Page 4

K aren sat in her car for a moment after she parked, the engine ticking softly as it cooled.

Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel as she took a deep breath, staring up at the modest condo building with a silent kind of dread pooling in her stomach.

Twenty minutes hadn’t been long enough to prepare for this—not really.

She hadn’t come for a fight, exactly, but she wasn’t sure it wouldn’t turn into one.

Her heart was a mess of nerves and something else she didn’t want to name just yet.

She climbed out of her little silver Kia, the door groaning slightly as it swung shut behind her.

The familiar weight of her fabric satchel slid onto her shoulder like armor.

It was old, fraying in places, but it carried her comfort: a couple of pens she liked the feel of, a few worn notepads, and the novel she was re-reading because its characters felt like friends.

These were her tools—her way of grounding herself when things got uncertain. She needed them now more than ever.

What was she even expecting?

Something flashy, over-the-top. Something that screamed look at me the same way he always seemed to.

A modernist loft, probably, with a giant, abstract painting bleeding color down one wall.

She imagined a sterile white leather couch and a ridiculous faux fur rug, maybe polar bear style, stretched out in front of a gas fireplace with flickering neon blue flames meant to impress more than warm.

Jett seemed to lean toward the dramatic.

Theatric. Excessive. A little ridiculous.

And then the front door opened, and her mental image dissolved.

Jett stood there, one hand on the handle, the other gesturing with a ridiculous, over-the-top wave like he was welcoming her into a royal palace instead of a condo. She blinked at him, part exasperation, part reluctant amusement.

Stepping past him and into the space, she stopped short. Her eyebrows furrowed as she scanned the living room.

“Where are we?” she asked, the words slipping out before she could stop them. Her tone was half-suspicious, half-incredulous.

It was… normal. Weirdly normal. Not at all what she'd expected from Jett. Her eyes narrowed as she took in the interior with hesitant curiosity. The place had marble floors, sure—but they felt more like a remnant of a model home than a design choice. And then there was the couch.

Oh, the couch.

It was brown. Fabric. With massive padded arms trimmed in wood, the kind of couch that looked like it had been carried through at least two generations of furniture fashion and had survived purely on the grounds of being impossible to kill.

Three odd, dark grooves ran down each armrest like racing stripes for your elbows. Was that… tweed?

Who bought tweed anymore?

Beside it sat a recliner that looked like it had been someone’s favorite chair for at least fifteen years—worn, slightly lumpy, and clearly loyal.

Across from it stood a wooden sofa table with glass panels arranged in a checkerboard layout, the panes tinted so dark they were nearly opaque.

On top of it, perched in triumphant absurdity, was a glass pear.

Iridescent, oversized, sitting on a crocheted doily of all things.

The pear was stuffed with Hershey’s kisses, like some kind of old-fashioned candy bowl you'd expect at a holiday party in 1998.

Karen tilted her head, baffled.

“Is this your grandma’s house?”

Karen hesitated just inside the door, her heart thudding with an awkward rhythm that echoed louder than she wanted to admit. The scent of something faintly citrus—maybe a cleaning product or his cologne—lingered in the air. It didn’t match him. Then again, nothing really seemed to match him.

The door clicked softly behind her as Jett nudged it shut with his foot, then leaned down to kick off his sneakers.

The casual motion drew her attention, and she blinked at the sight of his socks—one red-toed, the other with a giant black “L” stitched into the fabric like something from a child’s drawer.

She nearly slapped her forehead.

Of course. It figured.

“No?” Jett said, pulling his head back like she’d just insulted his dog. “Why would you ask that?”

Karen flushed, realizing how blunt she must’ve sounded.

“It doesn’t match your… your image,” she began carefully, trying to recover.

Her voice trailed off as she glanced down at the mismatched socks again.

She wasn’t even sure what she was expecting anymore—leather jackets and chaos maybe, but not novelty socks and a weirdly clean condo.

“This is my place,” Jett said simply, his tone neutral but his eyes searching. “You can drop your things there or…”

“I’d like to sit at the table so I have a place to write,” she said, lifting her chin with the smallest thread of resolve. She needed some kind of structure here—something to hold onto.

“Oh sure,” he replied with a nonchalant shrug, jerking his thumb toward the dining area. “Over there. You want some coffee, tea, or a beer? Wait. I bet you are a mimosa-sorta-girl, aren’t you?”

She blinked at him again, unsure if he was teasing or genuinely trying. “I don’t drink.”

“Me neither – and I was hoping you wouldn’t ask for the beer.”

“Then why offer it?” she asked, puzzled and trying to make sense of the patchwork of contradictions standing in front of her.

“Because it sounded cool and seemed normal.”

Karen tilted her head, utterly thrown. “Beer, when you don’t have any, is not normal,” she chided, her words slow, almost careful. “Most people would say ‘coffee’ or ‘just a glass of water’.”

“Ugh, have you tasted the tap water?”

She raised her brows. “Do you have bottled?”

“Yeah.”

“Then offer a bottle of water instead of beer.”

“Okaaaay,” he drawled dramatically, his entire body radiating mock exasperation. “You can drop your things there. Would you like coffee, tea, or bottled water ? I bet you are a mimosa-sort-of-girl.”

She stared at him, disbelief crashing over her in waves.

“Oh. My. Gosh,” she muttered, drawing out each word as if they might make more sense in isolation. “Did you just alter your sentence and repeat it back to me… with a tone? Seriously?”

He only shrugged, unconcerned, like this entire exchange was perfectly acceptable.

“I’m not a child,” she said flatly.

“Coffee then?”

“I thought we already established that.”

He shrugged again.

Karen squinted at him. “Is something wrong with your shoulders?”

“I’m tense,” he admitted, shrugging yet again before rotating his arm in a lazy circle. “Wanna rub them?”

Her eyes narrowed. “No.”

“Figures…”

And with that, he turned and wandered off toward the kitchen, rubbing one shoulder with a broad hand and rolling the other like he was working out a kink from a workout he never mentioned doing. Karen stared after him, jaw slack, eyes wide. He was officially the strangest man she had ever met.

And she was here.

Willingly.

What did that say about her?

She sighed and knelt down to place her things—her purse, her notepad, the pen she always carried like a lifeline—beside his sneakers.

The ones that had seen better days and were now tossed haphazardly near the wall.

Everything about this place and this man was slightly offbeat, like a melody that didn’t quite resolve.

Karen stood and followed the sound of him moving in the kitchen, the soles of her shoes whispering softly across the hardwood floor. She wrapped one arm around her waist, the other holding her pen like it could protect her.

“Look, Jett,” she began, her voice softer than she’d meant it to be, stripped of its usual sharp edges. She was walking into emotional territory she didn’t know how to navigate, blindfolded and barefoot. “I think maybe we made a mistake and… what’s that?”

He was standing in the middle of the kitchen like some kind of accidental dream, a nervous smile on his face, holding what looked like a piece of art made of flowers and ribbon.

There were loops of satin, delicate sprigs of baby’s breath, vibrant greenery framing two perfect orchids—white with a blush of purple so vivid it made her breath catch.

Her steps faltered.

“Is that… a corsage?”

“It’s a flower for my bride.”

“Oh my gosh – that is a corsage, isn’t it?”

He moved toward her with a kind of quiet determination, no hesitation, no permission asked, just that same Jett confidence she both admired and feared.

Before she could even register what was happening, his hand was slipping into the lapel of her sweater, his fingers nimble, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“Hey—” she murmured, instinctively batting at his wrist, but he didn’t flinch. He just frowned deeper, then stepped back just as quickly as he’d moved in, holding his hands up as if in surrender.

“I was trying to protect you from getting stuck with the pin,” he explained calmly, like this was all perfectly normal.

Karen blinked. “Why do you have a corsage here? How long have you been planning on asking me to marry you? Do I know you or something? Why… how… oh my gosh, I am so confused,” she whispered, reaching up to press her fingers against her temple.

Her forearm brushed against the flowers now resting against her chest, pinned there delicately, like a secret.

It was stunning. It was absurd. It was… oddly magical.

And all of this felt impossibly surreal.

Somehow, it was also strangely wonderful.