Page 18 of Falling for Him (Honey Leaf Lodge #3)
Ben
I wasn’t snooping.
Let’s just start there.
Snooping implies intent. A deliberate hunt for secrets. This? This was an accident. A situation, really. And I was just the unfortunate witness.
It started when I stopped by the lodge’s front desk, hoping to ask if there was a decent hiking trail that didn’t include toddlers feeding ducks or old men making commentary about my bachelor aura.
The desk was empty, no cheerful innkeeper, no Sienna, no Mom-who-cooked-too-much.
Just the quiet hum of the ceiling fan and the faint scent of cinnamon and pine.
And a planner.
Pink. Spiral-bound. Absolutely covered in colorful sticky notes like a Lisa Frank unicorn had exploded on top of it.
I probably should’ve ignored it, absolutely should’ve kept walking, and pretended I hadn’t seen it.
But my name’s not saintly self-control, and it was open. Barely. Like a little trapdoor begging to be glanced at.
I glanced.
And then froze.
In slightly crooked, aggressively enthusiastic handwriting done with a glitter pen, I read:
Phase One: Lower Expectations.
Phase Two: Location, location, location.
Phase Three: Lure the man.
Phase Four: The Snacks.
I stared at the words for a full ten seconds, brain stuck in a hard reboot.
Lure the man?
The snacks?
Was this… a trap?
Was I the man?
My brain offered the worst possible image: me, being led into a whimsical, fairy-light-covered snare with graham crackers like bait. A marshmallow crown placed gently on my sulking head. My mug was filled with cider and emotional vulnerability.
I snorted out loud.
Because what even was this?
The handwriting looked familiar. It had personality, with looped letters, little hearts dotting the i’s. And the page? Covered in sticky notes, tiny doodles, and one very confident bullet point about strategic chocolate placement.
There was no doubt in my mind: this was Fifi’s.
And now I was reading her private... battle plan.
A plan that very possibly included me as the target.
“Lure the man,” I muttered, still staring at the words. “With snacks, apparently. Honestly, not the worst strategy.”
I should’ve felt weird about it.
I did feel weird about it.
But mostly?
I felt something suspiciously close to warmth curling behind my ribs.
Because if this was what I thought it was, if this entire thing was her trying to snap me out of my funk with food and ambiance and whatever chaos she’d whipped up, I was dangerously close to being... touched.
In a feelings way.
Which, frankly, was horrifying.
I closed the planner gently, like sealing away a piece of her I hadn’t been meant to see. My thumb hovered on the cover, worn at the corners, sticky note barely hanging on, her name scribbled in bubbly letters inside a small heart on the first page.
She hadn’t meant for me to find it.
And I didn’t want her to be embarrassed.
She was so bold most of the time, it was easy to forget how much thought went into everything she did. How deliberate she was about making people feel welcome, seen… or lured, apparently.
“Operation: Snack Attack,” I muttered, grinning.
And that’s when the front door swung open, and I turned, slowly, like someone caught in the act of defusing a bomb with a spatula.
Fifi stood in the doorway, arms overloaded with paper grocery bags, hair wind-tangled, cheeks pink from the humid summer air.
She froze.
I froze.
We stared at each other.
Then her gaze darted to the desk.
To her planner.
To my hand.
Her eyes widened.
I lifted my hand like I was surrendering a weapon. “This was open. I didn’t—”
“You read it.” Her voice was high, strangled. “Oh my God.”
“Barely.”
“That was private. ”
“I figured that out after Phase Four.”
She stomped inside, bags rustling. “I’m going to die. Actually die. Like, this is how it ends. Death by mortification. Put it on my headstone: Lured a man with snacks. Died ashamed. ”
I reached out and took two of the bags from her arms to save her from toppling into the ficus. She looked like she was ready to set herself on fire out of sheer embarrassment.
“Fifi,” I said quietly.
She groaned, hiding behind her hands.
“Please don’t say it. Please don’t tease me. Just let me dissolve into the floor. That’s all I ask.”
“I’m not teasing.”
She peeked at me through her fingers. “You’re... not?”
“No.”
She blinked. “Even after the... ‘lure the man’ part?”
I grinned despite myself. “Listen, I’ve been lured in worse ways. There was a time I got roped into a hot yoga class because someone promised me soft pretzels afterward.”
Fifi blinked. Then burst out laughing. “And I was hoping you’d give our goat yoga a try.”
It was such a Fifi sound with bubbly and involuntary gurgles
“Seriously,” I said, lowering the bags to the desk. “It’s not a bad plan.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s a terrible plan.”
“No, it’s sweet. And ridiculous. And—” I paused. “—very you.”
That shut her up for half a second.
Then her voice came out soft. “I wasn’t trying to mess with you.”
“I know.”
“I just thought maybe… you needed a little something different.”
I studied her for a beat. The nervous energy in her hands. The way she shifted her weight, ready to bolt.
And I felt something soften in me that I hadn’t even realized was still hard.
“You’re right,” I said quietly. “I did.”
I don’t know what I expected after admitting I’d seen her plan, but I certainly didn’t expect the silence that followed.
Fifi stood there, eyes locked on mine, her arms now free of grocery bags and slowly folding across her chest like she was either preparing to scold me again or let me live.
The jury was still out.
“You swear you weren’t snooping?” she asked, tone suspicious but no longer panicked.
“I swear,” I said. “Scout’s honor.”
She squinted. “I suspect you were never a Scout.”
“Details,” I said, lifting a shoulder. “It was open. I glanced. I didn’t know I was about to stumble into an elaborate covert ops mission.”
“Operation: Lure the Man,” she muttered with a groan, dragging a hand down her face.
“Catchy title.”
“Oh my God.”
“And the snacks, I have to say, bold strategy. You could lure anyone with snacks.”
“Do not encourage me.”
“I mean, if you’re gonna stage an ambush, Graham crackers are a power move, but what about the brie?”
“I also make savory s’mores.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Would they truly be s’mores at that point?”
“Two hard things squishing together something soft, why not?” She huffed out a laugh and shook her head, strands of hair falling around her face. Her cheeks were still flushed, but now it looked less like mortification and more like… something else. “Do you always like to argue?”
“I do it for a living.”
And then I caught something behind her expression.
A glow.
Maybe amusement.
Maybe something she wasn’t quite ready to name either.
“Well,” she said finally, reaching into one of the bags and pulling out a box of crackers. “You’ve ruined the surprise, so I guess there’s no point pretending this was a spontaneous event.”
“You could still pretend.”
Her eyes met mine, playful now. “You’d let me?”
“Probably not,” I said. “But I’d act really surprised while eating whatever cheese you picked out.”
She smirked. “You do give off cheese enthusiast energy.”
I leaned back slightly against the counter, arms crossing. “Only the very serious kind. The kind that comes with aged Gouda and emotional boundaries.”
Her mouth twitched, and her gaze lingered on mine a second too long. Not in a bad way, or in a you’re-being-weird way, but in a way that said, I see you.
And maybe I was finally starting to let myself see her, too.
“You need help setting it up?” I asked, nodding toward the bags.
Fifi blinked, caught off guard. “What?”
“The firepit thing. I can help.”
She waved a hand. “No, no. I’ve got it handled.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” she said, narrowing her eyes playfully. “But if I recall, Mr. Jensen, you were pretty adamant about this being a vacation. Not a community service opportunity.”
“I’m flexible.”
“Hmm. That doesn’t sound like something a pouting recluse would say.”
“Maybe I’m evolving.”
That got her.
She laughed again, but softer this time in an almost shy way. She reached into the second bag, pulling out marshmallows, chocolate, and a small pack of tealight candles because, of course, she’d make s’mores dramatic.
I watched her sort through everything with the same focus I imagined she gave to decorating rooms and crafting welcome notes. She cared. Even about the dumb stuff. Especially about the dumb stuff.
It was disarming.
Because when she did it, there was nothing dumb about it.
She set the candles aside and looked up again, this time her expression gentler.
“You really would’ve helped?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Even though it’s a trap?”
“I like snacks.”
Her smile stretched wider now, but she said nothing for a beat.
The air between us shifted.
Light, but heavier than before.
We weren’t laughing anymore.
She was studying me now as her eyes locked on mine like she was trying to solve something. I could see she was turning over a question in her head and deciding if she wanted to ask it.
I waited.
Then she tilted her head slightly and said, voice soft but steady, “Will you come?”
It wasn’t a command.
It wasn’t even really a request.
It was a hope-filled question.
I could hear it in the way she didn’t look away. The way she stood still, for once, not dancing from one thought to the next. Just waiting for me.
My chest tightened, and every carefully constructed wall I’d built over the past year rattled at its foundation.
“I don’t want you to feel obligated,” she added quickly, hedging now. “I mean, I know it’s silly. It was supposed to be more of a lighthearted—”
“Fifi.”
She stopped.
I stepped closer, not enough to crowd her, but enough that I felt the exact moment her breath caught.
“I’ll be there,” I said quietly.
Her eyes widened, searching mine.
“You will?”
“Yeah.”
Her smile bloomed slowly, etched with a hint of surprise and a touch of disbelief, and it was an entirely lovely expression.
“Okay,” she said, tucking a hair behind her ear. “Okay, good. I mean, cool. Totally casual.”
“Super casual.”
“Like, aggressively casual.”
“With snacks.”
“And zero pressure,” she added.
“None.”
Her lips parted like she was going to say more, but then she caught herself, smiled again, and started repacking the bags.
I stood there for a moment longer, watching her.
And for the first time since arriving in Buttercup Lake, I didn’t feel like a man passing through.
I felt like someone arriving.