“And to Tad,” I added. “Who is not writing me up because I am, in fact, not a bad guy.”
She shook her head and bumped my shoulder with hers. “Don’t push your luck, Benedict.”
I won’t, I thought. Not with you. Not with this.
We finished the pancakes. We cleaned up in the casual choreography of people learning each other’s kitchens. I found the spoons without asking. She pretended not to be impressed and failed.
Seattle pressed itself against the windows and waited to see if we’d blink. We didn’t. We stood there with a snow globe between us and a city around us and three weeks ahead of us, and for once, it felt like both maps could occupy the same page.
“Tell me about your day,” I said.
And she did. And I listened. And the room didn’t tip.
And I couldn’t help but soak up every single second with her because we had enough history together to know it could be the last second she gave me. But I loved being in this apartment with her.
And it wasn’t the city view, though that was something, all glass and rain and skyline lights blinking like a field of grounded stars, it was her. The way she moved around her own space. The soft warmth of her voice echoed off the high ceilings. The faint peppermint-and-vanilla scent that clung to everything, including me now.
I caught myself glancing at the corner of her living room and grinned.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said, nodding toward the little tree twinkling beside her desk. “You actually put up decorations.”
She followed my gaze, cheeks flushing faintly. “Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I am, though,” I teased. “You? The woman who once called tinsel ‘glitter’s clingy cousin’?”
Melanie laughed, rolling her eyes. “Okay, I might’ve said that. But I had a change of heart.”
“Mm-hmm,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning against the counter. “You even hung lights around the window. Looks good on you, Sauser.”
She turned to face me, coffee mug clutched in both hands, lips quirking into something halfway between a smirk and a confession. “I decided to pull them out this year. Felt weird not to.”
Something about the way she said it, soft and a little shy, hit me hard.
“Wouldn’t have anything to do with Reckless River rubbing off on you, would it?”
Her eyes flicked to mine, bright and startled. “What? No. I mean…maybe. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
She fumbled for words, and for once, the woman who always had a comeback looked like her tongue had gone rogue. “It just… felt right. That’s all. It’s December. People decorate.”
“People,” I echoed. “Not you?”
She shot me a look, then laughed. “You’re...wait. I’m not going to say it.”
And I saw it—the tiny flicker in her eyes she didn’t quite manage to hide. The one that told me she was remembering the same thing I was: late nights inTheRusty Stag, stringing up garland while pretending not to notice how close we were standing. The quiet between us wasn’t really quiet at all.
The six times we’d slept together and explored each other as if we had no place to go. How her lips felt against mine.
And for the first time in a long while, something in me loosened.
I’d come here not knowing what I’d find. Maybe distance. Maybe closure. Maybe the polite version of a goodbye that still stings when you replay it later. But this—this was something else.
This was a woman who decorated her apartment because a small town had gotten under her skin, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
I didn’t say any of that, of course. Emotional honesty isn’t exactly my default setting.
All I could manage, standing there with her lights glowing soft and gold against the gray Seattle sky, was a grin that probably gave me away anyway.
