Page 170

Sloane smiled carefully. “Better than what?”

“The bakery pie.”

She blinked at him. Grandpa nodded once, confirming the statement.

“Really?”

“Yes. Much better.”

Her entire face softened. “Thank you,” she said. “That means a lot.”

He touched two fingers against the center of his chest. “Good here.”

Sloane’s eyes widened.

Patty approached in time to hear the last part. “The bakery closed,” she explained. “Permanently. I went to pick up your usual pie yesterday, and they had retired without consulting me.”

Grandpa frowned. “Closed?”

“The owners retired,” Patty repeated.

He considered that. “That’s fine.”

Patty looked offended. “Fine? It was a crisis.”

Grandpa pointed toward Sloane. “Her pie was much better.”

Sloane laughed as she wiped her eyes.

When Grandpa returned to his chair, Sloane smiled at me.

***

That night became the beginning of something I’d never experienced before. Not merely a relationship. A rhythm.

At first, Sloane and I saw each other every other week. Neither of us intended for so much time to pass. Life simply consumed the available days.

Her client list continued growing. One week she spent five nights rebuilding a brand package because the company owner decided the approved colors didn’t represent the “spiritual future” of the business. Another week disappeared because of a website launch, an event campaign, and a restaurant menu containing far too many revisions.

My schedule was filled with property work, pack needs, council follow-up, and people who still assumed any hour with daylight belonged to the community.

We talked every day. Messages in the morning. Calls at night. Photographs of meals to prove we had eaten. Occasional reminders that neither of us should remain seated at a desk or lying under a sink long enough to become part of the furniture.

But seeing each other required planning.

Our second official date happened thirteen days after Grandpa’s birthday.

Sloane met me at a café halfway between her apartment and the pack property. It was a converted house with mismatched tables, shelves of used books, and a pastry case that Trevor would’ve attempted to franchise within ten minutes.

Sloane sat near the window with her laptop open and two drinks waiting. I slid into the chair across from her. “Did you order for me?”

“Well, you are seven minutes late.”

“A tree fell across the lower access road.”

She pushed a large coffee toward me.

“What is it?” I asked.