AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A deep breath drew the soft fabric of his T-shirt taut between his shoulder blades. “It’s a boring story, really. A daddy longlegs walked up my arm while I was sitting in the grass during a familypicnic. As Duncan took great pleasure in mentioning, scared me so bad I peed my pants.”
“So, last year, then?” she teased.
“Hilarious. No, I was seven. That terror is branded on my soul.”
Rowan softened. “Yet you still let me guide you through the meadow back in the fall.”
He faced her. “I trusted you.”
Rowan went to the table to sip the orange juice. A froth of juicy pulp skimmed her lip. Harry watched her as she drank, his task on the stove temporarily abandoned. The way he watched her seemed oddly earnest, like he was waiting for something. A reaction.
Then she noticed the contents of the small clear bin on the counter by the fridge—she’d given it to him so he could add kitchen scraps to her compost pile. It was filled with the remains of at least a dozen oranges, halved open and squeezed completely dry of juice. Rowan looked down at the glass in her hand.
The mundanity of the morning evaporated in an instant. Their conversation from months ago came at her with the intensity of a pop-up thunderstorm.
“If it’s an act of true love, there’s fresh-squeezed orange juice.”
“Pulp or no pulp?”Harry had later asked.
“Extra pulp,”she’d said.“I want to feel like I’m drinking an actual orange.”
Rowan’s heartbeat tripped over itself, pounding hard and fast. She licked the pulp from her lip. “You knew I would stay this morning,” she said. The way her heart sprinted, it was a wonder the words didn’t rush out like a fast-forwarded cassette tape.
Harry gave her a small smile, then turned off the stove’s burners.
“The flowers, the food.” She swallowed hard. “The orange juice. This is a premeditated breakfast.”
His brows twitched. “Did you just say ‘premeditated breakfast’?”
“Don’t tease me.”
A beat of silence. Then, “Yes.”
That single syllable held an entire universe of subtext.
Rowan maintained eye contact, and it felt like the hardest thing she’d ever done. “It’s perfect.”
Say more.
Maybe,“Message received.”
Try humor?“I see what you did there.”
Or maybe just,“I love you, too.”
Instead, she took another sip of the juice, sat the glass down, and awkwardly smoothed a paper napkin over a decade-old grass stain on the thigh of her cutoffs.
Coward.
He approached with the coffee carafe, looking like a very sexy diner waiter. “I heard through the grapevine how you like it,” he said.
Rowan’s laugh was immediate, and the tension of the moment vented like a popped champagne cork. By choosing to respond with levity, he was letting her off the hook.
“Wow,” she said.
“I know, horrible. Want coffee?”
“Mm-hmm.”
