Page 56 of Your Place or Mine

I got that.

Didn’t mean I wasn’t still going to push back.

Let him think I was just some city girl with a paintbrush and a Pinterest board.

Let him glower.

I wasn’t going anywhere.

And eventually, he’d realize that.

If he didn’t implode first.

By the time I made it to my apartment, it felt way too quiet.

Not just quiet in the way a place does when it’s late and the town has settled into sleep, but that bone-deep stillness after the laughter fades and the last suitcase is zipped shut.

And now I was, barefoot in my little studio, the rust-colored loveseat sagging under my weight as I sat curled into one corner, a mug of tea growing lukewarm in my hands. Outside the window, the streetlights cast long shadows over Main Street, and the quiet pressed in like a heavy blanket I wasn’t sure I wanted.

I’d gotten used to Melanie’s voice, laughter, and commentary on every weird creak of the building. But more than that, I’d gotten used to how she filled a space. The way she didn’t let silence linger long enough for thoughts to get too loud.

Now those thoughts had all the room in the world.

And they were all circling one man like a pack of gossiping pigeons.

Callum Benedict.

I closed my eyes and let my head fall back against the cushion with a soft thump.

He was under my skin. No other way to put it.

Every interaction we’d had so far was barbed, backlit by mutual stubbornness and sparks I wasn’t even sure he noticed.

Or maybe he did. Maybe that was why he was always so gruff. Maybe that’s why his scowls had started to feel like a challenge I couldn’t stop rising to.

But I wasn’t supposed tolikethat.

I wasn’t supposed to get a little thrill every time I caught that flicker in his eyes…the one that said he was trying not to look at me. The one that said maybe he was just as conflicted as I was.

Ugh.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

I’d come to Reckless River to start fresh. To build something steady and beautiful and mine. To honor what Mom wanted for me—freedom, joy, a life with meaning. A life I could shape with my own two hands.

Not… whatever this was. This slow-simmering, maddening, frustrating awareness of a man who seemed to resent me and want to pull me closer all at the same time.

It wasn’t exactly attraction. Though, let’s be honest, it wasn’tnotattraction.

The man had arms that made lifting kegs look like a casual hobby and a voice that could probably stop a fight with a single “hey.” His jawline looked carved out of stone, and that scar on his eyebrow? Completely unnecessary. It was like the universe said,You know what this brooding man needs? More mystery.

But it wasn’t just that.

It was the way he looked at his bar. Like it was sacred. Like it had history and memory and maybe even ghosts he wasn’t ready to let go of.

It was the way he talked about change as something to brace against, not embrace.

It was the way he made me feel every time we were in the same room like I was being watched, challenged, and maybe even… seen.

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