Page 26 of Finding Gideon (Foggy Basin Season Two)

Gideon

I hadn’t planned to say it.

Boyfriends.

It wasn’t like I’d mapped the day out in my head, counted the hours till I could ask him, or rehearsed it in the mirror like a line for a school play. It just… happened. The way some things do when you’re not scared anymore.

He said yes.

Not with a long speech. No dramatic pause, no deep, meaningful declaration. Just yes —like it was simple. Like it was obvious. Like maybe he’d been waiting for me to ask first.

And somehow, that made it matter more.

We sat there a while, quiet, backs against the tree, sun shifting higher above us. His arm rested behind me. Not quite around me. But close enough that I could lean just a little and feel the weight of him there. Solid.

Mine.

Dr. Malcolm Jones is mine.

The sunlight on his fingers—mine. The faint taste of apple juice still on his lips—mine. His voice in the dark, low and thoughtful—mine. His laugh when I said something stupid, the one that cracked through whatever weight he was carrying—mine.

Every piece of him. Every glance, every touch, every quiet thing he let me have—mine.

And the thought of someone like him belonging to me? That was enough to make my chest ache in the best way.

I glanced sideways. Malcolm’s eyes were closed, head tilted slightly like he was listening to the trees. Or maybe to his own thoughts. The corners of his mouth curved up, just a little. That half-smile that made something in my chest ache in the best way.

“I like you like this,” I murmured, not even sure if he could hear me. “Peaceful. Happy.”

His eyes opened a crack. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I turned a little, shoulder bumping his. “And I really like being yours.”

He looked at me fully now, something tender and a little unsure in his expression.

“I mean it,” I said. “Yours.”

A beat passed. Then his hand found mine.

He didn’t say anything.

He didn’t have to.

Apples rustled in brown paper bags as we pulled into town.

At the orchard, the staff had weighed our haul and packed it into grocery bags, but Malcolm had bigger plans.

Back at his place, he pulled out his stash of smaller brown sacks and twine—because of course he had those.

With his neat knots and careful folds, the fruit looked less like groceries and more like little parcels waiting for a doorstep.

We piled the gift bags into a laundry basket, Malcolm insisting it was the easiest way to carry everything at once.

We started out on foot. “The truck will be too much of a production for what we’re doing.

It’s not a parade,” Malcolm’d said, though part of me kind of liked the idea of waving from the back of the truck like some harvest prince.

Maybe it wasn’t glamorous, but it worked—and the sight of him lugging the basket down the sidewalk made me grin like an idiot. Not just any idiot—his idiot.

Now, side by side, we took the narrow sidewalk past yards full of overgrown hydrangeas and porch swings that creaked even when no one sat in them.

“First stop?” I asked, glancing his way.

“Evelyn,” he said with a sigh, already bracing for it. "Might as well get the queen of small-town intel out of the way."

She lived in a sunny corner house where wind chimes sang in the breeze and the yard was a patchwork of weathered lawn ornaments.

Evelyn opened the door before we even made it up the last step, like she’d been keeping watch from the front window.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite vet and his… assistant?” Her eyes flicked between us, sharp and amused, already filing something away for later.

“Afternoon, Evelyn,” Malcolm said, holding up the sack. “Brought you something.”

She zeroed in on it like a hawk spotting a field mouse. “That better not be store-bought.”

“Fresh from an orchard a few towns over,” he said.

Her coral lipstick curled into a satisfied smile. “Mm. Thought so. You’re both a little too dusty for the farmer’s market.”

I huffed out a laugh. “Guess that’s a compliment?”

“From me, it is,” she said, stepping aside to let us in.

“Set them on the table before you bruise them. And Gideon—” She turned her gaze on me, the same assessing once-over she’d given me at the clinic, like she was cataloguing details for later gossip.

“Still standing straight, still polite, still not giving me any reason to warn Malcolm about you. I’m disappointed. ”

Malcolm coughed into his fist, but the grin broke through anyway. He didn’t rush to correct her or put distance between us—just stayed exactly where he was, close enough that our shoulders brushed as we stepped inside.

Evelyn caught the grin instantly. “Don’t smirk, Malcolm Jones. A man like you with an ex-wife in the rearview should know better than to keep secrets from me.”

He shrugged, easy. “It’s not a secret, Evelyn. We went apple picking. That’s it.”

I felt her gaze on us like a spotlight, but Malcolm didn’t shift away. Didn’t hedge. Just said it like it was the most natural thing in the world for us to spend the day together.

She arched one silver brow. “Apple picking,” she repeated, like it was a clue in a mystery novel. “Mm-hmm. Well, thank you for the apples. And for the conversation this is going to start later.”

By the time we reached Mr. Atkins’ place, my hands smelled like apples and sun-warmed paper. His porch was shaded, the rocking chair empty, though the screen door stood open. Malcolm knocked twice, then gently pushed the door open with the back of his knuckles.

“Come on in,” a voice called. “Don’t make me get up.”

The living room was dim and smelled faintly of mint tea and wood polish. Mr. Atkins sat in a recliner with a crossword puzzle book balanced on his lap and a pencil tucked behind his ear. He looked up, eyes bright behind thick glasses.

“Well, well,” he said. “The vet and the stranger.”

“Not a stranger anymore,” Malcolm said.

I held out a sack. “We brought you some apples. Picked them fresh at Sweet Haven this morning.”

He took them with a nod. “I remember when that orchard was planted. Trees were barely taller than me. Still had hair back then, too.”

Malcolm perched on the arm of the couch, easy and at home. I stood for a minute, unsure if it was okay to sit, until Mr. Atkins pointed to a chair and said, “Go on. I don’t bite.”

We stayed longer than I expected. He asked me about Oregon, and I asked him about Foggy Basin in the 40s and 50s. By the time we left, I felt like I’d been given a chapter of some book I hadn’t known I needed to read.

Outside again, the light had shifted, late afternoon creeping in.

“Are you okay?” Malcolm asked as we walked.

I nodded. “He’s cool.”

“He likes you.”

“You think?”

Malcolm gave me a sideways look. “He asked you more questions than he’s asked me in the year that I’ve been living here.”

That made me smile, the slow, lingering kind that stuck even after we’d turned off Mr. Atkins’ street. The air smelled faintly of cut grass and someone’s dinner simmering a few houses over.

My head was still half in Mr. Atkins’ stories—ration books, neighbors gathering at the only house with a television to watch big events, the day Foggy Basin got its first traffic light, the summer night the whole town turned out for a drive-in movie—a world that felt impossibly far away.

The other half was on where Malcolm and I were headed next.

We rounded the corner toward another house, Malcolm’s pace easing like he was in no rush.

“This is where Christian and Noah live.”

The closer we got to the house, the more my stomach buzzed with that jittery mix of wanting to make a good impression and not knowing how. Christian and Noah weren’t just friends—they were his friends. People who’d been in his life before me. People whose opinions would matter.

“Nervous?” I asked, partly to cover the fact that I was.

“They’ll either be themselves,” he murmured, “or they’ll try so hard to make a good impression it’ll get… awkward.”

I huffed a small laugh, though the sound felt thin. My chest was tight, like I was walking into a test I hadn’t studied for. “Sounds like you’re nervous too.”

“Just setting expectations,” he said.

He knocked twice. My stomach did this little flip as footsteps approached from inside.

The door swung open to reveal Noah, tall and warm-eyed, a drink still in his hand. His face lit up. “Well, look who it is.”

“Hey,” Malcolm said easily. Then, with a hand brushing the small of my back, he added, “Noah, this is Gideon.”

I swallowed, shifting the laundry basket to my other side.

“Gideon.” Noah smiled like the name already belonged in his mouth. “Good to finally meet you. Come on in.”

“Good to meet you too,” I managed, hoping the words didn’t sound as stiff as they felt.

Noah’s grin widened, warm and easy, like he could sense the nerves and was smoothing them down without making a thing of it.

We followed him down the hallway. Christian was at the counter, knife in hand, slicing something on a cutting board. He glanced up, his expression curious until Malcolm supplied, “Christian, this is Gideon.”

Christian set the knife aside and gave me a quick once-over that ended in a nod. “Good to meet you.”

“Same here,” I said.

His gaze flicked to the basket. “What’ve you got there?”

“Apples,” Malcolm said, handing him a sack. “From Sweet Haven. Picked them ourselves.”

Christian’s grin spread as he peeked inside. “Well, well,” he said, looking at me with a mischievous grin. “So you’re the guy who finally got this one to slow down long enough to pick apples.”

Heat crept up my neck, but the teasing in his tone made me laugh. “Guilty.”

Noah’s smile was easy as he looked at me. “We’re glad you’re here, Gideon.”

“Thanks,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t give away the nervous hum in my chest.

They didn’t talk over me or treat me like a guest who wouldn’t be sticking around. When Noah offered me a drink, he used my name. When Christian asked what I did back in Oregon, he actually waited for the answer. I didn’t have to prove myself or shrink or explain.

Too soon it was time for us to finish making our apple deliveries.

Before I knew it, we were saying our goodbyes, the next stop on our delivery list calling, but I caught Malcolm’s hand as we stepped outside. It didn’t matter how many doors we knocked on—this was the one that had opened something inside me.

On the way back to Malcolm’s, I felt something soft open in my chest.

Not just about him.

About this —all of it. The porch lights, the quiet streets, the wind chimes and rocking chairs. The way people saw you and called you by name. Not because you earned it, but because you belonged here.

I wanted that.

I wanted to belong.

And for the first time in a long time, it felt like maybe I did.