7. The Walkthrough #2
He didn’t push, just waited while she exhaled slowly and stepped inside.
The room smelled of coffee and paper. She touched the edge of the desk, tracing the scratches where Grace used to drag her rings against the surface when she thought.
Jenna turned back toward Cole. He was still leaning quietly against the doorframe, arms crossed, giving her space to say it in her own time.
“It has to stay a bedroom and office,” she said. “Grace worked here. Slept here. Lived here. I’ll use it too, but I won’t erase her.”
He nodded once. “Then we keep moving.”
She met his eyes, surprised at how easily the words fit. “Yeah. We keep moving.”
* * *
Jenna and Cole had just stepped into the hallway when Emmie turned the corner from the living room.
Cole was standing in the doorway of Grace’s old office, clipboard in one hand, the other braced lightly against the frame as if measuring it.
His head nearly grazed the top. His shoulders filled the space in the other direction, broad enough that the hallway behind him looked smaller than it ever had.
For a second, Emmie froze. She took in the sight of the man in her mother’s doorway, tall enough to look out of place in any room, his voice low as he said something she couldn’t quite hear.
Her expression hardened before she could stop it. “So,” she said, her tone flat, “you must be ‘the guy.’”
Cole turned toward her, surprise flickering briefly across his face before settling into something easy. A small smile curved his mouth. “Guilty?”
It wasn’t defensive, just lightly self-aware. The kind of humor that said he understood he’d walked into someone else’s story halfway through.
Emmie didn’t smile back. Her arms folded automatically, her guard lifting.
Cole caught that, too. “Just looking things over,” he said gently. “Nothing’s changing without you two saying so.”
That disarmed her for a moment, how quickly he’d read what she hadn’t said out loud. Jenna stepped forward, filling the silence. “Cole’s just doing an estimate. No decisions yet.”
“Right,” Emmie said, her tone more even now. “An estimate.”
She looked back at Cole, still half-blocking the doorway, and then at Jenna. “I’ll . . . be in my room.”
“Okay,” Jenna said lightly.
Emmie gave one more glance toward the office, toward Grace’s space, and then turned down the hall. The door to her room clicked shut behind her.
The hallway felt smaller once she was gone.
Cole exhaled, almost a laugh but not quite. “That went . . . okay?”
Jenna’s voice lowered instinctively. “Better than it could have.”
He nodded toward the nearest doorway, keeping his tone low. “Mind if we step in here?”
She followed him into Grace’s old bedroom.
The space felt tighter with both of them inside, their voices falling to a whisper so Emmie wouldn’t hear.
Cole leaned against the wall, running his hand along the window frame, checking the trim.
Then he angled closer, lowering his head toward her as if to share a secret.
Sensing the tension still clinging to her from the hallway, he dipped his face near her ear. “She’s strong,” he murmured, his voice dropping low. “That kind of strength can come out sharp sometimes, but it’s not meant to cut.”
Jenna looked down, taking a half step back, her throat tightening. “I know.”
His voice was low, rough, and steady, wrapping around her like something tangible. “You’re doing fine.”
The words hit somewhere deep, stealing the air from her lungs.
The room seemed to shrink even more now, the silence resting heavier between them.
For a second, neither of them moved. She could feel Cole’s breath ghost against her cheek before he straightened, as if his inspection of the window was done, but he didn’t step far. His presence lingered, solid and sure.
“Guess I’ll finish up out back,” he said finally, giving her a small, easy smile.
“Okay,” Jenna said, her voice softer than she meant it to be.
When he walked past, the air seemed to move with him, a subtle warmth trailing in his wake. Jenna watched him step out onto the porch, the afternoon light catching on the curve of his shoulders, and for a moment, she didn’t think about roofs or soffit or anything that needed to be fixed.
When the door clicked shut behind him, the quiet pressed close again.
She leaned against the counter, eyes drifting to the coffee cup he’d left behind. He was just a contractor; a man assessing the damage.
So why did it feel like he’d measured her, too?
She stood there longer than she meant to, still trying to catch up with what had just happened.
Through the front window, she caught a brief lift of his hand before he climbed into the truck.
The house felt different now, charged somehow, and she didn’t trust herself to move until the sound of his truck faded down the street.
When she finally reached for the coffee cup, she noticed something beneath it. A business card.
C.B. Construction.
Simple. Clean. So much like her own.
“Of course,” she laughs, shaking her head. “Of course it’s C.B.”
She picked up her phone, hesitating before punching in the number and typing.
JENNA: Thanks for coming by today. You can send bids to this number.
A few seconds later, the gray dots appeared.
COLE: Got it. You move fast.
JENNA: Efficiency is kind of my thing. Do it right or don’t do it at all.
COLE: Noted. I’ll make sure the estimate keeps up.
She caught herself smiling again, too long, too wide. Her thumb hovered over the screen, considering something clever, maybe something dangerous.
Instead, she locked her phone and set it beside the card. She was being ridiculous. Delusional. This was business.
“Professional, Jenna,” she murmured to the empty kitchen. “Starting tomorrow.”
But even as she said it, her eyes drifted back to the coffee cup, the faint ring it left on the counter, the card tucked neatly underneath, and she couldn’t help the muffled laugh that escaped her.