What the hell was wrong with me?
I was a grown man. I’d pitched to venture capitalists. I’d given a TED talk—granted, I’d sweated through my shirt and nearly passed out afterward, but I’d done it. I’d built an app used by millions of people worldwide.
And yet somehow, a five-foot-ten florist with freckles and a smile that could melt glaciers managed to reduce me to a stammering idiot who couldn’t string together a coherent sentence.
Get your shit together,I muttered under my breath, pushing off the wall and heading toward my office. I dropped into my chair in front of my setup—three monitors in a semicirclearound me—and stared at the same lines of code I’d been tinkering with for weeks without making any real progress.
With my brain frazzled the way it was, I decided today wasn’t going to be much better. I minimized the code editor with a defeated click and spun my chair toward the right-most monitor, tabbing over to the security application I usually only checked before bed. A few clicks brought up the feed from the cameras around my house. I navigated to the kitchen footage and rewound to earlier this afternoon.
This was creepy, borderline stalker behavior.
Iknewit was.
But I couldn’t seem to help myself.
I located the exact moment Holly had spun around at my voice, her boot squeaking on the floor. The way her eyes had widened when she saw me. The flush that crept up her neck when she’d accidentally said “hard limits.”
God, I’d nearly choked on my own saliva.
The phrase had sent my mind careening in directions it had no business going—not with a woman I’d only officially just met, and certainly not when I hadn’t had sex in sixteen years. Not when my college girlfriend had made it abundantly clear I was terrible at it. After she broke up with me, I’d been too humiliated to try again with anyone else.
But in the years since, I’d hadplentyof time to think about what I’d want if I ever met someone who wanted me for the guy I actually was and not just for my money. What I’d do differently. How I’d make it good for someone.
With Holly, I wouldn’t have any limits. Whatever she wanted—however she wanted it—I’d learn. I’d study it like code until I understood every variable, every input that produced the output she craved. I’d spend hours figuring out exactly how to get her off, and then I’d do it over and over again and again until she couldn’t remember her own name.
I’d had a lot of time with various sex toys, and I couldlast. Not just last, but revel in the wait. The anticipation. The thought of making Holly come five, six, seven times before I did had my cock growing uncomfortably hard behind my fly.
Down boy, I scolded it, pushing down on it with the heel of my palm to relieve some of the pressure.
But it wasn’t just the thought of fucking her that was getting to me. It was the idea of knowing her. Learning her. Being awkwardwithher instead of simply being near her.
I adjusted myself in my chair and dragged my attention back to the monitor, where Holly was still talking, still gesturing with her hands.
I watched her gestures as she talked about setting up the mason jars filled with herbs and clementines, my favorite winter fruit. At the way her whole face lit up when she described what she wanted to create. It hit me then that Holly wasn’t just good at her job. Shelovedit.
I closed the security footage and scrubbed my hands over my face. This was getting out of hand. What was I doing, obsessing over a recording like some lovesick teenager? She’d been here for one consultation, and I was already spiraling. I couldn’t keep doing this—replaying our interaction, analyzing her every word and gesture. It was pathetic.Iwas pathetic.
But I was also a man in love. Or, if not love, then something that felt dangerously adjacent to it. And yes, I was self-aware enough to know thatalsomade me sound like a creepy stalker.
Because how could you fall in love with a woman you didn’t really know?
Except Ididknow her. Not well, maybe, but better than she realized.
I’d first crossed paths with Holly six months ago at Mistletoe Mercantile, standing in what I called the bits and bobs aisle with her arms full of spools of ribbon, debating colors out loudto herself. She’d been wearing a pair of overalls that looked like they’d seen some time in the dirt, her hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and when she’d finally made her selection—a dusty rose velvet—she’d done a little victory dance right there in the aisle.
I’d left without buying what I came in for because I couldn’t figure out how to walk past her without stopping to tell her that dusty rose was the perfect match for her cheeks when she was excited, or that watching her be so unselfconsciously joyful over ribbon had made something in my chest tug painfully tight. Without asking if she needed help carrying anything, or if she wanted to grab coffee, or literally any other normal thing a normal person might say.
So instead I’d done nothing, said nothing, and slipped out the way I came like a damn coward.
The next time was at The Groggy Anchor. I’d seen her through the window, sitting at a table for one with her Kindle out while she chowed down on a juicy hamburger and fries. I’d been sitting at the bar when our eyes met. The smile she’d given me had short-circuited my brain. I’d panicked, throwing a hundred-dollar bill down and fleeing like my ass was on fire.
It was seeing her at the farmer’s market, charming customers at her booth, or making a little kid laugh by letting him smell different flowers until he found his favorite. It was watching her help an elderly woman carry groceries to her car in the rain. It was the way she stopped to pet every dog she passed, crouching down to their level and talking to them.
It was reading about her shop closing and feeling genuinely angry on her behalf. It was seeing her post on social media about operating out of the derelict space above the bookshop, and wanting to track down her old landlord and … well, do something that definitely wasn’t legal.
Holly Bascombe was kind. And she was resilient.
She made beauty out of nothing and gave it away freely.
