“We need a few things,” I add quickly. “Flashlight batteries. Maybe a charger. I think we should expand our disaster kit. And . . .” I clear my throat. “I could really use a cinnamon roll.”
His mouth twitches. A fraction. “Juneberry?”
“Yeah,” I say. “There’s a peppermint special.”
“I got the text.”
He holds my gaze, and I forget how to swallow. His eyes are that impossible, changeable gray—never quite the same. Sometimes hard steel. Sometimes clear lake. This morning, they’re soft and storm spent. Like the sky after everything breaks.
There it is again. Not ache. Not even longing. Gravity. A quiet pull I can’t name without unraveling.
Then he nods. “Let me get my boots.”
We takethe old path back into town. The storm’s left everything spongy, and tree limbs litter the road. We don’t talk the whole way through.
At Brindle & Sons, I let Wells handle the small talk while I make my list: flashlight batteries, shelf-stable snacks, a weather radio with a crank. I add a second pack of triple-As in case Hemingway decides the remote is a personal enemy again.
The clerk bags everything without lifting his eyes. We’re nearly out the door when Bobby appears from a side aisle, one hand on his lower back, the other holding an old tin of wood polish.
“Well now,” he says, grinning wide. “Glad to see you two didn’t freeze to death up there on the ridge. Least you had each other to keep warm, eh?”
I choke so hard on absolutely nothing that I make an actual sound.
Wells doesn’t blink.
“We managed just fine,” he answers evenly.
“I bet you did,” Bobby says casually, like we shared candlelight instead of body heat. “Any structural damage? Roof shift? Chimney lean?”
“Branch down out back,” Wells replies. “I’ll check it out later this afternoon. Thanks for sending out that tech.”
“You’ll want to mention it at Friday’s meeting,” Bobby says, thunking the wood polish onto the counter. “County likes to see a ‘post-event mitigation plan.’ Storm prep, cleanup protocol, that kind of thing. Shows stewardship. Especially for historical designations. Weather’s a liability, you know.”
“We’ll add it,” Wells says.
“Good man.” Bobby grabs a candle box from under the counter and stuffs it on top of our pile. “On the house. My apologies for not realizing y’all were holed up together all night without power.”
I’m actively dying. I don’t speak. I don’t even move.
Wells nods. “Appreciate it.”
I offer a dazed “Thank you,” even though I can’t feel my mouth, and follow Wells out into the cold, arms crammed with wax and batteries, boots squelching through the last of the slush.
By the time we make it to Juneberry, my fingers are numb and my shoulders ache. The café is warm—fogged windows, cinnamon in the vents, clatter of plates. A few regulars are hunched over morning papers and bottomless mugs.
We take the back corner table.
Our knees bump when we sit. He doesn’t move his. I don’t move mine.
Wells takes his coffee black today. For reasons I can’t explain, I drown mine in extra cream and still burn my tongue. The cinnamon roll I order is bigger than my palm, molten in the middle. I tear it apart in quiet, sticky handfuls.
Wells eyes me over the rim of his mug. “Are you sure you don’t have a cinnamon addiction?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Not at all. Only wondering if I should alert the proper authorities.”
“I should have known you were a narc.”
