I read it once, feeling ridiculous—a thirty-four-year-old with calloused hands scribbling a love note on a hardware receipt at 9:30 on a random weeknight. Embarrassing, yes, but I’m just tired of carrying this alone. I crouch, knees popping, slide the note under the door with a soft scratch, then straighten—my back protesting as if thirty-four is ancient. My boots thud on the wooden porch as I head for the sidewalk, already calculating how fast I can reach it.
Then the door swings open behind me. The latch, the hinge, the familiar creak of Maddie’s front door freezes me in place—boots on the second step, back to the house, every muscle rigid. The night air hangs warm and heavy with summer; somewherea dog barks. I can hear her shift, her breathing soft and alive. I turn.
Maddie stands there barefoot, paint-splattered sweats and an oversized T-shirt slipping off one shoulder. In her hands, she holds the receipt like a fragile treasure. The porch light catches the curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw, the blue of her eyes—six years I’ve pretended not to notice. She reads the note, looks at me, then back at the note.
“Jordan,” she says—just my name—and it lands in my chest like a stone dropped into still water.
“Yeah,” I whisper, because what else is there?
She steps forward—one, two steps—until I can smell jasmine lotion and a hint of turpentine that never quite washes out of her skin. The receipt is crumpled in her fist against her chest.
“You turned down Burlington,” she says, not a question.
“I did.”
“Because of me.”
“Because of us,” I correct. “I’ve been asking you to put down roots while keeping mine packed in a duffel bag by the door. That’s not fair.”
She studies me, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. My chest twists in that complicated, painful way I’ve learned to dread.
“Come here,” she says, opening her arms.
I cross the porch in two strides and she meets me halfway. Her arms wrap around my neck, mine around her waist, solid and warm and real. Her face presses into my shoulder, her breath hot through my flannel. I hold her tight—one hand cradling the back of her head, fingers tangled in her wild hair—and she holds me back like she’s afraid I might disappear.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur into her hair. “I’m so sorry, Maddie.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me, palms flat against my chest. Tears shine on her cheeks, but she’s smiling—that real smile she never offers to strangers.
“Shut up,” she says, then kisses me.
It’s not gentle. It’s urgent and desperate and perfect—her mouth hot against mine, her hands fisting in my jacket, pulling me closer as if to prove I’m really here. I kiss her back with everything I have, one hand at her jaw, thumb brushing the wet track of a tear, and she makes a soft sound against my lips that goes straight through me.
When we break apart, both of us breathing hard, she’s still clutching the receipt. She glances down at it, then back at me, her smile wide, bright, and a little wobbly.
“Temporary, huh?” she asks.
“Not even a little,” I say.
She laughs—clear and light in the summer dark—and pulls me inside. The door closes behind us with a sound like settling, like something finally coming home.
Chapter 11
The latch clicks behind us with a sound so small and final it lands right in my chest, like a pebble dropped down a well. For a second, the only sound in the hallway is our breathing, fast and uneven and tangled together, and Jordan’s hands are still at my waist, solid and warm through the thin cotton of my shirt.
The momentum of the kiss carries us a few steps in, boots scuffing against the hardwood, and then I see it.
The row of coat hooks along the wall—Drew’s hooks, hammered in the first weekend we moved in, his hands guiding mine around the level. The farmhouse table we hauled home from a Montpelier yard sale in his dad’s pickup, the one with the knot in the pine that looks like a thumbprint. The framed print above the mantel of a vintage hardware store sign he found at a flea market in Rutland.
My hands, which were gripping the front of Jordan’s flannel with enough force to wrinkle the fabric, go still. Not pulling away, just... stopping. My forehead drops to Jordan’s shoulder. Their shirt smells like cedar and night air and that particular Jordan-scent I’ve memorized without meaning to.
“Give me a second,” I say, quiet, into their shoulder. “Just a second to breathe.”
Jordan’s body tenses, then releases. Their hands drop from my waist like I’ve burned them, stepping back so fast they bump into the entryway table. The lamp wobbles, and they catch it, but don’t look at me, and the apology starts before I can blink.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…I read that wrong, I shouldn’t have pushed, I—”
“Stop.” I cut them off, voice sharper than I mean it to be, and take a breath. “That’s not what this is.”
