Slowly, he eases up, then leans against the table’s end, how he was when he was asleep. He draws up his knees and rests his elbows on them, rubbing his hands down his face.
“So,” I offer, trying to move past the tension, “you were saying what, uh, brought you to the greenhouse.”
He drops his hands, and his eyes meet mine. I bite my lip reflexively. Those eyes. They had no business being so beautiful back when I saw them across a pub in Scotland, and they have no business being this beautiful now, either.
But they are. They’re as rare and striking as his copper hair—pale green, slivered by shards of silver, like frost-streaked leaves. I tell myself to stop staring at them, but dammit, I can’t.
“The party was . . . a lot,” he finally says. For the first time, I register the quality of his voice—warm, yet edged with a smoky roughness, like whiskey that hits your tongue rich and smooth and finishes with a peat-tinged complexity that makes it taste infinitely better. “I needed a break.”
I tip my head. “So . . . you came in here, and then you fell asleep?”
Pink creeps up his cheeks, past the edge of his thick beard. “Passed out might be more accurate.”
“Ah.” I peer down at my soaked dress and pluck at the fabric to unstick it from my thighs. When I glance up, his gaze jumps up, too, as if it was lower, as if he was following my movement.
Our eyes meet. He blinks, then looks away, his focus traveling the flowers lined up along the far wall. He tugs down the brim of his ball cap, until his eyes are in shadow and his profile is distilled to the brim of his hat, his long, straight nose, and thick beard.
“You have to admit”—I set the trowel back on the table where I found it—“that this is pretty strange, that I randomly saw you in Scotland, and now you’re here. It’s a very weird coincidence.”
Serendipitous, even.
I ignore that voice. Because that’s a voice that belongs to someone I’m not anymore. Someone who always used to see romantic possibilities—meet-cutes and kismet and love at first sight—so much so, it led me right out of reality into the kind of fantasy that started off a dream and ended a nightmare.
I don’t do that anymore—romanticize moments and people and see the world through rose-colored glasses. I used to. All the time.
But eight months ago, I stopped. Because eight months ago I realized where it had gotten me—in love with a manipulator who I didn’t understand was a manipulator until he’d twisted me up so badly, I didn’t recognize myself. I ended our relationship, quit my PR consultancy work, and hid away in a Scottish Airbnb for a month, licking my wounds, pickling my liver with whiskey, pounding shortbread, and bingeing Fleabag.
And then I told myself it was time to pick myself up and come home and get my shit together. Deal with the nagging health issues I’d been ignoring and couldn’t afford to ignore anymore. Focus on facing my future head-on, rather than numbing myself to the pain of my past. I decided I was going to heal, grow, and move on.
Since then, I’ve built a new routine that’s gotten me into a better place: I take care of my body and take my meds; I write freelance on a flexible work schedule; I don’t date. I’m still scared to trust myself to accurately read people, and until I can, I’m not giving romance a chance or giving my heart to someone new only to risk getting hurt all over again.
Generally, that’s been going well. My body doesn’t feel amazing yet, but these things take time. My work doesn’t pay what I’d like, but it’s enough to scrape by. And I haven’t missed romance, because I get plenty from the novels I’ve been reading voraciously since age twelve, when I found Mom’s bodice rippers in the family library.
Well, I haven’t missed it too much.
Except, in this moment, maybe I do. Just a little. Because this is a moment the old Juliet would have thoroughly enjoyed—a chaotic meet-cute with an enigmatic, hot stranger who I saw across a room once before. The old Juliet would toss her hair over her shoulder and say something witty right now, offer this guy a hand up and flirt her way out of the awkward.
Which is why the new Juliet needs to get the hell out of here, before she reverts to the very kind of behavior she’s sworn off for damn good reason.
I try to stand, which, between my stiff body and my waterlogged dress, doesn’t go so well. The man springs up and grips my elbow when I teeter sideways, lifting me gently, firmly, until I’m standing upright.
And then he drops my elbow the second I’m steady.