Page 15 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll
After the official meeting ends, Ada and Ewan pack up the raffle sheets and Bramley disappears with Tara muttering something about tree lights. I stay behind to organize the mess on the table. Not because I need to, but because I need tonotstorm out like a flustered mess with feelings I refuse to name.
Of course, he stays too.
He moves slowly, collecting fabric swatches and stacking lantern bases into neat, military rows.
“I meant what I said, you know,” he says, without looking at me.
I keep my eyes on the list I’m rewriting for no reason. “Which part? The symmetrical tables or the beige betrayal?”
He huffs a breath that might almost be a laugh. “About you making it worth the fight.”
I pause, pen hovering over the page.
He sets down the lanterns, hands braced on the table’s edge, and finally meets my eyes.
“You were always fire and roots and mess and heart. I didn’t always understand it. But I wanted it. All of it.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“I still want it.”
My breath catches. Just a little. Just enough to betray me.
“You can’t just say things like that,” I whisper, words hot and uneven. “Not after the way you left. Not after the way you’ve come back.”
“I know.”
He steps around the table, slowly, like he’s approaching a skittish animal in the woods.
“But I also know I didn’t come back to play at being civil. I came back because I’ve spent every year since I left wondering what it would’ve been like to stay. To chooseus.And I’m trying, Tessa. I’m trying to show you that I still can.”
I want to throw the clipboard. I want to scream,You don’t get to decide that now,andYou had your chance,andDon’t you dare make me feel this again.
But I just stand there, heart hammering, the scent of pine and candle wax wrapping around us like memory.
And then Bramley pokes his head in the doorway and hollers, “Quinn! The cider wagon lost a wheel and Mrs. Fenley’s threatening to bless it into a fruit salad. I need backup!”
I jump, a little too grateful for the interruption. I grab my satchel, the meeting notes, the ridiculous pumpkin cream swatch, and bolt for the door without another word.
But as I pass him, Drogath gently brushes his fingers across mine.
And even though I don’t stop—don’t even flinch—I know he felt the way my breath hitched.
I should’ve known better than to let Bramley talk me into decorating the barn loft.
“Just needs a little autumn charm,” he said, gesturing with his cider mug like he was a wizard casting a spell. “Nothing fancy—just a few lanterns, maybe some hay bales, string up some of them dried corn husks you like so much.”
Alittleautumn charm, he said.
Now here I am, knee-deep in itchy straw, sweat prickling at the back of my neck, trying to wrestle a twelve-foot garland of dried apples and cinnamon bundles into place while balanced halfway up a wooden ladder that creaks like it’s got trust issues.
“You’re going to fall,” Drogath says, voice low and even, like gravity is something he can negotiate on my behalf.
“I’mnotgoing to fall,” I huff, twisting to hook the garland onto a protruding beam. “I’ve been climbing this ladder since I was sixteen.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s safe.”
“Well, neither is loving someone, but people do it anyway.”
