Chapter 1
The hoodie was not technically mine, though I’d stopped treating that as an important distinction around the third time I borrowed it.
It was grey, oversized, and unmistakably Grant’s. It smelled the way his apartment smelled, clean and warm, with cedar hiding somewhere underneath. I’d found it in his bottom drawer, pulled it over my sleep, and immediately felt more comfortable than I wanted to admit.
That was the problem with Grant’s apartment. It made staying feel easy.
His kitchen was quiet when I padded out. The coffee maker was finishing its last few gurgles while he stood at the counter in grey sweatpants, reading something on his phone with the small frown he reserved for spreadsheets and opinion pieces he disagreed with.
The mug waiting beside the coffee maker was mine. It was the white one with the chipped handle I’d left here two months ago. He’d filled it exactly the way I liked it, with just enough milk to soften the coffee without ruining it.
He hadn’t asked how I took it in weeks. I’d mentioned it once, early on, and he’d remembered.
I picked up the mug, took a sip, and leaned against the doorway until he looked up.
“You’re wearing my hoodie,” he said.
“I’m wearing a hoodie that currently lives here.”
He smiled.
“You went through my drawer.”
“Your drawer was open.”
“It wasn’t.”
“It was open enough.”
That earned me a laugh, his expression caught somewhere between amused and fond. Grant had never been good at hiding either one.
“I don’t think drawers can be open enough.”
“I think you’re limiting their potential.”
I carried my coffee to the table, then tucked one leg underneath me.
He leaned against the counter with his mug in both hands. His attention settled on me without feeling heavy, and it never seemed to come with a deadline. When we’d first started dating, I’d kept waiting for him to rush me or lose patience. He never did.
“So,” he said, settling his mug against the counter, “I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Have you ever considered reading a novel without conducting a full editorial review in the margins?”
I looked up from my coffee. “I don’t conduct editorial reviews.”
Grant smiled, patient already, like he knew exactly where this conversation was going.
“Suzie, every book I’ve ever seen you read ends up looking like it’s been through peer review. You underline passages, circle words, leave little notes in the margins, and occasionally question an author’s life choices. I’m starting to think bookstores should sell your copies with a disclaimer.”
“That’s called engaging with the material,” I said. “Books are conversations. I simply refuse to let the author have the last word.”
“You wrote three paragraphs beside one page last week.”
“It was an exceptionally interesting page.”
“You were reading a beach romance.”
“It was making claims I felt deserved scrutiny.”
He laughed into his coffee, shaking his head.
“I especially admire that you only write in pencil. It’s very optimistic of you. Every note comes with the assumption that Future Suzie might disagree with Present Suzie.”
“Future Suzie is entitled to her opinions. I think it’s a positive, this shows I believe in personal growth.”
“So Present Suzie carries a pencil everywhere just in case she meets a sentence that needs immediate attention?”
“You say that like it’s unreasonable.”
“I say it because I’ve watched you stop in the middle of lunch to annotate a chapter before you forgot a thought.”
“I had a good thought! Why waste a perfectly good idea?”
“I’m sure you did. You do always seem to have the best ideas.”
I took another sip of my coffee before pointing at him.
“And yet you’re looking at me like I’m the strange one. You have colour-coded marketing folders.”
“They’re organized.”
“They’re colour-coded, labelled, alphabetized, and nested inside larger colour-coded folders. You once spent ten minutes explaining the difference between blue and dark blue.”
“They represent different project stages.”
“They represent a cry for help.”
“They represent efficiency.”
“They represent someone who thinks a filing cabinet has an emotional support system.”
He laughed again, quieter this time, and rubbed the back of his neck.
“I was wondering how long it would take before you brought up the folders.”
“I’ve been saving it for the right moment.”
“You’ve been waiting.”
“Absolutely. I have to keep you on your toes, and someone has to hold you accountable.”
He smiled at me over the rim of his mug, warm enough that I looked back at my coffee before he could notice I’d started smiling too.
I felt something loosen in my ribcage that I hadn’t noticed I was holding until it released. This was the central problem with Grant Ashby, the one I’d never fully resolved in eighteen months of trying: he made me laugh before my guard was up. He’d done it the night we met. He kept doing it, reliably and without apparent effort, and my system had never found a satisfying workaround.
He was good. Somehow, I had found myself a good man.
The party where we’d met had been for a mutual friend’s birthday, one I’d nearly cancelled on four separate occasions.
Adulthood had not made me enjoy parties. It had made me competent at them. I could read a room, keep a conversation moving, and ask the kind of questions that made people feel heard. By nine o’clock, though, I was usually ready to go home and sit in silence for a while.
I’d been standing beside the food table because it was the safest place in the room. Nobody questioned why you were there, and if a conversation stalled you could always become unexpectedly interested in the crackers.
Grant wandered over, picked up a piece of cheese, and looked genuinely pleased with himself.
“I’ve been looking for this for ten minutes,” he said.
“The cheese?”
“The good cheese.”
I glanced down at the platter.
“How can you tell?”
He pointed with complete confidence.
“The expensive one is always cut into smaller cubes. That way people think there’s more of it.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
“That’s either completely made up or deeply researched.”
“I’ll never tell.”
He held out his hand.
“I’m Grant.”
“Suzie.”
“What do you do, Suzie?”
“I’m a registered psychologist.”
He nodded once, as though filing the information away.
“That must take a particular kind of patience.”
I tilted my head.
“What makes you think that?”
He popped the cheese into his mouth before answering.
“People,” he said after he swallowed. “They’re wonderful, but they’re also a lot.”
It wasn’t the answer I usually got.
Most people made a joke about couches or asked if I was analyzing them already. Some apologized for everything they’d said in the previous five minutes. Grant just looked interested, like my job was another thing he wanted to understand instead of perform around.
“So what do you do?” I asked.
“I’m a marketing and client recruitment manager.”
“I should have guessed.”
He looked down at himself.
“Oh? Is there a universal dress code I accidentally adhered to?”
“No.”
“The enthusiasm about cheese?”
“I was actually thinking it’s your confidence.”
“My confidence in identifying expensive cheese?”
I snorted at that.
“The fact that you walked into a room full of strangers, found someone standing alone, and introduced yourself without making it weird.”
He laughed.
“Occupational hazard.”
“So you sell things to people for a living?”
“I prefer ‘connect people with opportunities.’ It sounds much more professional.”
“You’re a people person, then?”
“I guess so. I wasn’t always like this though. Eventually I just got enough practice that eventually my nerves got bored.” He replied, smiling at me.
Before I could reply, someone called Grant’s name from across the room. He glanced over and spotted Ben, who was waving him over from the other side of the living room.
Grant looked back at me with a small, apologetic smile.
“I should probably go wish Jaclyn a happy birthday before she decides I’ve come here exclusively for the cheese.”
“I assumed that was exactly why you came.”
“It was my opening priority. The birthday girl should probably move into first place.”
“I think she’d appreciate that.”
“I’d like to keep being invited to things.”
“Solid long-term strategy.”
He smiled.
“I’ll be back, if you’re still occupying the snack table.”
“I have no immediate plans to abandon it.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
With one last smile, he headed toward the birthday girl, weaving through the crowd without much urgency.
I watched him go for a moment before looking back at the cheese.
A few seconds later, I picked up one of the smaller cubes.
It was, annoyingly, much better.
Eighteen months later, here we were, with Grant topping up his coffee with the same absent-minded concentration he’d applied to identifying expensive cheese at a birthday party.
He looked over at me, his expression shifting almost imperceptibly.
“We should leave by nine on Friday,” he said. “That gives us enough time to stop for lunch, and we’ll still get to the cabin before it starts getting dark.”
The mountain trip had grown quietly over the past three weeks. He’d found the cabin. I’d researched the hiking trails, narrowed them down to three options, and ranked them by difficulty. He’d sent everything back in a shared document, neatly organized into colour-coded tabs with a packing list, driving directions, and estimated hiking times.
I’d added my notes in bright purple.
His only comment had been, Your colour isn’t in the palette.
I hadn’t changed it.
“Nine is optimistic,” I said.
Grant looked up from his coffee. “For you, maybe. I have an excellent track record.”
“You have excellent intentions,” I said. “Last month you forgot your jacket, insisted the weather was fine, and then borrowed my first aid kit you said we didn’t need because your hiking boots gave you a blister.”
He considered that for a moment.
“I don’t appreciate how compelling your evidence is.”
“I know.”
“Fine,” he said. “Nine-thirty. One coffee stop, and you get the first hour of music.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“What’s the catch? You’ve never handed over playlist control without a fight.”
“I remember what you said about mine.”
“I offered constructive criticism.”
“You called it ‘the soundtrack to renewing your driver’s licence,’ then compared it to the on-hold music for an insurance company.”
“It had the same emotional range.”
“Hey, I liked that playlist!”
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I said something. As a psychologist, I couldn’t let you live in your delusions any longer.”
He laughed, shaking his head.
“You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He picked up his keys from the counter.
“I’ll drive.”
“Obviously.”
The word landed between us without either of us thinking about it.
A second later, I looked down at my coffee, hiding the smile that found me anyway.
At some point I stood, genuinely intending to go home. I had a book waiting for me, one I was halfway through annotating, and I had convinced myself that continuing immediately was a perfectly reasonable priority. Plus, I eventually needed to stop procrastinating packing for the hiking trip.
As I passed behind his chair, Grant reached out and caught my wrist.
“The book will still be there tomorrow. It’s waiting patiently for you,” he said, calm as ever.
“I know.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m in the middle of it.”
“I’ve seen how you read. The book’s in the middle of you.”
I laughed.
“It needs me.”
“It’ll survive one more day.”
“It has margin notes waiting.”
“The margin notes can wait too.”
He looked at me then, smiling in that easy, effortless way of his, and for a second I forgot what I’d been about to say.
“You’ve left three books here,” he said. “Surely one of them could keep you occupied.”
“They’ve already been annotated.”
“So read them again.”
“I know what’s in them.”
“You also know what’s in the one at home.”
“That’s completely different.”
“It isn’t.”
“It is if you’re me.”
He smiled like he’d expected that answer all along.
Without another word, he took my hand, drew me a little closer, and pressed a kiss against my knuckles without ever looking away.
“One more hour,” he said.
“I have things to do.” I replied, although my hesitance was sounding weaker and weaker.
“They’ll still be there.”
He brushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear, then let his hand rest against my cheek for a second.
“Stay.”
So I did.
We drifted back to bed, and the hoodie lasted another few minutes before becoming inconvenient enough to join the growing pile of clothes on the floor.
Grant had never been someone who filled every quiet moment. He simply stayed with me, entirely present, and somehow that had always been enough.
Snuggling tight together, I rested my head against his shoulder, enjoying the peaceful quiet.
Without meaning to, I took inventory.
It was an old habit.
Three relationships had taught me to look for the loose thread, the moment everything started to come undone. Even now, my mind checked for it before I realized what it was doing.
This time, it found nothing.
Safe.
The word arrived quietly, and for once I let it stay.
Grant shifted as he fell asleep, his arm tightening around me momentarily, as though keeping me close required no thought at all.
The old instinct to wait for something to go wrong was still there.
It was smaller now.
Quiet enough that, for a little while, I could almost forget to listen for it.
Authors note
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