It was a long shot, but Ethan’s reply seemed to imply he knew what was in her head.Sure. Let’s do Thursday. I have to work late Friday.
Her interest was piqued.City Hall stuff?
No. Side gig.
That was all he offered, and Cali tried not to read anything more into it. But it was hard. It shouldn’t matter what Ethan was doing on his Friday nights and where, but it still made her gut tense to know he already had plans.
Okay, she messaged.Sounds good. Just enough time to make changes before it gets into the Mayor’s hands. You know she’s our emcee for the gala, right?
Yep. Oh,he added,everyone voted to cancel book club and Nine Lives Thursday night. I hope Minka told you.
She didn’t yet. But that’s fine. Makes sense since the gala’s on Saturday.
Exactly, he replied.
Then after a moment she sent,Goodnight, Ethan.
Night, Cali. Don’t stay out too long, okay? Nights like this chill you faster than you think.
I make no promises.
She already missed the steady feeling she had while sitting on the deck, before she’d messaged him. Her fingers ran along the edge of Ethan’s note in her pocket, and she suddenlyremembered the neat, emotionless Post-It her ex-fiancé left when he moved out of their apartment:Key under plant.Since he was always traveling, his stuff was barely there to start. But she remembered the finality of the note on her door, the feeling like a balloon deflating. She used to think that about endings, that they all happened at once. A fight, a slammed door, one last word you didn’t realize was your last except in hindsight. But her engagement ended like a slow leak, all the love draining out of it, until she stood, note in hand, wondering how they’d gotten there.
She tried to remind herself, as she read Ethan’s note over and over again, that the two weren’t the same. The notes or the men or even how they’d treated her.
Cali slipped into pajamas, set her alarm for the next day, and sent Minka one last message to say how much she’d enjoyed Candlewick Orchard.
Then her phone buzzed again on the nightstand. A late message from Ethan.
Forgot to mention. That view’s missing something.
What’s that?she messaged back.
Someone to share it with.
A photo followed—Ethan with Max’s fuzzy gray face pressed against his cheek. Cali’s heart fluttered, unsure if Ethan meant thesomeonewas him or Max or both of them. She stared at the screen long after the glow faded, smiling despite herself.
Chapter 20
By Thursday, Cali’s inner saboteur was screaming at her again. She hadn’t seen or received a message from Ethan for several days. Every time she thought she might text him, she talked herself out of it. He wasn’t even sitting at the café in the mornings anymore. Cali didn’t want to admit it, but she’d been sneaking glances across the street when she arrived and left, hoping to catch him at Minka’s and naturally start up a conversation. Her mind raced with assumptions like he was trying to avoid her. Maybe he woke up and realized their days would be numbered and avoided his routine at the café so he wouldn’t get caught up in her expectations. They couldn’t have a conversation about it if they didn’t even see each other. That’s the way things had worked with her ex-fiancé at least.
She busied herself with library administration as often as she could. Searching through endless spreadsheets of ISBNs and acquisition codes. Responding to emails that multiplied faster than overdue notices. It wasn’t that she wasn’t busy. More like not as busy as she’d been in the days leading up to and during Banned Books Week. By the end of Banned Books Week, half the town had turned in scavenger hunt cards, and Russell was already talking about making it an annual thing. She glanced over at the stack of completed scavenger hunt sheets on her desk—proof that, for once, everyone in Autumn Ridge was reading the same thing for the right reasons. Even Bernadetteadmitted it was the busiest she’d seen the library since the power outage of 2019. And this time, everyone left smiling instead of complaining about all the food that spoiled in their refrigerators.
Cali was shutting down her computer when someone knocked on her office door late Thursday. Ethan stood there, juggling a stack of books under one arm and a manila folder under the other. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Only a few minutes until six, when they closed. Her mind secretly affirmed this was a sign Ethan was trying to minimize contact with her, but she opened the door anyway.
“Hey,” she said halfheartedly.
“Hope I’m not too late,” he said, holding up the pile. “Figured I should square up before the gala, both the spreadsheet and my fines.”
Cali cleared her throat. “I didn’t realize the return desk was still open,” she said, eyeing the pile.
“Oh, Bernadette said she’d take care of them. To just leave them outside your office. I figured I owed the library a clean slate before the big night.”
“Right. A clean slate,” she echoed. “How convenient.”
Ethan’s expression flattened. “Is this a bad time? I thought you’d said you wanted to settle the spreadsheet today.”
She tried to hide her frustration. “No, it’s fine. I just expected you earlier. Come on in.”
