“Fourth one was just good practice,” I continue. “Kitchen equipment needs regular maintenance checks.”
Dotty sets down the cleaning cloth and leans against the counter, her smile knowing enough to make me want to disappear into the woodwork I’ve been building in my workshop. A desk, by the way. Unnecessarily intricate desk with joint work that definitely has nothing to do with procrastination or nervous energy or needing something to do with my hands at night that isn’t thinking about a woman in heels arriving in my town.
“Right,” she says again. Her tone suggests she’s done being gentle about this. “How many times does a woman have to accidentally lean against a broken oven for you to understand that she’s fine? That the oven was an excuse to be near her while she works?”
The kitchen suddenly feels warm.
“That’s not—” I stop. Start again. “I’m not?—”
There’s no comeback to Dotty. She sees through people like X-rays. The load-bearing walls of bullshit visible from across a room.
“I had legitimate maintenance concerns,” I attempt weakly. My hands are around the coffee cup—good. Hands that are occupied are hands that can’t fidget or betray anything else.
“Sure you did.” Dotty refills my cup without asking, the pour precise and even. “And I’m sure you’re just very invested in her oven health as a community member. That’s why you went in three times last week to check things that have never broken.”
“The seal needed?—”
“Jace.” She sets the pot down. Her expression softens slightly, which is worse than the teasing. “Talk to her. Or don’t. But stop pretending the oven is the problem.”
I leave seventeen dollars on the counter without waiting for change.
The universe, however, is not done with me.
Jax Moretti is at the firehouse when I stop by Wednesday afternoon with the shelf unit he ordered for his office. The shelf is solid oak, built to his specifications, and the joinery is clean. It’s good work. He’ll be happy with it, which is its own kind of satisfaction.
Except Jax has that look—the one that means he’s been thinking about something stupid and decided to act on it. His entire body language suggests he’s won something and is about to make sure I know it.
“Jace!” He claps me on the back like I’ve done him a personal favor by existing. His voice is loud enough to draw attention from the other guys hanging around the garage. “Perfect timing. I’m starting a betting pool.”
I set the shelf unit down carefully against the wall. If I don’t set it down carefully, I might pick it back up and use it as a weapon. That would be bad for the shelf unit and worse for my reputation.
"No," I say.
“Not even on whether you’re going to actually ask Gabby out before she opens her own café chain and becomes moderately famous?” He holds up a paper covered in names and numbers. The handwriting is messy, but the dollar amounts are clear. “Current odds are three-to-one you’ll spend another month finding reasons to check the oven. Cost you ten bucks to get in at that rate. Could win fifty.”
“Stop.”
“Five bucks says you don’t make a move before August.” He’s enjoying this way too much. “Fifteen bucks says you’ve already thought about what you’d say if you did. Twenty bucks says?—”
“Jax.”
“Twenty bucks says right now, you’re thinking about her.” He grins, and it’s a grin that makes me remember why we’re friends despite moments like this. Jax Moretti operates on pure instinct and absolute confidence. He has no internal filter between thought and speech. “You’re thinking about that face she made when I told her about Morris.”
I go still.
“That’s not—I wasn’t thinking about?—"
But I was.
“What did you say?” The words come out too fast, too intense. Too honest. I don’t bother trying to hide it now. The damage is already done.
Jax’s grin widens. He’s won something and he knows it. He’s probably already won money from someone based on exactly this reaction.
“Told her Morris should get a second job as a pastry critic given how many times he’s shown up when she’s baking.” He’s clearly enjoying every word of this. “Told her that moose with better timing sense would skip the breakfast rush. She laughed so hard she had to sit down. Genuine laugh. Not her polite laugh. The real one.”
I imagine Morris crashing through the brush at exactly the wrong moment. I imagine Gabby startled, dropping things, and then getting annoyed, and then—somewhere in the story—finding it funny. The real kind of funny that comes from recognition and absurdity and just accepting that sometimes life includes moose.
I don’t like that Jax Moretti knows what her real laugh sounds like.