Page 6 of Embers in Autumn

“All right.” I set my mug down and rested my chin lightly on my hand.

The steam curled up and kissed my cheek.

“The house belonged to my grandmother. I spent summers there when I was little. It was the kind of place that smelled like lemon oil and sugar, and at night the floorboards told stories if you listened. When she passed, she left it to me. I moved in after my… after the end of a very long relationship. I turned the downstairs into a bookstore and kept the upstairs for living. It feels like a pact with the younger version of me that always wanted this.”

He listened the way some people pray. His eyes did not wander. His body did not fidget. He gave me the gift of presence, and the knot between my ribs loosened a fraction.

“I am sorry about your grandmother,” he said. “And I am glad for you that you have her house.”

“Me too.” I touched the flowers on the chair beside me. “I am taking these to her on the way home.”

He nodded, then tilted his head. “You mentioned the end of a long relationship. Only if you want to talk about it.”

I could have lied. I could have said something easy and unremarkable. Yet the air felt kind. The cafe hummed like a safe room. I found myself telling the truth, trimmed at the edges, the way you do when you want to be open without bleeding.

“I was with someone for a decade. We started young. We built a life that looked good in photographs and hurt to live in. He criticized little things until the little things were me. I worked hard. I came home and worked more. He never saw it. Or he pretended not to. By the end I felt like a piece of furniture he disliked but could not be bothered to move. Then I found out he was cheating. I packed a bag and left. I sold the car, used the money to open the bookstore. I have been learning how to be my own person ever since.”

His jaw set in a way that read as anger, not at me, but on my behalf. It was not performative. It sat deep. Then it eased, and he blew out a slow breath.

“You did a hard thing,” he said. “I am sorry you had to. I am glad you did.”

Tears pricked my eyes, absurdly fast and hot. I blinked them back and took another sip, grateful for the way the latte offered something steady to hold. “I am not used to telling it without feeling like I should apologize for how messy it was.”

“You do not need to apologize for surviving,” he said.

The way he said it made something inside me shift. Not the dramatic kind of shift that redraws a map all at once. More like a small, confident turn of a compass needle toward true north.

“What about you?” I asked, wanting to share the space, not just take it. “You said Lana’s mom is not in the picture.”

He rubbed a thumb along the ridge of his mug.

“She left when Lana was two. I do not talk about it much. Not because I am hiding anything. It just is not the story I want to keep telling. It is old and it does not get better in the retelling.” He looked up.

“What matters is Lana. She is a good kid. Reads everything. Laughs like it surprises her when she does. She has my whole heart, and I am not sorry about it.”

“You should not be,” I said. “She is lovely.”

“She liked you,” he said, something like relief softening his voice. “That means more than most things.”

I ducked my head and smiled into my cup, suddenly shy. “She liked the books. I am secondary.”

“You, book girl, might be underselling yourself.”

“You heard that .”

“Hard to miss you being hailed like a minor celebrity at the market. Hey, book girl. I thought for sure you would bow.”

“That was almost my response,” I said, and his laugh came again, that quiet rumble I wanted to hear more than was reasonable.

We drifted into easier talk. He told me about the firehouse.

Not the gruesome parts. More the life inside it.

The rookie who polished the engine like it would grant wishes.

The veteran who pretended to be grumpy but fed stray cats behind the station.

The way the air felt in his lungs after a day with smoke in it, thick and stubborn, and how coffee sometimes did not cut through the taste.

I told him about ordering books for people who whispered their requests like confessions.

About Carol with her pearls and her scandalous reading list. He tipped his head back and laughed, a true one, the kind that creased the corners of his eyes.

“Carol is a menace,” I said fondly. “I adore her.”

We shared a pastry because it felt right to share something.

The barista warmed a slice of pumpkin loaf until the edges turned sweet and sticky.

Dean split it and slid the larger half my way without comment.

It felt like a tiny vow. He had that manner of doing small considerate things without making a show of them.

“Do you want to bring Lana to the Halloween event?” I asked once we had wiped crumbs from our fingers. “We are doing costumes and trivia and a scavenger hunt in the stacks. There will be prizes. It will be chaotic in the best way.”

“I saw the flyer,” he said. “She is pretending to be cool about it. Which I am pretty sure means she wants to go.”

“Tell her there will be a mysterious fog machine and candy with names that sound like potions.”

“Now she will definitely go.”

We fell quiet. Not a heavy quiet, but a listening one, like we were both testing the air for what came next.

The cafe had filled. People chattered in little clusters.

Someone pushed the record arm back to the start and the first track wandered through notes like falling leaves.

Outside, the fog had burned off enough for a pale sun to show its face.

The light moved across the table and warmed the curve of his cheekbone.

I realized I was falling for his gentleness first. It snuck up on me.

The steadiness of his attention. The way he did not crowd me even as he leaned closer to hear.

Then the rest of him followed. The kindness.

The dry humor. The way his hands cradled the mug like he respected heat.

The fact that he asked questions and waited for answers.

My body answered too, quietly at first, a low hum under my skin.

Every time his knee brushed mine beneath the table I felt the tiniest spark skip.

It did not feel dangerous. It felt alive.

He reached across and touched a leaf that had snagged in the knit of my hat. “You have autumn in your hair,” he said lightly. “Hold still.”

He plucked it free. His fingers brushed my temple.

It was the slightest touch, a whisper of contact, yet my pulse leapt like I had taken a step off a dock into cold water.

He noticed. Not in a smug way. Just an attuned way.

His smile shifted, softened, warmed at the edges.

The cafe, the people, the record, all of it moved to the far edges of my awareness and left the two of us at the center.

I could have told him then that I was not ready. That I was still figuring out how to be alone without feeling lonely. That my trust felt like thin ice. Instead I said, “Thank you.”

“For the leaf?” His mouth quirked.

“For the coffee. For asking. For not insisting.”

“Low bar,” he said, though there was a seriousness under it. “But you are welcome.”

We finished our drinks. He made no move to rush me.

I watched the foam collapse into the last swallow and felt a tug in my chest that was not regret.

More like a tug toward the next thing. He must have felt something similar, because he stood and reached for my coat as I pushed back my chair.

He held it open. I slid my arms in. It was such a simple gesture. It made me feel carefully seen.

When we stepped outside the chill found the places the latte had not reached. Clouds had thinned to wisps. The square had shaken awake fully. Children tugged on sleeves. A dog barked at pigeons. The apple seller shouted the morning’s final discount like a town crier.

I lifted the flowers and he fell into step beside me without asking if I wanted company.

He matched my pace. We walked toward the churchyard at the far end of the lane where the old stones leaned together like cousins at a reunion.

The gate squeaked. The grass was wet enough to darken the toes of my boots.

I stopped at the spot where my grandmother’s name was carved.

I knelt and set the mums against the base, tucking the stems so they would not topple.

My breath fogged and thinned as the air moved across my cheeks.

I whispered thank you. For the house. For the recipes I still forgot to write down.

For the bravery that had sent me back here.

I did not cry. Not because there was nothing to cry about, but because the emotion lived differently now.

Less like a storm, more like a tide. Dean stood a respectful step away, hands in his pockets, gaze averted to give me privacy.

When I rose he looked at me, and there was no pity in it, only understanding.

“Do you want to walk a little more,” he asked, “or should I see you home?”

The question held no pressure, only an offering.

I considered the quiet of my shop, the candles that waited unlit, the ledger with its neat columns, the upstairs rooms where the floors creaked in a pattern I now knew by heart.

Then I considered the way my heart felt in this moment.

Less guarded. Not exposed. Simply awake.

“Walk me home,” I said.

We took the long route. Past the bakery that sent warm air through its door like a promise.

Past the barber with the striped pole that spun lazily.

Past the schoolyard where leaves gathered in drifts along the fence.

He told me about the first book Lana truly loved, a dog-eared fantasy she refused to return to the school library because it felt like a friend.

I told him about the first time I shelved books as a teenager and how a single tidy spine could make me feel like I had put the world to rights.

We brushed against our histories without digging trenches.

We let the day be made of small bright pieces, and somehow that made room for a future-shaped thought to slip in and settle.

When we reached my shop the window lights glowed soft, reflected in the glass like a double.

The bell inside would ring when I opened the door and the place would smell like paper and the last of the cinnamon.

The porch step held a leaf I had meant to sweep and never did.

The sight of it tugged a smile out of me.

Home. A word that had hurt for a long time now felt like a hand I could hold.

Dean stopped on the path and looked at the facade with a half smile. “It suits you,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said. “For coffee. For the walk. For not being terrifying.”

He grinned at that, then sobered a little. “I like talking to you, Amber.”

My name in his voice landed like something I wanted to keep repeating to myself.

The thought startled me with its simplicity.

I liked talking to him too. I liked the way he had drawn a circle around this morning without trying to own it.

I liked the way my body felt near his, aware but not endangered.

I liked that he looked at me like I was not invisible.

I took a breath and reached for a fragment of courage. “Would you and Lana like to stop by the shop later this week? I could set aside a couple of things she might like. And the fog machine is due to arrive on Thursday, which is obviously the pinnacle of literary culture.”

His eyes brightened. “She will love that. And yes. We will come by.”

I nodded, suddenly shy and suddenly not.

The air between us held a faint electricity, the kind that makes your skin notice the exact place where a breeze touches it.

He stepped closer by a small degree. I did not step back.

He did not reach for me. He only searched my face like he was looking for a yes that was not verbal.

I let him find it or not. I did not overperform.

I simply stood there and let my heartbeat climb in a way that felt healthy.

“May I,” he asked, not quite a whisper, “kiss your cheek?”

The asking undid me more than a bolder move would have. I leaned in. His lips were warm and careful at the edge of my cheekbone, a press more than a kiss, enough to mark the moment and leave me feeling both steadied and bright. When he drew back his smile had returned, quiet and lit from within.

“I will see you soon,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “Soon.”

He turned down the path. I watched him go, the shape of him blurring a little in the thin light.

My pulse settled at a new tempo. I listened to it for a second, then unlocked the door and stepped into my shop, the bell giving its small glad chime.

The place smelled like paper and possibility.

I set the vegetables behind the counter, lit a candle with a steady hand, and told myself, out loud and softly, that it was all right to feel hopeful.