He came into view beneath the next streetlamp, emerging from the darkness like something sketched in charcoal. He was broad-shouldered and tall, looming perhaps a foot higher than Hazel herself. His frame was lean but grounded with an unspoken kind of strength. He wore a faded flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, layered over a dark t-shirt. His jeans were worn, the knees softened and frayed. His gait, though sure, held a barely-there hitch— a rhythm shaped by compensation, almost invisible.
Her eyes caught on the limp before anything else. It wasn’t dramatic, but it was there, inescapable. Like something he had lived with for a long time.
He didn’t seem to notice her at first. Or maybe he did, and simply chose not to show it.
Hazel’s heart beat harder, instinct flaring. She was a woman alone, at night, on an empty street. For a breath, she remembered city shadows and the way fear could lace itself through the smallest moments.
But this wasn’t Boston.
This was home.
She didn’t stop, but she slowed. She tucked the rosary back into her pocket, cheeks flushing with a sort of embarrassment she wasn’t sure she could name.
They passed each other in the wide berth between pools of lamplight, their bodies sharing space for just a moment. Her eyes flicked toward him, taking in the sharp line of his jaw, the tousled wave of dark hair, the way he carried himself like someone used to silence. He moved with that particular kind of stillness that made you look twice— not because he demanded attention, but because he refused it.
She offered him a smile, though just the ghost of one. A quiet, reflexive kindness pulled from somewhere old inside her.
“Hello,” she whispered, more instinct than intent.
His eyes shifted just enough to register her.
He didn’t smile or offer anything back, but something in his expression changed. The faint narrowing of his gaze, a subtle tightening of his jaw. It wasn’t cold or disinterested, just aware. Like a man who noticed everything and chose carefully what to show in return. He offered her a nod and then he passed.
A gust of warm late summer air stirred in his wake, brushing her cheek with a touch that felt both fleeting and deliberate. His scent lingered in the moment that followed, faint but unmistakable. Pine and motor oil. Sea wind and something warmer she couldn’t quite name. It reminded her of blankets pulled fresh from the dryer, of the softened echo of heat left behind in a room just after someone had stepped out.
Hazel kept walking.
But something in her chest shifted. Not just a loosening, but a tilt. Like a door she hadn’t realized was closed had just opened a crack.
And when she turned, drawn more by instinct than curiosity, she saw the shape of his back retreating down the street, shoulders set in a way that struck her, inexplicably, as familiar. Not in recognition, but in the posture of someone who’d spent too long carrying weight no one else could see. A kind of loneliness that lived in the bones, quiet and unyielding. The kind she understood too well.
He didn’t look back. But something in the line of him, held and restrained, made her wonder if he felt the flicker of something familiar between them, too. If he noticed how it had stretched, threadlike, from her to him in the span of those few brief seconds.
Hazel paused, the humidity sticking to her skin. Her fingers brushed the seam of her oversized T-shirt and tugged gently at the bottom hem. She didn’t know what she expected to feel, but whatever it was, it had settled into her, content to stay.
She exhaled and turned forward again, continuing on the path home.
3
The bakery came alive before the sun did.
Hazel arrived just after four a.m., the sky still navy-blue, the sidewalks damp with ocean air. Inside Rise, the kitchen hummed with potential. After weeks of scrubbing tile, testing recipes until the pages curled at the edges, and making lists long enough to fill entire notebooks, she was here. Opening day.
She had compared suppliers, ordered in bulk, debated over packaging and pricing and whether or not people wouldreallypay extra for handwritten labels.
None of it had been glamorous. But it was hers.
She stepped through the front door, flicked on the lights, and stood still for a beat, breathing it in: the scent of flour and sugar, the soft hum of the refrigeration units, the quiet promise of everything waiting.
She tied on her apron, tugging it snug around her waist, and reached for her prep list. Her braid was already slipping loose at the nape of her neck, but she didn’t fix it. She had work to do.
Once she’d set the ovens to preheat, the rosemary and sea salt focaccia came first. She pulled the dough from the refrigerator, where it had been cold proofing since yesterday morning. It was soft and supple now, the air inside it giving it just the right rise. She turned it out onto an olive-oil-slicked pan, her fingers working gently, dimple by dimple, until the surface looked like something sculpted by tidepools. She scattered fresh rosemary over the top— clipped from the terracottapot sitting just a few feet away— and finished it with flakes of sea salt from a coastal farm in Rockport. Then she slid it into the oven, where the heat kissed the herbs into something heady and alive.
While it baked, she pulled muffin tins from the cupboard and began scooping batter. The first bowl held her apple crumble mixture, spiced with cinnamon and dotted with chunks of tart Cortland’s from the Ellsworth orchard just outside town. The second was blueberry, thick and rich with wild Maine berries she’d picked up at the farmers’ market. She topped both with their crumble, careful not to overfill, then rotated the trays into the open oven just as the focaccia finished, golden and puffed and fragrant with oil.
She transferred the bread to the cooling rack, its crust whispering as it settled, then moved to the counter and reached for the piping bag. The carrot cake cupcakes had been baked the night before, but now they needed frosting. She filled the bag with cool cream cheese icing— soft, tangy, touched with vanilla— and began piping, her hand steady. One swirl, then another. She worked in rhythm, adding a light dusting of cinnamon to each one with a fine mesh sieve.
Just about a month ago, she’d still been in Boston.
