the local florist intercepts me on the corner.
She loads my free arm with enough soft pink roses to fill three vases and waves me down the block without accepting a single cent.
When I return to the cottage, the next several hours humble my grand plans. Daisy told me her sister’s comfort meal is chicken and dumplings, so that’s what I attempt.
I’ve watched Evie cook a hundred times. She makes it look effortless, moving through the kitchen without pausing to measure or check a page.
Most of the recipes live in her head now, each step following the last without any visible thought.
I’ve stood at her elbow, asked too many questions, passed her bowls and knives, and convinced myself that I understood the mechanics.
Cooking should suit me. I’m good with precise instructions I can study, memorize, and execute.
A recipe is basically a practical examination with edible results.
Except every decision feels dangerous when the meal has to be perfect.
I reread the same line three times and understand it less with each pass.
If this crushing urge to get everything right is even close to what Evie carries every day, I understand why she never knows how to stop. Tonight, I want her to.
The recipe says simmer, which is a temperature everyone is expected to just know. I reduce the flame, watch the broth settle, raise it again when nothing happens, then decrease it once more when it begins spitting against the sides of the pot.
Next comes fold the dumpling batter. I turn the mixture over itself with careful, geometric precision and press every pocket of air out of it. The first batch comes apart in the broth. The second holds together, but while I’m rereading the recipe, the bottom of the pot scorches.
By then, flour has worked beneath my cuffs, and the recipe is beginning to feel personally hostile. This shouldn’t be difficult. Evie does it while answering questions and remembering six other things at once. I can’t even make one meal for her without ruining it.
When the pot handle sears my palm, I bite back a yelp, wrap a dishcloth around the handle, and drag the pot off the heat. Then I stare at the mess I’ve made and start again.
By evening, I stand in the center of Evie’s living room and take in the results of my afternoon.
The coffee table is crowded with chocolates, sliced fruit, face masks fanned out by color, and a small handwritten card explaining which products require rinsing and which ones must never be placed near an eye. Peppermint tea steeps in a heavy pot.
I deployed the relaxation spray perhaps too enthusiastically. The air is thick with lavender, melting wax, and the rich scent of the chicken and dumplings resting on the stove.
It’s absolute overkill.
The kitchen still looks as though I lost a fight with a sack of flour, and nothing on the table matches the picture I had in my head. But Evie has spent weeks feeding me, teaching me, and making room for me in her life. I loved every minute of getting to do some of that for her.
I could become dangerously fond of making a habit of her happiness.