them out to him. And they both sat on the tailgate of the truck, eating pink frosted cookies with a sea of pink flowers behind them. And if he’d ever been told before that something like that might make him feel content, feel happy, he would’ve told them they were crazy.
The fact of the matter was, since leaving the business world behind, he hadn’t been happy. Of course, there had been reasons for that. Circumstances. So he hadn’t thought that he particularly liked country living. The slower life. This life where making things with his hands, and connecting to the world in a very real way was the way of it. A day spent building planter boxes, and just talking to someone. And not talking.
But feeling their presence, and sweet, quiet way. Yeah. He never thought that would be something he liked.
It hit him then that he hadn’t fully taken on board the ways in which he’d changed.
Because that change had been enforced. Brought about by an initial trauma. It never occurred to him that there might be some good things in this life he’d chosen.
He didn’t miss the city. And that had nothing to do with Mel. Or what he’d lost. That had everything to do with... Well, it was all linked. He couldn’t really separate them out. But the problem was, he realized, that there were things in his life that were desperately shallow. Things he’d chosen when he’d wanted something different. And he’d been on a path that would lead him here, but mostly because it was what Mel had wanted. And he’d wanted to make her happy.
And in no scenario had he imagined himself living like this.
But right now, right now, things felt okay. Right now, they felt pretty good.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THEY HAD SPENT the whole day together. He had kissed her twice. Iris felt... Strange. Everything that was happening between them seemed so... Well, not like what they had talked about yesterday. But then, he had met her family and they had gone their separate ways last night, and today he was... Well, he was being wonderful. She couldn’t deny that. She never had anyone take the care that he was doing with her. But there was something about it that made her feel uncomfortable. Deeply so.
But then, the entirety of the last few months had been a study in discomfort. Maybe the last year. All the changes that were happening around her were intense, had jolted her out of her sense of purpose. And this bakery had brought it back. And to an extent, she had felt some of that with Griffin. Going to his house, cleaning. Bringing him food. It had been clear to her that he had been in some sort of depression for some time. But now he was here, and he was doing all of this for her, and... He was right. She was more uncomfortable with him being nice to her than she was with him trying to scare her down his mountain.
They were...friends. And that made things feel a little sharper. A little harder. But the friendship didn’t change things. Not really.
“It’s opening tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll put the sign out on the street, and then... It will be open. And then we’ll have a grand opening in a couple of days and... I can’t believe it.”
“You’ve done amazing work, Iris,” he said. “Really amazing. I think your parents would’ve been proud.”
Something in her shifted. She pushed that compliment away.
She found while she was in the kitchen that he had placed a dinner order at Bellissima, the Italian restaurant down the street, and then he went to pick it up, brought it back and set it out on the table in the bakery.
And it was making her heart feel like it was too large for her chest, all these small, sweet things that came together to create something wholly new, something she was completely unprepared for. The pasta that he’d ordered was delicious, but she had such a hard time taking it. Such a hard time feeling like he was just giving all of this to her. And it was weird, because she never contended with this feeling before. She was used to being part of a family, where she did a certain amount of caregiving. And it wasn’t as if nobody gave anything back to her.
But it was...communal.
They shared.
Today had been focused on her with an intense kind of laser quality, and she didn’t know what to do