Love Spaces

A micro-fiction collection that explores the gentle spaces where connection grows.

Love is an action, never simply a feeling.—bell hooks

Claire and Tom

“Hot chocolate from scratch again?”

Claire dragged a stool from the island and dropped onto it, biting back a grin.

Tom balanced two mugs across the counter, steam curling off them in thin ropes. Cinnamon and pine from the wreath hung in the air between them.

“You know I don’t do instant.” He set the mugs down lopsided, one a little higher than the other, and didn’t bother fixing it.

She cupped hers in both palms, the chipped rim cool against one finger. Outside, snow had buried the garden flat, and birds worked the hedge in short bursts, stabbing at berries gone hard with frost.

“Why the fuss every year?”

He lifted his mug an inch off the counter, like a toast nobody asked for.

“Because it’s worth it.”

Neither of them said anything else. The chocolate steamed between them, and the window framed the yard going blue at the edges.

Harold and Jaime

“Okay, my boy. Ready for the next chapter?”

Harold dragged the chair close, careful of the lines taped to the back of Jamie’s hand. Antiseptic cut faint and sharp under the blanket smell. The room’s air sat cold against skin that the blanket couldn’t quite reach.

Jamie’s eyes were puffy, fixed on the paperback in Harold’s hands. The spine had gone soft and gray from rereading.

He nodded and pulled the blanket to his chin.

Harold’s thumb traced the cover once before he opened it. His voice caught twice reading the part where Frodo offers to carry the ring alone, and he had to clear his throat to get past it. Jamie’s fist closed tighter around the blanket’s edge.

Somewhere past the curtain, shoes scuffed the floor, a cart wheel squeaked, voices rose and dropped. All of it thinned out until only Harold’s voice and the machines’ hum were left, running alongside each other like two instruments that had learned, somehow, to keep time.

Jamie’s hand found Harold’s. Squeezed once. Squeezed again.

Jack and Mary

The tin of tea, wedged behind the cereal boxes, set Jack laughing.

“Still hiding your blend back here.”

Mary lifted the kettle, not even glancing over. “You always take it without asking.”

They carried their cups out to the porch, where leaves spun loose off the maple and afternoon light cut long stripes across the boards.

A gust caught the hem of Mary’s cardigan. She set her cup on the railing and reached for Jack’s scarf, yanking the wool snug under his chin.

He caught her wrist before she let go, holding it there, his palm warm against the cold coming off her skin.

Ellen and Grace

“Remember the first time I made your toast like this?” Grace didn’t look up from the pan.

She swirled butter across the bread in slow circles until it shone.

The smell climbed the kitchen walls. Grace slid a mug across the table.

Ellen wrapped both hands around it, blew once across the surface, then took the toast off the plate with her fingers, not bothering with a knife.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you fixing my mornings, luv.”

Margaret and Richard

“Look at us.” Margaret held the photo up, its corners curling like old leaves.

In it, they stood hip to hip, sunburned, hair yanked sideways by wind off the ridge.

Richard leaned in and ran a finger along the curve of her smile in the picture, then along the smudge of dirt frozen there on her cheek, decades old and never going to wash off now.

“Girl, you still got that streak.”

She glanced sideways at him. “That’s my motto. Never give up.”

He laughed, the sound dropping into his chest. “Yeah. That last ridge nearly had you. Your legs were begging you to quit.”

She let the photo settle on her lap, one fingernail catching on its torn edge.

George and Sam

The sun slid behind the tree line, throwing the porch into long shadow.

George turned the old thermos over in his hands, scratches catching what light was left.

“Can’t believe you still bring up the tent poles.”

Sam’s grin split wide. “Bet I do. You were too busy chopping wood to notice you’d jammed the stakes in backward.”

George’s laugh came out rough, almost a bark, and his shoulders dropped an inch when Sam’s hand settled on his wrist, fingers rough and sure from years of work.

“That’s the one. Whole thing blew clean over before we got the gear inside. I’d have chased it to the lake if my knees let me.”

Sam shook his head, still grinning, and didn’t let go of his wrist.

Author’s Note

This collection is a quiet invitation to notice the subtle ways love shows up in our lives. It’s in the soft rhythms we build with another person, the shared routines that become anchors, and the comfortable silences that feel like home.

The quote by bell hooks, the Black American feminist, cultural critic, teacher, and writer, was my inspiration. I wanted these stories to remind us that love lives in those actions—in the unspoken care, the gentle touch, and the everyday moments where two lives meet and hold steady.

Thank you for stepping into these spaces with me.

Upcoming…

• A poem of love and loss:

  A Haunting, 14 February 2026

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