Downstairs, I can hear him moving around in the kitchen. The coffee maker gurgles to life, and I smile despite everything, imagining him having his morning argument with Boris.
I pull up the contractor's last email on my phone, trying to focus on logistics instead of the hollow feeling in my chest. The space below my apartment has so much potential. High ceilings, original hardwood floors, huge windows perfect for reading nooks. Everything I've dreamed about since I first saw it online.
So why do I feel like I'm about to make a terrible mistake?
I dig through my bag for clean clothes, and my notebook falls out. It's filled with sketches of the bookstore – floor plans, shelf designs, even a half-formed logo. But mixed in with those are newer drawings: Boris with a grumpy face, Dean's hands working on a cabinet, the view from his workshop window.
Somehow, without meaning to, I've woven this place into my story.
I get dressed and head downstairs, my phone clutched like a shield. Dean's at the counter, measuring coffee with the kind of intense concentration usually reserved for defusing bombs.
"That smells good," I say, because silence feels dangerous.
He makes a sound that might be acknowledgment.
"The contractor thinks we can start on the built-in shelves next week." I pull up my latest design. "Though I'm starting to think my design might be a bit... ambitious."
This gets his attention. "Ambitious how?"
I show him the reading nooks I've planned, trying not to notice how right it feels when he leans over my shoulder to look. His criticism of the design is exactly what I need – practical, direct, focused on making it work rather than telling me it can't.
"Could you..." The words slip out before I can stop them. "Would you maybe want to take a look? Once I'm set up again? I'd pay you, of course."
"You don't need to pay me."
"Dean." My voice catches. "I can't ask you to—"
"You're not asking. I'm offering."
I smile, even as my heart does something complicated in my chest. Because this is Dean. Gruff and generous and terrible at saying what he means. And I'm starting to realize that I understand his language now, the things he says with coffee and furniture and quiet offers of help.
I wish I knew if he wants me the way I’m realizing I want him. Or was this just a distraction for him?
"I should get my bags," I say finally, because someone has to break this moment before I do something crazy like tell him I'm falling for him.
He nods, stepping back. "I'll warm up the truck."
I watch him go, thinking about my empty apartment waiting across town. About the bookstore that's supposed to be my dream come true.
About how dreams sometimes change when you're not looking. This is crazy. It’s not like we’ll never see each other again. Why do I feel like I’m closing the door on something?
I drift to the living room while Dean's outside with the truck. The morning sun streams through the windows, catching dust motes in its beam. How many mornings have I spent here now, curled in that armchair, watching the light change while I wrote?
My laptop sits where I left it last night, before everything changed. The document is still open – no longer stuck at Chapter 6. Somehow, between the sugar cookies and the snow and Dean's hands on my waist, I'd written three more chapters. Good ones, too. The kind that flow straight from your heart onto the page.
I scan the words quickly, my cheeks warming. No wonder it came so easily. I'd been writing what I knew: a woman finding herself in an unexpected place, discovering that sometimes the wrong turn is exactly right.
"Your art imitating life?" Emma would say with that knowing smirk of hers.
The difference is, my heroine knows exactly what she wants. She's brave enough to chase it.
I run my fingers along the back of Dean's couch. The fabric is soft, well-worn, but the frame beneath is solid. Built to last. Like everything he makes.
Like everything he is.
My phone buzzes again. The contractor, asking about paint colors for the bookstore walls. I should be excited. This is what I've been waiting for – my chance to create something of my own, to build a place where stories can find their readers. A place where people can fall into other worlds while sitting in carefully crafted reading nooks, drinking coffee that isn't made by passive-aggressive coffee makers.
But standing here in Dean's living room, I'm starting to wonder if I've been writing the wrong story all along.
