I don’t respond.
I am not lying to myself. I’m protecting myself.
“Besides,” I say, mostly to myself. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin at this point. I was sort of an asshole when I found out about my mom. Then she had to leave abruptly for work. I haven’t really been able to catch up with her. I don’t even know what to say to her now.”
“You say you’re sorry, E.” Drake says, matter of factly with a side of shade.
Lara tilts her head, thinking. Then her eyes light up. “Wait. Oh. I’ve got it.”
“What?” I ask warily.
She grins. “Max is a closet hopeless romantic.”
I stare blankly. “She also used to take things apart when she was a kid.”
Lara and Drake both frown. “What?”
“Oh!” I shout sarcastically. “I thought we were just listing random ass facts about Max!”
She stares at me blankly. “Are you done now?”
Drake mutters under his breath. “Asshole.”
Lara takes a sip of her drink and I don’t miss the way Drake seems to be hanging on Lara’s every word. “Max pretends she’s practical and immune to grand gestures,” Lara continues, warming up, “but she eats that girly stuff up. She just needs to believe it’s real.”
I shake my head. “I’m not doing a rom-com flash mob or showing up to her house with a damn boombox, Lara. I don’t do hopeless romantic shit.”
“You already did,” Drake says, his voice flat and knowing. “You just didn’t realize it.”
Lara pulls up one of the articles Drake planted on her phone and slides it across the table toward me. The articles I was vehemently against but now seem to have been exactly what we needed. There’s a picture attached to this article. A candid shot of me and Max, heads bent close together as we go over design plans.
“If you ask me,” she says, tapping the screen with a knowing look, “this looks anything but fake.”
I let that thought settle, and without warning, the last week crashes into me like a freight train. I think about finding her in the snow—that first moment of “sassy-crass” fire that should have annoyed me but instead hooked me. I remember the weight of her in my arms, the way she looked in my oversized flannels, and the quiet, sacred intensity of her in that greenhouse.
Every move I made this week—chopping wood just so she’d watch, teaching her to bottle oils, letting her into the mess of my family—it wasn't just hospitality. It was a slow-motion surrender. I’d been playing the lead in a story I told myself I’d never try to write. A type of story that wasn’t meant for me.
I’m a nice guy—I’ll admit that. And yes, I’ve always found a certain kind of pleasure in the act of taking care. But the truth is, every “non-romantic” gesture and every calculated step I took was nothing more than a cover. I was playing a part, trying to ignore the fact that she had already captured me. And all it took was a few…minutes in her presence.
We spill out of the bar a little while later, the early morning sharp and quiet compared to the noise inside the PeppermintElephant. Drake claps me on the shoulder. Lara squeezes my arm.
“Think about it,” she says. “Really think about it.”
I do.
The second I’m alone, I pull out my phone and fire off a text. I don't know why, but the image of her in that gold dress—the one I never even got to see her in outside the boutique—flashes across my mind.
Me:Hey, Mama.
I look at the clock and see that it’s after 2 a.m. and wonder if I’m disturbing her.
The dots appear immediately.
Lil Mama:Hey.
One word.
Okay. I deserve that.
