Lacey's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

Lacey woke the morning after with Billy's flowers in a jar by her bed. She had said yes. Now the yes scared her. Billy wasn't just a boy who asked her out. He was her partner. His family's wheat fed her rolls. His share of the profit paid his own debt. If she kissed him and it went wrong, the whole business cracked. She could lose the cafe before she built it. She packed sausage rolls in paper anyway, wrapped a slice of her worry inside the folds, and went to meet him. Billy waited by his truck with the golden dog panting at his boots. The dog had a dark muzzle and a tail that never stopped. "She invited herself," Billy said, rubbing the dog's floppy ears. He looked at Lacey the way he looked at a sky before rain, patient, reading it. "I want to show you something." He drove them to a tree he'd loved as a kid. It stood alone, heavy with soft pink blossoms, petals drifting down with no wind to push them. "My dad told me a story," Billy said. He kept his eyes on the bark. "When two people who love each other stand under it, the tree grows taller and the petals fall." He laughed at himself, ears red. "Probably just a story." They spread a blanket in the grass. Lacey unwrapped the rolls, still warm, the glossy buns soft. The dog sat drooling until Billy tore off an end and fed her. They ate and watched petals land on the blanket. Lacey's worry sat in her chest the whole time. She had to say it before she lost her nerve. "Billy, if this goes bad, we lose everything we built." She set her roll down. "The wheat, the porch, the money. It's all tangled together. I can't afford for it to break." He was quiet a long moment, turning his cap in his hands. "I thought about that too," he said. "The whole drive here." He met her eyes. "I don't want a partner I'm scared to touch. I'd rather risk it than spend years wondering." He reached out and took her hand, slow, giving her room to pull back. She didn't. A petal landed on their joined hands. Then another. Lacey looked up. She couldn't tell if the tree had grown. But something in her had. She leaned in and kissed him under the pink branches. The dog barked once and stole the last roll off the blanket. "We'll keep the work and the us separate where we can," Lacey said against his shoulder. "And when we can't, we talk. No hiding." "No hiding," Billy agreed. Then his thumb went still on her hand. "There's something I still have to tell my family. About the wheat." His voice dropped. "I should've done it already."