19. Tony
TONY
Itold myself it was for Avery.
She wanted a muffin. Blueberry, with the crumble on top, the kind Emma made fresh every morning. Avery had been talking about it since breakfast.
She'd drawn a picture of the muffin with a smiley face and legs. So when Mia said she was heading into town, I grabbed my keys and said I'd drive.
That was the first lie.
The second was pretending I didn't notice the way Mia's face opened up when I said it. The quick blink. The almost-smile she tried to hide behind her coffee mug.
I hadn't been to town in weeks. Not since Telluride, and before that, months.
I didn't go to coffeehouses. I didn't go to places where people asked questions and studied me with that mix of curiosity and pity.
But Avery wanted a muffin. And Mia was going.
It was for Avery.
Sure it was.
The Lumia was warm and loud and smelled like roasted coffee and butter. Emma spotted us the second we walked in. Her whole face lit up.
"Well, look who decided to grace us with his presence." She came around the counter and crouched to meet Avery at eye level. "And who is this gorgeous creature?"
"I'm Avery. I want a muffin."
"Straight to business. I respect that." Emma grinned and pointed toward the display case. "Pick any one you like, love."
Avery was gone. Three steps and she had her nose pressed to the glass, cataloging her options with the focus of a museum curator.
I stood at the entrance with Mia beside me. The coffeehouse was half full. A couple in the corner.
The two older men arguing over a newspaper. A woman with a laptop near the window.
And a man at the counter.
Tall. Dark curls. Brown eyes that swept the room with an ease that didn't match a stranger.
He had his hands around an Americano. He was watching the door. Watching us.
Watching her.
I clocked him in two seconds. Too handsome. Too relaxed.
Too comfortable in a space he hadn't earned. He wore a beat-up hoodie and loose hiking boots, but his posture didn't fit. He'd rehearsed the slouch.
Then he saw Mia.
His entire expression changed. He stood up from the stool and crossed the three feet between the counter and the entrance like he'd been waiting for this all morning.
"Mia!" His voice carried across the coffeehouse. Easy. Warm. Like they'd known each other for years instead of days.
"I was hoping you'd come by today."
He put his hand on her arm.
Casual. Light. His fingers resting on the sleeve of her jacket like it was nothing.
Everything in me went still.
I didn't think. There was no thinking involved. An instinct, old and deep and absolute, rose up in me.
It was not rational. It was not polite. It moved through me and I couldn't have stopped it if I'd tried.
I stepped forward. My arm went around Mia's waist and I pulled her into my side, her hip flush with mine. My palm settled on her ribcage.
His hand dropped.
I looked at him. "She's with me."
Three words. I didn't raise my voice. I didn't need to.
The coffeehouse went quiet. Not the dramatic silence of a movie. The real kind, where conversations stall and coffee cups pause halfway to mouths.
Emma was behind the register with her palm over her mouth. Her gaze bounced between me and the man and Mia and back to me again.
The man recovered fast. I'll give him that. His smile came back, dimmer now, and he took a half step backward.
"Hey. I'm Oliver." He extended his hand.
I didn't take it.
"Tony," I said. And left it there.
Oliver lowered his arm. He nodded once, the way people do when they've received a message and don't like it but understand it.
He looked at Mia. "Good to see you again." Then he turned back to his Americano.
The whole exchange took ten seconds. The aftershock was still rippling through me.
Mia looked up. She was close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes. Close enough to feel the catch in her breathing.
Her expression was one I couldn't name. Surprise, yes. But underneath it, a warmth that made my grip tighten.
She didn't pull away.
Good.
"Daddy!" Avery's voice cut through the quiet. "They have chocolate chip ones too! Can I have both?"
"Pick one."
"But there's two kinds of good."
"Pick one, Pickle."
Avery pressed her forehead against the glass and scrunched up her nose in concentration. The room resumed its noise around us.
Spoons moved. Conversations restarted. The espresso machine went back to work.
My arm was still around Mia's waist.
I kept it there while we ordered. Avery debated blueberry versus chocolate chip for a full three minutes. She chose blueberry.
"Chocolate chip is for after lunch," she told us. "And it isn't after lunch yet."
Emma made our drinks and gave me a look that said she planned to interrogate Mia about this later.
Oliver stayed at the counter. He didn't look over again. Smart man.
Mia leaned into me once, just for a second. Her weight shifting against my side. A small thing that meant everything.
We sat at a table by the window. Avery demolished her muffin and got crumbs in her curls and on the table and somehow on my sleeve. Mia laughed at an Avery story about a squirrel from the car window.
I watched them. Avery talking with her hands, crumbs flying. Mia reaching across to brush one from Avery's cheek.
The light through the window caught the line of Mia's profile and I stored it away. The angle. The warmth.
I was losing my colors. But I could still see this.
Oliver left while we were finishing. He nodded to Emma. She waved.
He did not look at our table. He walked past us and out the door and into the spring morning.
I didn't know why he set off every alarm I had. His touch was innocent. His words were polite.
But an instinct deeper than logic had responded to him the way a dog responds to a wrong footstep on its property.
Mia's hand found mine under the table. She squeezed once. Her palm was warm.
"You didn't have to do that," she said. Quiet enough that Avery wouldn't hear.
"Yeah. I did."
She studied me. I let her.
"Okay," she said. And smiled.
We drove home. Avery fell asleep in the back seat with muffin crumbs on her chin and her bear clutched to her chest. The mountains rose around us.
Mia sat in the passenger seat with her window cracked. The spring air pulled strands of dark hair across her face.
"The whole town is going to know by tonight," she said.
"I know."
"Emma is going to call every person she's ever met."
"I know that too."
She turned to me. "Are you okay with that?"
I kept my eyes on the road. The pines were a wash of muted green along the ridge. Flat and colorless.
"Yes."
She was quiet for a beat. "Tony Rossi. The hermit in the glass house, out in public, claiming a woman."
"Yep."
"That doesn't terrify you?"
I glanced at her. "Other things terrify me. That isn't one of them."
A shift moved through her expression. That warmth again. That thing I couldn't name but wanted to keep seeing for as long as my eyes held out.
We got home. I carried Avery inside. She didn't wake up.
I tucked her into bed with the bear pressed to her shoulder. Her curls spread across the pillow and she rolled toward the wall.
When I came back downstairs, the house was quiet.
The kitchen light was on. Sophia had left before we went to town, but she'd left behind a covered dish of rice and dal. The stove light cast a low amber glow across the counter.
Mia was at the sink, filling a glass of water. Her back to me. Her hair loose down her spine.
The possessive energy from the coffeehouse hadn't faded. It had gotten sharper. Tighter.
She turned around and saw me in the doorway.
The glass in her grip went still.
Neither of us spoke for a long moment. The kitchen hummed. The refrigerator clicked.
I crossed the kitchen. I took the glass and set it on the counter behind her. She tipped her chin up.
"He touched you," I said.
"He touched my arm, Tony."
"I don't care."
She laughed. Shaky and breathless. "You can't just announce 'she's with me' to an entire town."
My palm came up. I cupped her jaw and tilted it so she was looking right at me. Her fingers curled around the edge of the counter behind her.
"Why not?"
She didn't answer. Whatever she found in my face made her exhale in a rush. A wall she'd been bracing crumbled.
"You're with me, Mia." Not a question.
She closed her eyes. "Yeah." Her voice was a thread. "I'm with you."
I traced my thumb across her cheekbone. She leaned into my touch. Her lips brushed my wrist.
The kitchen counter pressed against her back and my hands found her hips and there was nothing tender about what happened next.
I lifted her. She weighed nothing. Her legs locked around my waist and her fingers dug into my shoulders. I pressed her against the counter edge. Her spine arched. Her chin tipped up.
I kissed her neck hard. The kind of kiss that leaves a mark. She made a low sound in her throat. I wanted to hear it every night for the rest of my life.
"Tony." My name in her mouth came out half protest, half permission.
I pulled back to look at her. Swollen lips. Dark eyes. Hair loose and messy across her shoulders.
"Tell me to stop," I said.
She grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me closer. "Don't you dare."
A crack opened in my chest. Deeper than the possessive feeling from the coffeehouse.
Her fingers found the hem of my shirt. She yanked it over my head. Her palms landed flat on my chest and spread wide like she wanted to touch every inch of me.
I closed my eyes. Her touch burned through me. My body had waited for her. Now there was no going back.
I lifted her off the counter. Her legs tightened around me. I turned and her back hit the kitchen wall.
She gasped and pulled me in tighter. I buried my face in her neck. Coffee and vanilla and spring air clung to her hair.
"This isn't just about Oliver," I said against her skin.
"I know."
"This is about you. About what you are to me."
She pulled back. She held my face in both hands and looked at me with those brown eyes that still had gold in them.