– Extra gloves
– Hand wipes
– Name tags
– Payment tablet charged
All checked. All handled. And yet I can’t shake the feeling that something feels off.
I tap the pen against the paper, then flip the page over as if the missing problem might be hiding on the back. It isn’t. The shop is quiet, lights low, plants settling into their after-hours stillness. Everything is exactly as it should be.
Which makes the tight knot in my chest deeply suspicious.
“You’re pacing,” Charlie says mildly from the back table.
I stop mid-step, one foot hovering like I’ve been caught sneaking cookies before dinner. “I am not.”
“You’ve walked past the pothos display six times,” he says, not looking up from the tray he’s wiping down. “Seven, if we’re counting the dramatic pause.”
“I like to circulate,” I say.
Charlie hums. A knowing little sound. “Big workshop jitters?”
“No,” I say immediately. Too immediately. “I’ve run a dozen of these. They’re fine. People repot things. They leave happy. No one cries. Very straightforward.”
“Mmm.” He finally looks up, silver brows lifting. “You alphabetized the name tags.”
“That’s efficient.”
“That’s spiraling,” he corrects gently. “At least when you do it.”
I sigh and lean my hip against the counter, glancing back at the clipboard. At the list. At the very reasonable, very normal event that is happening tomorrow.
It’s not the workshop.
It’s him.
The realization hits so cleanly it almost knocks the breath out of me.
Sawyer is helping. In front of people. Actual, paying, plant-loving people. And my brain—traitorous, unhelpful thing that it is—keeps replaying every chaotic moment he’s ever had. Soil spills. Over-watering. That one time he apologized to a fern.
I press my lips together. I’m nervous he’s going to mess up.
Which would be fine. Except?—
I’m not nervous about the workshop.
I’m nervous abouthim.
About him looking foolish. About people laughing. About him realizing, mid-sentence, that he’s said the wrong thing and flashing that crooked, hopeful smile like he’s bracing for impact.
When did I start caring if Sawyer Stockton succeeds?
The thought lands, fully formed and deeply inconvenient.
I straighten, suddenly very interested in rearranging a stack of pots that absolutely do not need rearranging. “I just want things to go smoothly,” I mutter.
Charlie watches me for a beat, then smiles in that soft way of his that feels like being seen without being exposed. “They will,” he says. “And if they don’t, that’s usually where the good stories come from. You know, the ones they tell on repeat for years and years.”
