"His name is Micah." I muttered quietly, cheeks heating up under her stare.
"I know his name. I also know that smile on your face, and it's not from looking at stars." She laughed at my spluttering protest. "Oh, don't worry. I won't pry. Much. But I'm happy for you, Daphne. Truly."
I finally looked up, meeting her warm brown eyes. "Thank you, Eleanor. That means a lot."
"You deserve happiness, dear. We all think so." She gestured vaguely at the market around us—the other vendors setting up, the early-bird customers starting to trickle in. "This whole town's been rooting for you, you know. Even when you were too stubborn to let any of us in."
The observation landed somewhere tender, and I had to blink back an unexpected prickle of tears. "I'm trying to be less stubborn."
"I can see that. It looks good on you." Eleanor patted my arm and returned to her own stall, leaving me to finish my setup with a heart that felt too full for my chest. The morning rush came like it always did—a trickle of early customers that swelled into a steady stream as the sun rose higher. I fell into the familiar rhythm of it: greeting regulars, making change, answering questions about growing conditions and preservation methods. The lavender was popular today, the purple bundles disappearing almost as fast as I could set them out. The tomatoes, too, fat and red and still warm from the morning sun, split open at the slightest pressure to reveal seeds suspended in golden jelly.
"These are beautiful," a woman I didn't recognize said, cradling a tomato like it was precious. "You grow all of this yourself?"
"Every bit of it. No pesticides, no synthetic fertilizers. Just good soil and patience." I told her, my customer service smile on my face but it felt more natural than normal.
"You can taste the difference." She selected half a dozen, along with bundles of basil and oregano. "My mother used to grow tomatoes like this. I haven't tasted anything like them since she passed."
The words sparked something—a connection, a shared understanding. "My foster mother taught me to garden. Margaret. Everything I know about growing things, I learned from her."
The woman smiled, warm and genuine. "Then she taught you well. These are a gift."
After she left, I stood there for a moment, turning her words over in my mind.A gift. I'd never thought of my produce thatway, as something I was giving rather than selling. But maybe that was part of what had been missing. The transactional nature of it, the careful distance I maintained even in the act of sharing what I'd grown.
Margaret would have understood. She'd always said that gardening was an act of faith—you put something in the ground and trusted it to grow, even when you couldn't see what was happening beneath the surface.Just like people, she'd told me once, her weathered hands gentle on my shoulders.You plant seeds of kindness and patience, and sometimes it takes years before you see the bloom.
I'd been young when I landed in foster home, angry and scared and convinced that no one would ever want me. She'd taken me in after one meeting….one look at my clenched fists and wary eyes and I had been adopted after being moved around foster home to foster home. The first day I met her she gave me a towel and a smile.
Come on, she'd said.The tomatoes won't plant themselves.
Somehow, in the dirt and the sunshine and the quiet rhythm of growing things, I'd started to heal. Started to believe that maybe I was worth something after all. The morning wore on, the sun climbing higher and the crowd thickening. I sold out of lettuce by nine, tomatoes by ten, and was running low on herb bundles by eleven. A good day. A very good day. And through it all, that warmth in my chest persisted—part exhaustion, part happiness, part the lingering glow of last night's starlight.
I was rearranging my remaining stock when I felt it—that prickle at the back of my neck, that instinctive awareness of being watched. My stomach clenched, and for one terrible moment I thoughtTrinity?—
When I looked up, it wasn't Trinity.
It was Levi. He stood at the edge of the market square, two coffee cups in his hands and a grin on his face that couldprobably be seen from space. His blond hair was tousled from the breeze, and he was wearing a soft blue henley that made his eyes look impossibly bright. When he caught me looking, his grin widened even further, and he started weaving through the crowd toward my stall.
"Morning, sunshine," he said, setting one of the coffees down in front of me. "Heard you had a late night. Thought you might need this."
I wrapped my hands around the cup, the warmth seeping into my fingers. "How did you know I'd be here?"
"It's Saturday. Market day." He said it like it was obvious, like of course he knew my schedule, like he'd been paying attention. "Plus, Micah mentioned you probably wouldn't get much sleep after he dropped you off at two in the morning."
"He told you about last night?" I blinked, but I should have guessed they talked about the dates to one another.
"He told us it was 'optimal.' That's Micah-speak for 'amazing beyond his wildest dreams but he's too emotionally constipated to say so.'" Levi leaned against the edge of my stall, completely at ease, like he belonged there. "How was it really? From your perspective?"
I took a sip of the coffee—rich and smooth, with just a hint of sweetness—and considered how to answer. "It was... magical. I know that sounds cliché, but I don't have a better word for it. The stars, the meteors, the way he explained everything without making me feel stupid for not knowing. It was like seeing the sky for the first time."
Levi's expression softened, something warm and genuine replacing the playful grin. "Good. That's what we wanted. What he wanted."
"He was nervous," I admitted. "He told me. Said he was worried his analytical approach wouldn't be romantic enough."
"That idiot." But there was affection in the word, a deep fondness that spoke to years of friendship. "He doesn't realize that's exactly what makes him special. The way he cares so much that he researches optimal viewing conditions and makes constellation guides. That's more romantic than a hundred grand gestures."
I thought about Micah's hand in mine, his voice low and close in the darkness. The way he'd shared stories about his father, trusted me with something tender. "I told him it was more than enough. Being himself."
"And you meant it?" He asked, lips quirking.
