Chapter 1
The mallet slams down, and something cracks open with a sick pop. A sharp snap. A deep groan.
I tighten my grip, breathing hard, my arms aching from the effort.
“Sable! What the fuck?!”
Demi’s voice barely registers over the pounding. Over Florence and the Machine blaring. Over my ragged breathing.
Another blow. Another crack.
My pulse is steady. My focus is sharp. I must finish this.
A low whimper—or is that the wind?—echoes through the shop.
Then… silence.
I step back, panting, wiping the sweat from my forehead. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that took a lot out of me.
Demi stands frozen in the doorway, face ashen and eyes darting to the floor with the urgency of someone expecting to find something horrific.
“What the actual fuck are you doing?”
I look down at the wreckage before me. My tools. The pieces of what used to be something whole.
Then I blink.
“Oh. You mean the dresser?” I kick one of the shattered wooden legs aside, reaching for the next tool I need. “I’m restoring it. I have to remove this part to fix it properly.”
Demi doesn’t move. “It sounded like you were beating someone to death.”
I turn the orbital sander on and smooth out the spot I just ripped some trim from. The whirring buzz screams through the shop. I shrug and smile. “If only.”
I point the tool and pulse it at her with mock madness.
Demi exhales so hard she nearly deflates. “You’re so fucking dramatic!”
“Says the one who nearly stroked out in my doorway!” I holler, turning the sander off.
She barks a laugh. “Yeah, well, for a solid thirty seconds, I thought, cool, this is how I become an accomplice, boss.”
I snort. “Oh, please. If I intended to commit murder, do you really think I’d do it here? My shop is my sanctuary, Demi.”
“You cannot say things like that while holding power tools!” she says, jabbing a finger at my sander. “I think that makes it premeditated.”
I grin, setting the sander down and wiping dust off my jeans.
The six months since my humiliating breakup—read: very necessary and ridiculously overdue breakup—have been therapeutic in a lot of ways.
After selling my marketing agency, I’ve thrown myself into Thorne Revival and mostly ignored the fact my stalker still hasn’t moved the fuck on even though I willingly relinquished the pathetic asshole.
The Blonde.
Why do they always have to be blonde? I practically sprinted to my hair girl, demanding she strip every trace of bleach that ever touched my strands, desperate for my natural warm brown to be the only thing staring back in the mirror.
My ex’s little side piece turned obsessive creeper.
She stalks my every move. Lurks on my social media even after I blocked all the original accounts.
Watches my stories from new burner profiles, a pathetic little phantom who’s tragically bad at staying hidden.
You would think, with all her watching, she’d know my background in marketing means I have an eye for monitoring all my metrics.
And yet my best friend thinks I’m the crazy one.
Demi narrows her eyes. “You’re thinking about her again, aren’t you?”
I grab another one of my tools, ready to go to town on this piece. “Maybe.”
She smirks. “Is that for the dresser or the homicide you are definitely not planning?”
I flip the small pry bar in my hand. “Why choose?”
“That’s my girl.” Demi cackles.
My fiery little redheaded friend crosses over to the stool stationed in the back of the shop where I’m working. She perches on it, owning the space outright, legs stretched, casually surveying the mess around us.
The shop is a contradiction—half gritty, half refined.
Not so different from me. The showroom is a picture of effort and illusion.
The lighting is warm, drawing attention to the furniture I’ve restored and vintage pieces I’ve hunted down, every smaller accent arranged just so to compliment my designs.
I’ve sanded, painted, and curated my way into making it feel delicate, more boutique than a refurbished auto shop.
But back here? Back here is where the magic happens.
And by magic, I mean the thick toxic cocktail of dust, paint fumes, and whatever else I’ve been breathing in.
It coats my tongue every time I talk too much.
The garage itself still bears the marks of its past life no matter how much I clean.
Floor patches stay dark from grease stains, old bolts and washers consistently appear in the corners, and the faint scent of motor oil crinkles my nose whenever the air shifts just right.
My workbench is a chaos of tools, paint cans, brushes hardened with forgotten strokes, and a collection of rags stained with every shade of the past six months.
Half-finished projects lean against the walls, waiting for inspiration or the right buyer.
A long wooden table is stripped down to bare wood, its old lacquer curling at the edges like dead skin.
A dresser stands beside it, missing half its drawers, as if it lost its fight with life and is waiting for me to resurrect it.
The overhead lights buzz, casting a sterile glow over the mess. And I love it. I haven’t even lived through all the seasons here yet, but I already know:
Summer will turn this place into a kiln
Winter will be a battle between the heat and A/C
Spring will pretend to save me money on my electric bill before it slaps us with another cold snap
I wouldn’t trade it.
And Bash? He’s exactly where he always is when Andrew doesn’t have him or he’s not at school.
In the tiny office tucked near the front.
I glance over to see the top of his curls as he shifts in the old leather chair that came with the shop.
The flickering glow from his tablet screen bounces off the glass partition.
The soft melody thrumming from whichever game he’s playing is barely audible over my noise and the distant downtown traffic outside.
This is as much his haven as it is mine.
Surrounded by the humming of tools and entertained by me wrestling beauty into discarded things.
A smile glides across my lips. He’s my mini me. He sees the potential in the broken just like his mama.
Demi follows my gaze, smirking. “Kid still obsessed with those weird building videos?”
“Tutorials,” I correct, rolling my eyes like Bash would. “He could probably rebuild this entire shop in pixel form.”
“Little genius. He’ll run this whole place before long.”
I snort and set the pry bar against the dresser, running my fingers over the splintered edge. “He’d be a better boss than me.”
Demi grins. “Debatable.”
Drumming her fingers against her knee, Dem’s rings catch in the fluorescent light.
Everything about her is bold: her tousled red hair, her dark stained lips, the way she commands space without ever asking permission.
She’s the kind of woman who floats through life untouched by the weight of expectations—a trait I both admire and resent in equal measure.
I made a pretty penny from my agency after the split with Andrew. It allowed me to keep my hundred-year-old charming home in the heart of Stillwater Bend, Texas, and kick the jerk out.
Stillwater is a town split in two, not by a river, but by the kind of people who settle here.
The rough side isn’t rough so much as rugged.
It’s filled with artists, makers, musicians, and the occasional recluse who keeps to themselves until Friday night when the local bar comes alive.
The yuppie side, though, is all polished sidewalks, franchise cafés, and rows of new-builds that lack soul.
I settled in the part where the houses have history and the streets feel like they’ve seen things.
It fits.
So far, this new, quiet chapter has done its best work by revealing exactly who’s been in my corner all along.
Most friends came from the teams I led. They were people who stayed while I turned nothing into something.
And when I sold the agency, those friendships faded, not out of spite, just out of circumstance.
It turns out, “We should get together soon!” is the adult equivalent of “Have a great summer!” scrawled in a yearbook.
But not Demi Kincaid. Demi held fast. And in her quiet loyalty, I realized she belonged in my life for all the right reasons.
She was the perfect mix of swagger and sass.
During her interview ten years ago, I warned, “This client will bitch if the logo isn’t daring enough.
” Demi leaned back, twirled her pen, shot up an eyebrow, and deadpanned, “Sweetheart, I’ll produce a logo so panty-meltingly hot, he’ll blow his morning joe all over the place and lose his damn mind—in a good way, of course.
” I snort-laughed in the interview, and sealed our contract on the spot.
At the time, she swore she “did temporary things” and “couldn’t commit.
” But she listened. She got it. Got me. Stayed for ten years.
And when she finally left to start her own whirlwind mix of consulting, design work, and whatever shiny new obsession grabbed her attention each month, I realized we kicked ass even harder when we weren’t boss and co-worker.
Demi watches me work for a few beats before stretching her arms overhead with a satisfied sigh. “You know what we should do tonight?”
I don’t look up, but I can already hear the trouble in her voice. “Define ‘should.’”
“Go out.”
I grunt, prying another warped nail from the dresser. “Yeah, let me just pencil that in between my sleepy tea and crashing on the couch at nine.”
These days, Demi storms through like a hurricane in unlaced Doc Martens, leaving glittering mischief in her wake and fresh momentum in my bones.
Demi is free in a way I still can’t fully grasp. She does what she wants, does who she wants, and never seems to second-guess herself. No partner, no kids—though she wraps mine in all her love. Nothing anchors her except her own instincts. And still, she’s happy. Genuinely so.