Chapter 9: Sunday Morning
Sunday morning carried a different kind of quiet. The city’s usual frantic energy was muted, replaced by the lazy drone of distant church bells and the soft rustle of a breeze through the plane trees lining the street. Eli stood across from The Petal Pit, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his worn jeans. The closed sign hung in the window, but the door was unlocked, just as she’d said it would be.
He pushed it open. The bell was silent, a piece of cloth stuffed around its clapper.
The shop was in disarray. Cardboard boxes were piled haphazardly, their flaps open like starving mouths, spilling out packs of silica gel, rolls of green florist’s tape, and bundles of dried eucalyptus. The air was different today—less floral, more like dust and paper and the faint, persistent ghost of yesterday’s blooms.
“Back here,” Hadley’s voice floated from behind the bead curtain.
He found her in the back room, perched on a stepladder, counting packets of seedling labels. She wore a simple gray tank top and paint-splattered jeans, her hair tied up in a messy knot. A smudge of dirt decorated her temple. She looked real. Uncurated. More real than anyone he’d been near in years.
“You’re early,” she said, not looking down from her clipboard.
“You said boring. I didn’t want to miss any of it.”
A small smile touched her lips. She climbed down, her movements easy. “Coffee’s over there. Mugs are clean-ish. I’m up to my elbows in this.”
He filled two mugs from a sleek brewer that looked out of place among the rustic clutter. He brought hers over, setting it on a cleared spot on the workbench. Their fingers didn’t brush. He made sure of it. The deliberate avoidance felt louder than an accident.
“So, inventory,” he said, sipping the strong, dark roast.
“Thrilling, right?” She gestured to a stack of boxes against the far wall. “Those are the new ceramic pots. Could you check the sizes against this manifest? Each one should be wrapped in paper.”
He set his coffee down and got to work. It was mindless, physical. He liked it. He lifted the pots, his hands encompassing them easily, feeling the cool, gritty texture of the unglazed clay. He called out numbers and styles—“Twelve-inch, terracotta, ribbed.”—and she marked them off, her pen scratching.
They worked in a companionable silence for half an hour, broken only by the rustle of paper and the occasional sip of coffee. It was shockingly peaceful. No one wanted anything from him. There was no performance required.
“Break,” she announced finally, stretching her arms over her head. Her spine gave a soft pop. “Preserve time.”
She hopped off her stool and went to the shelf where the jars gleamed. She selected one, the golden-orange contents streaked with strands of fiery ginger. She unscrewed the lid with a crisp pop and the scent bloomed into the room: summery, sharp, impossibly sweet.
“Get that spoon,” she said, nodding to a drawer.
He retrieved a small teaspoon. She took it from him, dipping it into the jar. She held it out, a dollop of shimmering preserve balanced on the silver.
“Here.”
He leaned in and took the spoon in his mouth. The flavor was intense, immediate—the bright tang of peach followed by the warm, spicy kick of ginger that burned gently down his throat. It was delicious. Alive.
“Good?” she asked, her eyes on his.
He swallowed, the sweetness clinging. “Yeah. Really good.”
She smiled, a genuine, pleased thing. She dipped the spoon again for herself. As she lifted it, a drip of syrup fell, landing on the back of her hand. Without thinking, Eli reached out. He caught her wrist, his thumb sliding over the sticky spot.
The contact was electric. A jolt shot up his arm.
Her breath hitched. She didn’t pull away.
He took the spoon from her other hand slowly, his movements deliberate, and placed it on the bench. He kept hold of her wrist, his gaze locked on hers. The air in the cramped, cluttered room vanished. All that was left was the hum of the fridge, the wild drumming of his own heart, and the scent of peaches and drying lavender.
He used his free hand to gently wipe the syrup from her skin. The gesture was intimate, far more than bandaging a cut. It was a claiming. A question.
Her blue eyes were wide, searching his face. The usual guarded humor was gone, stripped away. What he saw there was raw, open, and a little scared.
“Eli,” she whispered.
It was the way she said his name again—full, weighted—that did it. It shattered the last of his restraint. The careful walls he’d maintained crumbled into dust.
“I’ve been thinking about you all week,” she said, the confession tumbling out in a rushed, soft exhale. “Since you stood right there and fixed my finger. Since you took the flowers. I kept wondering what you were doing. If you liked them. If you…” She trailed off, her courage seemingly spent.
He stared at her. The admission hung between them, fragile and immense. No one thought about him. They thought about Elias Bedfield, the footballer. The brand. The monster on the pitch. They didn’t wonder if he liked gardenias.
He couldn’t formulate words. A torrent of feeling, locked away for years, broke its dam. He saw the flicker of doubt in her eyes, the fear that she’d said too much. He couldn’t let that stand.
He moved.
In one fluid motion, he closed the scant distance between them. His hands came up to cradle her face, his touch unexpectedly gentle against the warmth of her skin. He saw her eyes flutter shut a second before his own did.
And then he kissed her.
It wasn’t tentative. It was a desperate, consuming press of lips, a direct translation of every unsolvable, lonely thing inside him. It tasted of peach and ginger and coffee and her. She made a small, broken sound against his mouth and her hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer, anchoring him.
The world outside—the inventory, the contracts, the screaming fans, the cautious loneliness—ceased to exist. There was only this: the softness of her lips, the frantic beat of her heart under his palm, the sheer, terrifying rightness of it.
When they finally broke apart, gasping for air, he didn’t go far. He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes still closed, his thumbs tracing the arches of her cheekbones. He could feel her trembling. Or maybe it was him.
“Hadley,” he breathed, the word rough with emotion.
She opened her eyes. They were luminous, stunned. “Okay,” she whispered back, a half-laugh, half-sob catching in her throat. “That… answers that.”
He kissed her again, softer this time, a slow, savoring promise. Around them, the shop held its breath, the shelves of slow poisons and sweet preserves standing witness to the first true thing either of them had touched in a very long time.