“You know… for someone who keeps saying he’s just passing through…”
I froze for a beat. My hands kept moving, but slower. My heart, though? It kicked hard in my chest.
“What about you?” she asked, turning toward me now. “You think you’ll stick around?”
There it was. The question I’d been circling for days. Maybe longer.
“I guess time will tell,” I said evenly, but my voice felt like it didn’t quite reach the ground. Because part of me already knew the answer—and it scared the hell out of me.
Sticking around meant facing what I’d left. What I’d ruined.
But tonight, in this room she rebuilt, with warmth clinging to the walls and her standing beside me again?
It didn’t seem like the worst idea I’d ever had.
Callie’s smile faltered just a little at my answer—didn’t vanish, just softened into something more cautious. She turned away, busying herself with a stack of books left on a nearby shelf. Maybe she needed the space to think. Or maybe she just didn’t want to press—didn’t want to ask for more than I was willing to give. Either way, I let her go.
But even as we worked in silence, side by side, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had shifted tonight. Something small, maybe—but real. Like the beginnings of something fragile rebuilding itself. A new rhythm. A second chance.
Not just a successful open house or a quiet moment over cocoa, but a piece of connection—tentative and uncertain, but there all the same.
Maybe it wasn’t just the warm lights or the scent of sugar cookies hanging in the air. Maybe it was the way her presence settled something restless in me. The way she never pretended things hadn’t been hard, but still looked at me like I hadn’t completely ruined everything.
“So, about those cookies…” she said, bumping my shoulder with a sticky finger, her voice teasing again.
I glanced down to see a smear of green frosting across her knuckle as she held up a poorly decorated reindeer. We both cracked smiles—wide and easy, like the kind we hadn’t shared in years.
Something inside me loosened. Just a little. Just enough.
And in that moment, I let it happen.
Let myself feel what it meant to stand beside her again—laughing, close, grounded in something real.
Even if I didn’t deserve it.
Even if I wasn’t sure I’d ever be brave enough to stay.
Chapter10
Callie
The truck rumbled beneath us as we turned onto the quieter backroads, tires crunching over fresh snow like a soft rhythm under the hum of the engine. Cavil sat beside me, his usual stoic self, eyes locked on the road—but the silence between us felt different tonight. Less like distance. More like… stillness.
“Sam really did a great job with this,” I said, patting the wheel. The engine ran smooth now—nothing like the wheezing disaster we’d wrestled before. It was a small miracle.
Cavil nodded, the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
I smiled too, because I could tell he was proud—and because I was starting to like these little wins more when he was around to share them.
Outside, snowflakes drifted slowly through the headlights, settling on quiet porches and blanketing rooftops. The streets looked still, peaceful, the kind of night that made you forget the world could ever be harsh.
“You okay?” I asked, glancing sideways at him.
He shifted slightly in his seat. “Yeah.” A pause. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
He hesitated just long enough that I wasn’t sure he’d answer. Then, in that dry, familiar tone, he said, “How it’s nicer delivering books than filing paperwork.”
