He nods, a small, grateful tilt. “That’s the point.”
There’s a sweetness to the restraint we’re practicing while with company I didn’t know I had a taste for. It feels like we’re choosing something on purpose, not falling and calling it fate.
He drives me back later, windows down, the truck smelling like pine and pasta. At the gate, he rests his forearms on the steering wheel and looks at me like the wordsoonis a physical thing he can hold between his teeth.
He says goodbye with a quick peck, nothing like we’d shared earlier, but every bit the promise of more when I’m ready.
When I make it up the steps, the house feels like a held breath that finally lets go. I wash my face, tie my hair, crawl intobed with a book I’ve memorized, and fall asleep after the same paragraph I’ve loved for ten years.
The following days braid themselves into something I’ve never let myself have: ordinary joy. He shows up with breakfast sandwiches, and I pretend to critique them. I show up at the farm with jam and an opinion about fence posts that is not invited but is indulged. We fix three small things that needed fixing: the sticky window, the wobbly stool, and the way a section of romance had silently drifted into horror. The town’s gossip turns into benevolent teasing. Mrs. Winthrop brings a knitted lighthouse cozy for no discernible reason. The high school librarian emails to ask if “Mr. Wright” will read for literacy night. I forward it to him and add:Mr. Wright says yes.He sends back a photo of the otter puppet saluting.
But it’s not all soft edges. The world keeps trying to tug at the threads. An online sports blog runs a photo of us and speculates about “distractions.” A Tennessee Stallions fan page debates whether my bookstore is good for team morale, as if books reduce yardage. Crew reads none of it. I read too much. We meet in the middle. I delete the app, and he listens when I say “this part scares me.”
He doesn’t tell me it will be fine. He says, “Tell me what I can do that helps,” and then does it.
On a Thursday morning, I wake to a gray that feels like a headache. The air is thick with the promise of rain and the certainty of something else. I go downstairs, make coffee, open my email, and freeze.
SUBJECT:Event Inquiry: A Page in Time
FROM:[email protected]
My heart lurches as I click.
Hello Ms. Hart,
We’d love to coordinate a community appearance with Crew Wright at your bookstore—children’s story hour with signedteam posters, photo ops, and suggested press coverage.
Please confirm availability.
Best,
—Stallions PR Team
I read it twice. A third time. The words blur, sharpen, demand to be felt.
It’s not bad, I think. It’s not a takedown. It’s a gesture. It’s also a spotlight I didn’t ask for, and a headline with my name baked in.
The lighthouse creaks as I hold my breath.
I forward the email to Crew with nothing but the subject line:Press?
He replies almost immediately.
Crew:Do you want this?
It’s two seconds of typing and ten years of learning to answer the right question.
Me:I want the kids to have a day that feels like magic.
Me:I don’t want cameras in my kitchen.
Crew:Then we say no to cameras. Yes to story hour. I’ll call them.
The shape of the day unclenches. The knot in my chest loosens by two notches. It doesn’t disappear. I don’t know if it ever will. But it loosens, and the breath that returns tastes like fresh air.
At three, we host an impromptu, unofficial literacy hour with no posters and no hashtags, just a semicircle of small humans and a quarterback with an otter on his hand. I sit on the rug beside them and watch him read like the words are a game he’s playing with the room.
When the last kid leaves, one straggler lingers—a little boy with a chipped front tooth and a ferocious cowlick. He handsus a crumpled drawing of a lighthouse, a football, and a book with legs holding hands. In shaky block letters, he’d writtenTHANK YOU.
