/~/~/~/~/
Wednesday’s offering brought chocolate. Sam nearly missed the bag. It was organza, tied with gold ribbon, practically camouflaged against his brown doormat in the early morning light.
Inside the bag were gold-foiled chocolate coins, the expensive kind from a boutique shop in Cheltenham that Sam had wandered through once and immediately wandered back out of after seeing the prices. The note made his stomach flip.
Because you’re sweet.Three words in the same handwriting and written on the same cream cardstock.
Sam stood on his porch, chocolate coins in one hand, the note in the other, looking up and down his street. He was starting to think that his gifts had nothing to do with neighborly kindness anymore.
But if it wasn’t that, then what was it? A secret admirer? At twenty-seven, after years of radio silence from the entire dating world, someone had decided Sam was worth expensive chocolate and handwritten notes?
He put the coins in his fridge so they wouldn’t melt, tucked the note in his pocket, and walked to work feeling off-balance.
Emma noticed immediately. “You look weird,” she said during her lunch break visit. “Good, weird, like you found money weird.”
“Someone’s leaving me things,” Sam blurted.
“Things?”
“Gifts on my doorstep. Coffee beans on Monday. Books on Tuesday and chocolate today.”
Emma’s eyes went wide. “Oh my god, you’ve got a secret admirer.”
“Or a stalker.”
“Don’t be dramatic. What kind of gifts?”
Sam described them, and Emma’s expression shifted from excitement to thoughtful concern somewhere around the special edition trilogy.
“Those books cost like fifty dollars each,” she said slowly. “The ones with the foil edges and everything.”
“I know.”
“And the coffee beans - did you look up that label?”
“Not yet.”
“Sam.” Emma pulled out her phone, typing rapidly. “Oh. Oh wow. This roaster? Their beans go for thirty dollars per bag.”
Sam’s stomach dropped. “Thirty…”
“Dollars. For coffee beans. And you said the chocolate was from Marguerite’s?”
“I think so. Gold foil, fancy packaging…”
“That’s another twenty.” Emma looked up from her phone. “Someone’s spent roughly two hundred dollars on you in three days.”
“That’s insane.”
“That’s so romantic.”
“I’m sure that’s actually concerning.”
/~/~/~/~/
Thursday brought a mug, which sounded mundane, but it truly wasn’t. It was made from hand-thrown pottery, Sam’s name painted in a flowing script around the rim and glazed in deep blues and greens that reminded him of the sea. The note explained:To enjoy your coffee in.
Sam held it in both hands, feeling the weight of it, the slight imperfection in the handle that proved it wasn’tmass-produced. Someone had made it, or commissioned it for him.
