Yet he has chosen her. And I wonder if he senses what I do, that this woman matters. The thought should alarm me. I’ve spent years building walls and creating distance between myself and anyone who might become a weakness. Emotions are liabilities in my world. Love is a target painted on everything you value.
But as I watch Sage move through her morning routine, serving coffee, deflecting tourist questions, and pretending I don’t exist, I feel something crack in the defenses I have constructed. Not breaking but definitely splintering. Like ice beginning to thaw under unexpected warmth.
I rise at last, my chair scraping back against the floor. Conversations falter as I cross the café. My height, my suit, and my silence all announce me before I ever utter a word. Thebusinessman glances up from his laptop. The mothers pause their discussion of soccer schedules. Even the teenagers stop complaining about the Wi-Fi long enough to stare.
Sage notices. Her hands still on the counter as I stop in front of her, close enough to smell her shampoo beneath the coffee and cinnamon. Something light and floral that reminds me of the gardens my mother tended when I was young.
“You should be more careful with your messages,” I murmur, tilting my phone so she can see the thread open on my screen.
Her breath hitches, just for a second, before she steadies herself. “Delete it.”
“No.”
“It wasn’t meant for you,” she insists.
“You already sent it to me.”
“That was yesterday,” she snaps through clenched teeth.
“And today,” I murmur, leaning closer, “you are still mine to read.”
The words escape before I can stop them, carrying more truth than I realized. She is mine to read, study, and understand.
Her chest rises quickly, indignation tightening every line of her body. “I don't belong to you.”
“Not yet,” I reply matter-of-factly.
Her hand tightens on the portafilter, her knuckles white. “You're unbelievable.”
I smile faintly. “So, I have been told.”
The expression is not one I wear often. Smiles suggest warmth and approachability. But something about her fury brings it out of me, this small curve of my lips that feels foreign and surprisingly comfortable at the same time.
Silence lingers between us, drawn tight like a violin string ready to snap. The café continues around us, but we exist in our own bubble of tension and possibility. She breaks it first, slamming the metal portafilter into place and starting the machine. Steam hisses, filling the air with white clouds.
I let the moment hang, then reach down to call Vega. He obeys, reluctantly leaving her side to return to his place at my feet. My hand brushes over his head as I straighten, feeling the familiar texture of his thick coat beneath my fingers. He leans into the touch briefly before resuming his alert posture.
“I will see you again,printsessa,” I tell her. It’s not a promise, it’s a fact.
The endearment slips out in Russian, soft and intimate in a way that makes her eyes widen. She hears the possession in it, the certainty, and the hint of something darker and more complex than simple attraction.
I turn on my heels and leave.
Outside, the air is sharp with pine and smoke, the aspens blazing gold in the afternoon sun. Tourists bustle past, but I move through them quickly. My mind is already elsewhere, circling her. The café door is at my back, yet I feel the pull as if an invisible thread ties me to the woman inside. She thinks she can slam her portafilter, snap her words, and banish me from her world. She is wrong. Whether she admits it yet or not, she has already stepped into mine.
3
SAGE
The smell of pancakes drifts through our little kitchen, golden batter sizzling in the skillet while sunlight slants through the lace curtains Mom hung ten years ago. Morning in our cottage never feels quiet, not with Hope humming to herself as she flips bacon like she’s on a cooking show. The melody is tuneless but light, and I let it carry me while I sip coffee at the table, my elbows braced against the worn wood that bears the scars of a thousand family meals.
Hope looks radiant this morning, with a glow to her complexion that only appears when she's had a night without seizures. Her dark-blonde hair is pulled into a messy bun that bounces with every step she takes around our small kitchen, dodging the cabinet door that never quite closes right and the drawer that sticks unless you know the exact angle to pull it. There's a calm steadiness in her movements that makes the perpetual knot of worry I carry loosen just enough for me to breathe properly.
The cottage itself is small, cramped by most people's standards, but it's ours. Three bedrooms, one bathroom, and a kitchen that barely fits two people comfortably. The walls are painted thesame pale yellow Mom chose when we first moved here after Dad disappeared. The living room still has the same floral couch we bought secondhand from Mrs. Anderson when she moved to the assisted living facility, and the coffee table still wobbles unless you remember to slip a folded napkin under the short leg.
Everything here tells a story of making do, stretching dollars until they snap, and building a life from the pieces left behind when someone you relied on walked away. But it's warm, safe, and on most mornings like this, it feels like enough.
“So,” Hope declares, sliding bacon onto a plate with more flourish than the task requires. “Are you going to tell me about him?”
