At some point, she’d spilled an entire bag of brown sugar across the floor.
Hazel had frozen, horrified, waiting for a scolding. Waiting for the entire world to shift on its axis, as it always had back home with her parents, when she’d done something outside the norm, when she’d risked stepping outside the routine.
But her grandmother had just tilted her head, smiled, and said,“Honey, if the worst thing you do today is make the floor taste better, I think we’re doing just fine.”
Hazel had laughed then. A small, nervous laugh. But it had stayed with her.
All of it had.
And now, sitting in the firelight with the memory curling warm and sharp beneath her skin, Hazel looked down at the apron in her lap and felt the weight of that afternoon settle over her like dust.
She hadn’t baked a single thing all week, not since she’d closed Rise.
She hadn’t wanted to.
She took a slow sip of wine. It was too warm, too dry, but she swallowed anyway.
That was when the knock came.
It startled her, her body flinching before she could help herself. The wine glass in her hand jolted and some of the red liquid inside threatened to spill up over the lip, barely contained within the glass. She set it down, then pushed the blanket from her lap, the apron slipping to the floor without a sound. She bent instantly to pick it up, her fingers gentle as she placed it in the spot where she’d just been sitting. Her bare feet touched the hardwood as she moved towards the front door and she winced at the sudden cold without the fireplace at her side. Everything in her wanted to stay still, to pretend she hadn’t heard it, that no one was there, but her legs moved anyway.
The hallway felt longer than usual, the shadows stretched further. The soft weight of her cardigan dragged at her shoulders like memory.
When she opened the door, Beck was standing there.
Windblown, flushed, solid in the way only he could be— like a person carved from something older and quieter than therest of the world. His coat was half-zipped, his dark hair damp around the temples. One hand was jammed in his pocket, the other held a flat, square package wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. There was snow on his boots, melting in slow rivulets.
Hazel stared at him, heart drumming faintly in her chest.
He didn’t smile, not really. He just gave her a look, direct, searching, and almost cautious. Like he wasn’t sure if she would shut the door in his face or let him fall through it.
“Hey,” he said, voice low. Rough from the cold, maybe. “I didn’t want to bother you. I just…”
He trailed off, then held out the gift between them like proof.
“I wasn’t sure if I should come. But I wanted to.”
Hazel didn’t move.
He exhaled, a slow breath that fogged in the air between them. “I didn’t mean to disappear.”
“You didn’t,” she said, but her voice came out thinner than she meant, not quite bitter, but close. “You just didn’t come.”
Beck nodded once, eyes dropping. “I know.”
She didn’t ask him why, couldn’t bring herself to form the words. She wasn’t going to ask another man why she hadn’t been enough, not this time.
The cold wrapped around them, humming in the doorway like a third presence.
Finally, she stepped back, just enough. “You can come in. If you want.”
He didn’t hesitate, just ducked inside with a quiet nod, shaking the snow from his boots on the mat before toeing them off. The warmth of the house settled around him like fog, clinging to his shoulders as he followed her toward the living room.
Hazel didn’t say anything until they were both standing there— her near the fire, him hovering by the edge of the rug like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to sit.
She reached for her wine glass, took a long sip, and then, gesturing toward the bottle on the table, asked, “Want some?”
He glanced at it, then nodded once. “Yeah. Thanks.”
