Sweet Romance13 min read
Little Apple, Big Flame
ButterPicks15 views
I woke to August heat that felt like someone had closed a lid over the city. The warehouse roofs shimmered, and the air pressed against my skin like a hand.
I was not supposed to be at the industrial park that day. I had gone to peek—stupid, small-town curiosity—because there was talk at the milk-tea shop about a boss who worked with his crew, shirt off, like he belonged to a different climate.
I stuck my face out from behind a rusted sheet and saw him.
He was enormous in the sun. Broad shoulders. A chest that could have been carved from driftwood and polished. He had a scar or two down one arm, and when he moved, sweat traced the planes of his torso like a river. He looked like a man who ate the heat and didn't complain.
"He looks like trouble," Li had whispered in the shop, not knowing he'd be trouble in the best way possible.
I took another careful look. I knew the face. I had seen him before—at the hotpot place where I had once been clumsy with a pot and almost boiled my own hand. He had steadied me then, like catching a small thing that might break.
I remembered the burned skin, the panic, and his long, steady hands.
"Hey—" a voice from behind turned my head. "You spying on the boss?"
I froze. A man by the pallet laughed, and someone else whistled. I ducked further. They all looked up, and the world narrowed to the bright black of his stare.
"Elden," someone joked, "your groupie is here."
He glanced, then moved. My heart thudded like a weak drum.
"Come out," he said, and something about the way he said it made my knees warmer.
I stepped into the open and felt like a rabbit in a den.
"You again," he said after a beat. "You were in the hotpot place, right? You almost boiled yourself."
"That was an accident," I said. My voice sounded tiny. "I brought a scar cream as thanks. I—"
He had the scarred arm I remembered. He took the small tube I handed over and turned it in his fingers, amused.
"Kinley," I said, a little shy. "My name's Kinley."
He blinked and a smile—slow and reluctant—came and stayed.
"Kinley Brooks," he repeated. "Nice to meet you. I'm Elden Cardenas."
"Why would you remember me?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Because you're the kind who almost gets herself burned but keeps smiling afterward."
He pinched my cheek—only a little—and I smelled smoke and summer on his skin.
"Don't be ridiculous," I lied.
He laughed. "You brought me scar cream." He held it like a relic. "That's enough to remember."
"You're weird," I said. Truth was, I liked the way he said my name.
That day he left with two boxes of apples in his cart and a grin that didn't leave his face.
"You're obsessed," Quinn Reyes teased him later when I saw him at the yard. Quinn is his business partner. "Since when does Elden buy apples for no one?"
"Since someone brought me cream," Elden said, cool and sure.
Quinn winked at me. "Take care of him, little apple."
I didn't know then how literal that nickname would become.
The days after, when I walked out of my building to go to the milk-tea equipment company, there was Elden's car waiting. He would lower his window and grin like some ridiculous sun.
"Breakfast?" he'd ask. "I made more yesterday."
"No," I would say, face burning. "I can buy—"
"Silence. Eat."
And I ate. Thick, warm sandwiches, fruit that tasted like it had been touched by good hands, a small bottle of soy milk sealed and careful.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked once, with my mouth half full.
"Because you almost died at a hotpot," he said, and then he added, softer, "and because you are trouble and I don't mind."
He didn't touch me much at first. There were small things—a jacket draped over my shoulders when the night cooled, a hand that steadied my elbow when I tripped. Those acts became a shoreline of safety I wanted to stand on.
"You're impossible," I told him once, when he had left a pile of cookbooks on my table—covers full of butter and flour and big, hopeful titles.
"Am I?" he asked, grinning. "Do you like them?"
"They're heavy."
"Then learn to cook and I'll lighten your load."
He enrolled in a community cooking class and came home smelling of garlic and new hope. Quinn laughed until he cried when Elden appeared in a pink apron in a room full of middle-aged home cooks.
"You planning to seduce someone with eggs?" Quinn asked.
Elden narrowed his eyes. "Shut up."
One evening after class, when I had not expected him, he knocked on my door with a box of tarts and a tired grin.
"Come eat," he said. "I've been experimenting."
We sat on my small balcony and shared a tart.
"Why care so much about me?" I asked between bites.
He picked up my hand and his thumb dragged along the knuckle of my palm, careful. "Because you give me reason. Because you laugh like a secret."
"You're sweet when you want to be," I said.
"And monstrous in other moments," he admitted.
"Like when you stare at me like I'm a recipe you want to master?"
"Exactly," he said. "I want to know all your ingredients."
Those were the moments that made me dizzy. He would do something ordinary, then catch me off guard with a tenderness that felt like summer rain.
"Why 'little apple'?" I asked once, when he texted me that nickname.
"Because you're round and bright," he said. "Because you bruise and get sweeter."
"That's silly."
"Maybe. But it stuck."
We had our first real crisis when I was riding my pink scooter home under a sky the color of coal. Someone turned from a side street without looking and I collided. I went down and scraped my elbow, and the man who had run me off the road stepped out, reeking of liquor.
"What a mess," he slurred. "You should learn to watch where you go."
"You reversed," I said, the pain hot in my elbow. "You cut the corner and—"
The man advanced. "Shut up, girl. Pay for my seat—"
A large hand closed around the drunk's wrist and twisted until he yelped. Elden's voice was a low, controlled thing.
"Say sorry," Elden told him.
The man stuttered, a mix of alcohol and fear. "Sorry." He tried to run. Elden caught his scooter with a single move and blocked him.
"Police?"
"No," I said too quickly. "No, it's fine."
"Fine," Elden echoed carefully. "If you insist." But he called the police after all.
We spent the evening at a clinic, him holding my hand while the nurse dressed the wound. He hummed to calm me and kept wiping my elbow with antiseptic, the tenderness in his fingers making me forget the sting.
"Do you get paid for this?" I asked later that night when he sat on my sofa like he belonged.
"Paid?" He smiled with a small, cocky tilt. "Every day I get to see your face. That is payment."
"You make me sound expensive."
"You are."
Everything changed after that. He stopped being just the man across the warehouse and became the man who showed up with a thermos of soup when I had to work late, the man who took my phone when I was overwhelmed and typed, "Small apple, sleep" with a neat, authoritative hand.
People at the company noticed.
"He's always feeding you," Li Lan said one lunch, peering at my box of leftovers. "Is that your boyfriend?"
I hid my face. "No. He's... a friend."
"That's obvious," she said. "Friends don't make sandwiches like that."
"You're ridiculous," I muttered.
"Am I?" she asked, and smiled in a way that warmed me.
But not everything was gentle. One afternoon, a woman appeared at my building who made the air feel complicated.
She was stunning in a way that made my hands clench. Tall, composed, with a practiced look in her eyes. She moved like someone who had always expected the world to open for her.
"Are you Kinley?" she asked me softly.
"Yes," I said, clutching my bag.
"I'm Annabelle Daniels," she said. "Do you know Elden?"
"Yes," I said, cautious.
She tilted her head and smiled like a blade.
"I used to know him," she said. "We were—" She stopped. "We were something."
I felt a prickle of fear. Annabelle's smile didn't reach her eyes. She looked at me like someone testing a wound with a fingertip.
"I see," I said. "That's—nice."
Annabelle waited and then sighed dramatically. "I just wanted to make sure he is alright," she said. "We have history."
"History," I echoed. It sounded small.
Elden came home soon after, carrying grocery bags. When he saw Annabelle, his face hardened for a second. I did not know the split history, only that Annabelle's presence made him tighten and step between us.
"Annabelle," he said, cool.
"Hi, Elden," she said, like a song.
She hugged him—a quick, practiced gesture—and I understood enough to be uneasy.
"Why are you here?" Elden asked.
"I heard you might be attending a banquet tonight," she said. "I thought it would be nice to see you."
"Noted," he said. "We will speak later."
"I'd like that," she said, and left with that slow, gliding smile.
That evening a company banquet was held. Elden's company was honoring a long-time client. It was noisy and bright and full of people sipping wine and shooting little smiles like darts.
Annabelle arrived in a flurry of silk and perfume. She walked in as if arriving at a stage.
"Annabelle Daniels!" someone said, and heads turned.
She found Elden across the room and made a show of greeting him. I stood by the buffet and watched like an anxious, out-of-place moth.
"She's beautiful," my heart said, unfairly. "She is everything you were."
Quinn caught my elbow. "Don't let her make you small," he told me. "She isn't better than you."
"Quinn," I whispered. "I don't want drama."
"Then don't go looking," he said.
But drama found me.
At the banquet, Elden stood and made a short speech about the company. His voice was steady. When he looked over to me, the room seemed to shrink.
"There's someone here who inspires me," he said unexpectedly. "Someone who makes mornings worth getting up for."
Gasps went around the room. I felt the heat rush to my face. I wanted to sink through the floor.
"That's—"
He pointed, not to Annabelle, but to me. My mind stuttered and dropped and then filled with a fierce, surprising joy.
"Kinley," Elden said, voice like a hand across my shoulder. "Come up."
My legs moved on their own. I walked up and stood beside him while the room swirled. He looked at me like a man who had chosen precisely.
"This woman has saved me in ways I didn't know I needed saving," he said. "She brings me food, she teaches me to cook, and she brings light to a warehouse I thought always smelled like diesel. Kinley Brooks, will you—"
My chest tangled. Everyone watched, glittering like stars.
"—continue to share breakfast with me?" he finished, with a roguish smile.
Laughter filled the room. I laughed too, surprised, light-headed.
"Yes," I said, the word small and enormous.
People clapped. Annabelle's smile flattened like a sheet.
After the applause, quiet like a closing curtain folded around us. Annabelle was not pleased.
A week later, rumors started to swell like a storm. Annabelle had connections. She had once been the kind of woman who took what she wanted, and then, when Elden left, I suspected she had retreated and planned.
What happened next was a knot in my stomach I didn't expect. Annabelle had not come simply to see him. She came with stories, with memories polished and labeled, and with a plan. She spoke to clients. She whispered to people at the warehouse. She suggested that Elden had relied on her support to build his company, that without her help he would not be what he was.
"Are you sure?" Quinn asked one night, eyes pinched with worry. "She's dangerous with words."
"Then we make them useless," Elden said. "We show everyone the truth."
I wanted to disappear. I wanted to hide. But Elden chose another path: the light of truth.
He scheduled a morning at the markets where he often bought produce. He invited Annabelle publicly, saying something like, "Come by and meet the team." He posted about it. It was open, loud, and edged with challenge.
On the morning of the market, the stall lights were up and vendors shouted. People crowded in and the day was so bright I squinted like a child.
Annabelle arrived wrapped in silk. She moved through the crowd like a queen. Elden worked his cart, hands moving to arrange apples, and he smiled at customers in that way that made my chest ache.
"You called this?" Annabelle asked, tone smooth.
"I called an honest day," he said. His voice cut the silk like a knife.
Elden had arranged something he called "a truth face." He had made a small paper stack, gave copies to the stallholders, and with Quinn's help they had collected receipts, bus records, and messages. Proof that Annabelle had taken lavish gifts and then tried to frame those gifts as "seed money" she had given to Elden. Proof that she had signed certain papers herself. Proof that she had attempted to sell a story to a magazine saying she had supported Elden in hard times while he worked at a factory.
When Elden stood and spoke, the market paused like a breath.
"This is a small community," he said. "People who work hard deserve honesty more than stories. I want to speak plainly."
He showed the first document.
"This is a contract Annabelle signed for a loan," he said, holding it up. The vendor who had once sold him garlic gasped.
"Wait," Annabelle said. "That was—"
"Your handwriting," Elden replied. "Your signature. The bank records show the money came from your account to your account, not mine. The messages say you threatened people if they didn't go along with the story. I won't let my life be rewritten by someone selling a moment for headlines."
People began to look. The air shifted. Annabelle's face lost its practiced sheen. She smiled then, a defensive, brittle thing.
"That's not—you're lying," she hissed.
"Ellen," Quinn said gently, though his words were rough like rope. "Look at the receipts."
Elden had a table laid with things: receipts of Annabelle's expensive dinners, photos of her giving jewelry to elders, messages where she had demanded credit. He had also collected testimonies from the small vendors who'd seen her approach people with promises.
A woman near the fruit stall murmured, "She tried to pay me off once." Another said, "She wanted me to say I saw him fall apart. I didn't."
Annabelle's voice rose. "You have no right—"
"You made your choices," Elden said. "Now you must answer them."
"You can't—" She took a step back, suddenly very small.
Elden did not shout. He folded his arms and looked at her with cold gravity.
"This community works on trust," he said. "You come here and you twist that trust into headlines. You told lies to gain sympathy and leverage. You used people's pity to build a platform. That is cruel."
"I loved him," she cried then, sudden and raw. "I loved him and he left me and—"
"He left because you insisted that your family's debts were more important than our shared path," Quinn said. "You demanded he hand over savings. You brokered his friendship for money."
The crowd stirred. Phones were out. People whispered, then louder, then a chorus of small voices formed.
"Outrageous." "How could she?" "We trusted you." "Shame."
Annabelle's face flushed through denial. "That's not true," she sobbed. "You all—"
"You told vendors to say he was dependent on your help," Elden said softly. "We showed them the receipts. We showed them the facts."
Silence, then murmurs. Annabelle's eyes darted. She had expected allies. She had expected gossip, maybe pity. Instead she faced witnesses. People began to point at the photos on the table, at the messages printed out like flies on a page.
"Look," one stallholder said, "this is the woman who offered me cash to say he was always on her phone. She wanted to make a story."
"She told me she planted the idea to boost his image," another said.
Annabelle's breathing changed. I could see the mask slip; the practiced performance collapsed into something frantic.
"No!" she cried. "You're all liars! I never—"
"Please," a vendor said quietly. "We are telling what happened."
"You want money? Take it," Annabelle shrieked. "Everything I did, I did for him!"
"Everything you did benefited you," Quinn said. "You sold the story and kept the money."
The vendors around nodded, some hands lifting proof. The crowd pressed in.
Annabelle's expression shifted. At first there was horror; then denial; then a desperate flurry.
"This is slander," she wailed. "You can't—all of you—"
"We can," Elden replied. "Because villagers keep books, and this one keeps receipts and messages. If you wanted to help, you could have done it without selling our story. You chose otherwise."
She fell silent. Her shoulders shivered. People began to snicker, then hiss. A man took out his phone and recorded.
"Shame," someone said. "Shame on manipulators."
Annabelle's eyes widened; she realized the crowd had turned. Her brow crumpled, and for a heartbreaking minute there was a woman stripped of everything performance had given her.
She tried to smile—an attempt to salvage herself—but it looked like a trick.
"Please," she whispered to the crowd. "Please listen—"
A vendor, an older woman who had seen too much, stepped forward.
"Don't you do this here," she said. "You used our names and our faces. You tried to make us look like fools. We are not fools."
Annabelle's composure broke. Her face flooded with hot tears; she fell into a shaking heap of words that meant nothing now that proof lay on the table. She begged and stuttered.
"Forgive me," she begged. "I didn't mean—please—"
The crowd reacted. They did not shout in unison. They murmured; some shook their heads; someone spat; a few clapped slowly in a way that felt like closure. A child pointed and laughed. Men took photos. Someone recorded her voice begging for forgiveness. Elden watched steadily, face grave.
Annabelle's reaction changed rapidly from proud to incredulous to pleading. She first tried to command, then to argue, then to deny, then to crumble. People around her expressed everything: astonishment, disgust, a small satisfaction that truth had come out.
"You're going to pay back the vendors," Elden said quietly. "You will apologize to everyone you asked to lie. You will stop trying to profit off other people's trust."
"I—I'll do anything," she said, desperate.
"Go to her," a vendor suggested to a young assistant, and a circle formed. Annabelle had to stand and meet the faces of those she had tried to use.
She went pale. The vendor who had been offered money stood calm and spoke plainly.
"I will take my apology before God; I will watch you sign it," she said. "And you will return what you took."
"Yes," Annabelle said, voice hollow.
"You will do that publicly," Elden added. "Not behind closed doors. You owe them respect."
She nodded, shaking.
The scene was messy and full of human texture. Annabelle's bright future looked dented. There was a hum as neighbors recorded and whispered, and the vendors watched with an intensity that felt like judgment.
When it was over, Annabelle left with no glamour, clutching a printed ledger and some phone records, and the look on her face was one of raw defeat. The crowd turned back to the stalls. Someone cheered quietly for the guy who had stood up for them. Another handed me a small tangerine.
Elden stood beside the table and reached for my hand. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"I am," I said. "Thank you."
He squeezed my fingers like a secret. "I will keep you safe," he promised.
Over the next days, Annabelle faded from the gossip and the market. People had the receipts and memories for when she tried to return. She had to go up on a little platform of her own making and rebuild credibility, and that is a slow work.
I watched her back into a smaller life, humbled and raw.
Elden and I returned to our simple, impeccable routine of breakfasts, laughable cooking experiments, and quiet evenings under the fan.
One night he pressed his forehead to mine and whispered, "You are my little apple."
"You're my big flame," I answered.
He laughed. "That's right. I cook, you taste. We both win."
"Promise?" I asked.
He didn't use promises; he used everyday things. He removed his jacket without asking when we walked in the rain. He woke up early to make me breakfast. He held my hand when the crowd buzzed and when the world felt loud.
We grew like that—slowly, deliciously—two people learning how to be together.
At the end of the year, when the warehouse lights dimmed and the city cooled down, I kept the plush white bear he had won me from a claw machine. It sat on my windowsill and watched the street.
Elden once said, grinning, "If you ever leave, take the bear. I got it with three tries. It was meant to be."
I smiled then, and the little bear watched as I put my hand through his paw.
We kept choosing each other. People kept talking. But in the market that morning when truth came out, the world had seen what mattered. I had a man who could be monstrous in the kitchen and tender at midnight. And somehow, that was the best kind of ordinary.
The End
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