Jamie was watching me, his coffee cup cradled in both hands. Morning light caught his hair, turning it gold.
“You said she taught you the trade,” he continued. “What was she like?”
I turned back to the eggs, smiling at the happy memories. “Stubborn. Opinionated. Thought she knew better than everyone, and usually she was right.”
“Sounds like someone I know.”
My mouth twitched. “She ran the shop for forty years. Started it in the sixties, when women didn't open businesses on their own in towns like this. Especially not widows.”
“She was a widow?”
“From the start, basically. My grandfather died in Vietnam before my dad was even born. She raised a kid alone, built a business from nothing, kept it going through every recession and bad year.” I poured the eggs into the pan, watched them spread and set at the edges. “People told her to sell, move somewhere easier. She never did.”
“Why not?”
“She used to say some people are built for leaving and some are built for staying. Neither one is better. They're just different.” My throat went tight. “She knew what she was. Knew where she belonged.”
“And then she raised you too.”
I nodded. Didn't elaborate. Some stories were too long for morning conversation, too tangled up in things I didn't talk about—my mother's addiction, the system that had shuffled me around for years before Grandma found out and came to get me. The long drive from California to Colorado, my whole life in two garbage bags in her back seat.
“She sounds amazing,” Jamie said quietly.
“She was.” I pushed the eggs around with a spatula. “The shop was her baby. After she died, I couldn't—” I shook my head. “Couldn't let it go.”
Jamie was quiet. When I looked up, his expression had gone soft.
“You stayed,” he said. “After she died.”
“The shop was the only place that ever felt like mine. Like home.”
More honest than I intended. I turned back to the eggs, throat tight.
“Landon used to talk about leaving Denver like there was always somewhere bigger and better.” Jamie's voice was quiet. “Like staying anywhere too long was failure. If you weren't climbing, moving, leveling up, you were falling behind.”
“Is that why you guys broke up?”
“One day he just said he was moving home, and he was building a future that I wasn't a part of. Breaking up wasn't the surprise. By that time I was tired of being “too much” for him. He wanted someone who needed less, and I wasn't going to be less for him. Not for anyone.”
I set down the spatula.
“You're not too much.”
Jamie's smile was crooked. “Yes I am.”
I crossed the kitchen, stopped in front of him. Lifted him up and set him on the counter, stepping between his legs. He made a small sound of surprise, hands landing on my shoulders for balance. Our faces were close now, and I could see every shade of green and brown in his beautiful eyes.
“You're not too much,” I said again. “Not for me.”
He stared at me for a long moment. Then his fingers threaded through my hair and he pulled me down for a kiss that started soft and turned into something else entirely.
The eggs burned. Neither of us cared.
Our lazy Sunday morning stretched into afternoon.
We ate reheated pastries because the eggs were unsalvageable. Walked the dogs around the block, Jamie's shoulder bumping mine, our breath fogging in the cold. Came back and collapsed on his couch—overstuffed, not designed for someone my size—and Marceline claimed my lap while Bubblegum wedged herself between us.
“We could watch something,” Jamie said, scrolling through options on the TV. “I haven't seen anything new in months.”
