A woman read a thriller opening that was technically solid but felt emotionally flat. A man shared a literary piece that was beautifully written but lacked forward momentum. Rebecca's pages were polished but cold.
Then Claire read hers—a quiet domestic scene about a woman discovering her husband's affair through a receipt in his pocket. Simple. Devastating. Real.
The room was silent when she finished.
"That," Brent said softly, "is emotional truth. Claire made us feel her character's heartbreak. Not because she told us 'she was sad,' but because she showed us the exact moment everything changed. The mundane horror of a CVS receipt becoming the end of a marriage."
Claire looked like she might cry from the validation.
Then Brent's gaze moved to me. "Jason? Would you be willing to share?"
Everyone turned to look at me but I only saw him. The encouragement in his expression. The genuine interest.
My hands shook as I found my pages. "This is from Chapter Three," I said, my voice not quite steady. "My protagonist is at the library where he works, helping a patron find a book, and he has this moment of realizing he's been giving everyone else their stories while avoiding his own."
I read. My voice gained confidence as I went, falling into the rhythm of my own words. I could feel Brent's attention on me—warm, focused, present. When I finished, I looked up.
The expression on his face made my breath catch. He was looking at me like he was seeing beyond my words to the person underneath them.
"Thank you," he said, and his voice was different. Softer. "That's beautiful, Jason. The way you layer the external action—helping the patron—with the internal realization. It's subtle but gutting."
Our eyes held. The room seemed to fade around us, narrowing to just this moment, just this connection crackling between us.
"I agree," Claire said, breaking the spell. "I felt that. The safety of other people's stories."
Others chimed in with positive feedback and genuine engagement. Even Rebecca nodded grudgingly.
But it was Brent's eyes I kept coming back to. The way he was looking at me.
***
After the workshop, people dispersed in small groups. Some headed for the hot tub. Others claimed spaces around the lodge to write. I went back to the room, emotionally exhausted and buzzing with adrenaline and something I wasn't ready to name.
Brent found me there twenty minutes later. The moment he walked in, the suite felt smaller. More intimate.
"Hey." He leaned against the doorframe between the living area and bedroom. "You okay? That was vulnerable, sharing in front of everyone."
"I'm okay. Processing." I was sitting on my bed, manuscript pages spread around me. "Thank you. For what you said. It meant a lot."
"I meant it. Your work is good, Jason. Really good." He moved into the bedroom. I caught that scent again—his soap, coffee, him underneath. He settled on the edge of his own bed, facing me across the narrow space. "The way you write about longing and fear and safety—it's the kind of quiet devastation that sticks with readers."
"You're giving me too much credit."
"I'm giving you exactly the right amount of credit." His eyes held mine, intense. "You know what your problem is? You're so busy being the Observer that you don't let yourself be seen."
The words landed hard because they were true.
"It's safer," I said quietly. "Being the one who watches instead of being watched."
"It is. But safe doesn't make good art."
We sat in the comfortable silence that had become our default—the kind of quiet that didn't need filling. Outside, the sun was starting to sink behind the mountains, painting the room in amber light. The lodge was quiet around us, just the distant sound of voices downstairs and the occasional creak of old timber settling.
"Your friends," Brent said eventually. "The ones you texted last night. Tell me about them."
So I did. I told him about Garrett and the coffee shop, about Finn and his Christmas tree farm, about Micah and the bookstore where I'd spent countless hours talking about stories. About Asher's enthusiastic chaos and how they'd all shown up at the library to make sure I got on the road to this retreat.
"They sound like good people," Brent said.
