Page 69 of Fall is Brewing

I’m so lost in my own thoughts I don’t hear the bathroom door open. Don’t hear her footsteps on the pine floor.

“What are you making?” Her voice comes from just behind me.

I chuckle to myself and inhale, noticing the way she smells like my soap and shampoo… but also still entirely different. Like I’m smelling a mixture of me and her. And I don’t hate it. “Don’t tell me an orchard girl doesn’t recognize hot cider on the stovetop?”

“I know you’re making something with apples, I just didn’t know what.”

I turn slightly, catching sight of her for the first time and completely lose track of what I’m doing.

She's practically swimming in my sweatshirt.

The sleeves hang halfway over her hands, swallowing her completely, while the waistband of the joggers has been rolled twice and still bunches at her ankles. Her damp hair hangs loose now, curling gently around her shoulders, still darkened from the shower.

She looks… comfortable. Real. Sexy. Disheveled.

And like someone who belongs in this kitchen with me on every rainy afternoon.

The thought steals every coherent sentence I had.

"What?" she asks, looking down at herself. "Do I look ridiculous?"

I clear my throat. "No." She waits. "You look..."

Careful, Brooks.

Choose your words very carefully.

“You look adorable.”

She leans one hip against the counter and I’m still unable to look anywhere but at her. “Adorable, huh?”

“Yeah, well… you said I was handsome.”

She bites her bottom lip briefly before nodding. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

“And this cabin suddenly feels way less empty with you here."

We both go silent with that final confession.

The rain continues tapping against the windows as the cider bubbles softly on the stove. Something fragile settles between us, too delicate to touch. Her eyes search mine, and for one impossible heartbeat, I think she might close the one foot gap between us.

Instead, she smiles. Small. Almost shy. "I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"It might be,” I say. “There’s more where that came from.”

“True. I’ve only known you for about a week.”

I narrow my eyes at her, willing her to remember me. To remember the little boy who used to come to her orchard every year from the ages of five to eleven with his brothers and parents and play hide and seek with her among the apple trees.

But recognition doesn’t come. Instead she merely points to the bubbling cider. “I think it’s done. You’re going to burn it.”

“Right… um, right.” I pull two mugs down from the cabinet and turn off the stovetop just as the front door flies open and Jace and Evan come charging in.

"Brooks!" Jace's voice echoes through the cabin. "You would not believe what⁠—"

He stops dead. Evan nearly walks straight into his back.

Jace's eyes bounce from me...