Updated Apr 8, 2026 • ~11 min read
Chapter 2: New Territory
Jace
Jace stares at his phone for a full thirty seconds after he sends the text.
*My coffee tastes better with your lipstick on it.*
What the hell was THAT?
He doesn’t flirt. He doesn’t DO this. He’s a forty-one-year-old widower with a ten-year-old daughter and a career that eats up sixty hours a week. He doesn’t meet women in coffee shops and ask for their numbers with terrible excuses about mixed-up drinks.
But there was something about her.
The way she talked too fast and laughed at herself and looked at him like he was the most interesting thing in the room instead of just another tired man ordering battery acid.
His phone buzzes.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** That’s the caramel. I’m a delightful flavor.
Jace’s mouth twitches. He’s sitting in his car in the firm’s parking garage, and he realizes he’s been sitting here for ten minutes just… texting. Like a teenager.
**Jace:** I don’t doubt it.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** So… do you always flirt with strangers via text, or am I special?
**Jace:** You’re definitely special.
**Jace:** And I don’t, actually. This is new territory for me.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Me too. I’m usually too anxious to flirt properly. I just word-vomit at people until they back away slowly.
**Jace:** I noticed. It’s charming.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** You’re either very kind or very weird.
**Jace:** Can’t I be both?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Deal. Kind AND weird is my favorite combination.
Jace laughs—an actual, out-loud laugh that echoes in the empty car. When was the last time he laughed like that?
He should probably go inside. He has a meeting in fifteen minutes about the downtown civic center project, and he needs to review the renderings. But instead, he types:
**Jace:** How did your first day go? Did the children stay feral-free?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Miraculously, yes! Although one kid tried to convince me that his dog ate his summer reading book.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** His dog is a GOLDFISH.
**Jace:** Creative, at least.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** I told him I admired his imagination but he still has to read the book.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** What about you? How was your day? (I realize I don’t actually know what you DO. Besides drink terrible coffee and steal innocent women’s lattes.)
Jace hesitates.
He could tell her. *I’m an architect. I design buildings. I have a daughter.*
But the daughter part feels… complicated. It’s not that he’s ashamed of Harper—she’s the best thing in his life, the ONLY thing that matters most days. But dating as a single dad is a minefield. Women either run when they find out, or they get weird about it. Try too hard. Act like they’re auditioning for the role of “stepmother” before they even know his middle name.
And Sienna… he likes that she’s talking to HIM. Just him. Not Jace-the-widower or Jace-the-father. Just… Jace.
**Jace:** I’m an architect. Spent the day arguing about load-bearing walls and zoning variances. Riveting stuff.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** That actually sounds really cool! Do you design houses? Buildings? Evil lairs?
**Jace:** Mostly commercial buildings. Some residential. No evil lairs yet, but I’m open to commission.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** I’ll keep that in mind for when I inevitably turn to villainy.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** What made you want to be an architect?
No one ever asks him that. They ask about projects, timelines, budgets. Not the WHY.
**Jace:** I like the idea of creating something permanent. Something that outlasts you. Buildings are… legacy, I guess. They tell stories long after the people who made them are gone.
He stares at the text after he sends it. Too much. Too heavy for someone he met three hours ago.
But then:
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** That’s beautiful. I think about that with teaching, too. You’re shaping people who go on to shape the world. It’s terrifying and wonderful at the same time.
**Jace:** Terrifying is right. I can’t imagine being responsible for that many kids.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** It’s controlled chaos. But I love it. Even when they’re making me want to hide in the supply closet.
**Jace:** Do you hide in the supply closet often?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Only on Wednesdays. And Fridays. And sometimes Mondays.
**Jace:** What about Tuesdays and Thursdays?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Those are my “pretend I have everything together” days.
**Jace:** How’s that working out?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Not great. But I’m committed to the illusion.
Jace grins at his phone like an idiot.
His calendar alert goes off. Meeting in five minutes.
**Jace:** I have to go. Work calls. But… can I text you later?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** You better. I’m invested in this now. I need to know more about your architectural evil lair plans.
**Jace:** I’ll send you sketches.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Looking forward to it, coffee thief.
**Jace:** Latte thief.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Touché.
Jace pockets his phone and heads inside, and for the first time in two years, the weight he carries everywhere feels just a little bit lighter.
He doesn’t believe in miracles. Hasn’t since Meredith. But a woman who rambles about turning children feral and makes him laugh for the first time in years and orders the exact wrong coffee at the exact right moment—that’s either the universe’s idea of a joke or something close to miraculous. And Jace isn’t sure which one scares him more.
🔥
The week unfolds in texts.
**Tuesday, 6:47 PM**
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Update: I just spent twenty minutes explaining to a child why we can’t bring our pet snake to school for show and tell.
**Jace:** Did you succeed?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Define “succeed.”
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** The snake is NOT coming to school. But I may have accidentally agreed to let him bring photos. Of the snake eating a mouse.
**Jace:** You’re a hero.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Or a coward. Hard to tell.
**Jace:** A heroic coward. The best kind.
**Wednesday, 11:32 PM**
**Jace:** You’re probably asleep. Normal people are asleep at this hour. But I just finished the final renderings for a project I’ve been working on for six months and I wanted to tell someone.
**Jace:** That someone is you, apparently.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** I’M AWAKE! And I’m honored to be your someone! What’s the project??
**Jace:** Community center downtown. Spaces for kids’ programs, senior activities, public library branch. It’s… it’s good work.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** That’s AMAZING. You’re literally making the world better one building at a time.
**Jace:** I don’t know about that.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** I do. You’re creating a space where people will learn and grow and connect. That MATTERS.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Also why are you awake? It’s almost midnight!
**Jace:** Deadline. And I don’t sleep much anyway.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Insomniac?
**Jace:** Something like that.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Me too. My brain doesn’t have an off switch.
**Jace:** What do you do when you can’t sleep?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Read. Organize things. Make lists I’ll never complete. Worry about everything.
**Jace:** What are you worried about right now?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Honestly? Whether I’m texting you too much. Whether you think I’m annoying. Whether I should’ve said something different three messages ago.
**Jace:** You’re not texting too much. You’re not annoying. And everything you say is exactly right.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** You’re very good at this.
**Jace:** At what?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Making me feel like I’m not too much.
Jace’s chest does something strange. A squeeze. A twist.
**Jace:** You’re not too much. You’re exactly enough.
**Thursday, 3:15 PM**
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Random question: what’s your favorite building in the world?
**Jace:** The Pantheon in Rome. Have you seen it?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Only in pictures. It’s on my bucket list.
**Jace:** The oculus—the opening in the dome—it’s perfect. Rain comes in. Light moves across the space throughout the day. It’s been standing for nearly 2,000 years and it’s still breathtaking.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** You should take me there sometime.
She sends it and then immediately:
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** OH MY GOD THAT WAS SO FORWARD. I’M SORRY. I DIDN’T MEAN—
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** I mean, not that I WOULDN’T want to go with you, but I wasn’t ASSUMING—
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** I’m going to stop talking now.
Jace is grinning so hard his face hurts.
**Jace:** I’d take you to Rome in a heartbeat.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Really?
**Jace:** Really. But maybe we should start with dinner first.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** …are you asking me on a date?
**Jace:** Yes. Is that okay?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** YES. Very okay. Extremely okay. Okay-est thing ever.
**Jace:** Saturday night?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** I’ll be there. Where?
**Jace:** I’ll surprise you. Send me your address and I’ll pick you up at 7.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Okay but what if you’re a serial killer and I just gave you my address?
**Jace:** Then you’ll have a very interesting story to tell.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Dark. I like it.
**Friday, 9:52 AM**
**Jace:** Morning. How’s the classroom today?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Chaotic. One kid glued his hand to his desk.
**Jace:** How?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Superglue. Don’t ask.
**Jace:** I’m asking.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** He was “fixing” his pencil holder. It did not go well.
**Jace:** Is he okay?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** He’s fine. The desk, however, has a permanent hand-shaped decoration now.
**Jace:** Modern art.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Exactly what I told the principal.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Also I’m nervous about tomorrow.
**Jace:** Why?
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Because I REALLY like you and I don’t want to mess this up.
Jace stops walking. He’s halfway across the lobby of his office building and he just… stops.
People stream around him. He doesn’t care.
**Jace:** You’re not going to mess anything up.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** You don’t know that. I’m VERY good at messing things up.
**Jace:** I like you too. A lot. And I’m nervous too.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** You are?
**Jace:** Terrified.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Why?
Because he hasn’t done this in fifteen years. Because the last woman he took to dinner is buried in Riverside Cemetery. Because he has a daughter waiting at home who doesn’t know her dad is texting someone, falling for someone, risking his heart again.
But he doesn’t say any of that.
**Jace:** Because I don’t want to mess this up either.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Then we’ll just… not mess it up. Together.
**Jace:** Deal.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** See you tomorrow at 7?
**Jace:** I’ll be there.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Wear something nice. I’m going to try very hard not to word-vomit all over you.
**Jace:** Please word-vomit. I like it.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** You’re perfect. It’s annoying.
**Jace:** Right back at you.
🔥
Saturday morning, Harper sits across from him at breakfast, eating cereal and swinging her legs.
“You’re smiling at your phone again,” she says suspiciously.
Jace looks up. “Am I?”
“You’ve been doing it ALL WEEK. Who are you texting?”
“Work stuff.”
“You don’t smile at work stuff. You make your grumpy face at work stuff.”
She’s too observant. Gets it from her mother.
“Just a friend,” he says carefully.
“What kind of friend?”
“A new friend.”
Harper narrows her eyes. She looks so much like Meredith in this moment—dark curls, sharp gaze, that way of looking at him like she can see straight through every wall he puts up.
“Is it a GIRL friend?”
“It’s a friend who happens to be a woman, yes.”
“Are you DATING?”
Jace sets his phone down. “Would that be okay? If I was?”
Harper is quiet for a long moment. Then: “Is she nice?”
“Very nice.”
“Nicer than you?”
“Much nicer than me.”
“That’s good. You’re kind of grumpy.”
“Hey—”
“It’s TRUE, Dad. You scowl a LOT.”
Jace laughs despite himself. “Okay. Fair.”
“So when do I meet her?”
“Whoa. Slow down. We’re just… getting to know each other.”
“But if you LIKE her—”
“Harper. Baby. It’s new. Let me figure it out first, okay?”
She studies him with those too-wise eyes. Then she nods. “Okay. But I have to approve.”
“Noted.”
“And if she’s mean to you, I’ll kick her.”
“Please don’t kick anyone.”
“I’m SAYING. You deserve someone nice.”
Jace’s throat tightens. He reaches across the table and ruffles her hair. “Thanks, Harp.”
She grins and goes back to her cereal.
And Jace goes back to his phone.
One new message.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** T-minus 10 hours. I’ve changed my outfit four times already. Send help.
**Jace:** Wear whatever makes you feel beautiful. You’ll be perfect.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** You haven’t even SEEN me in real clothes. What if I’m secretly a disaster?
**Jace:** You’re definitely a disaster. That’s why I like you.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** Rude. Accurate, but rude.
**Jace:** See you at 7, disaster.
**Sienna (Coffee Disaster):** See you at 7, coffee thief.
Jace locks his phone and looks at Harper, who’s watching him with a knowing smirk.
“You’re smiling again,” she says.
“Yeah,” he admits. “I know.”
And for the first time in two years, he doesn’t feel guilty about it.
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