Chapter 9 #2
For a second I thought she might refuse on principle to prove she didn’t have to listen to me. But something in her posture loosened, almost imperceptibly, and she ducked under the doorway, careful not to brush the edge.
I followed her in.
The barn swallowed us up, muting the wind. The work lights we’d strung cast everything in a bright, clean white.
Inside the truck, the aluminum walls caught the light and reflected it back. Scorch marks ghosted the corners in irregular patches, but the main structure was sound. You could see the rivets. The seams. The places where things would go again.
Jess stood in the middle of the empty floor and turned slowly, taking in every side. Her boots scuffed the patched plywood where the counter supports had been. Her hand slid along the wall in an absent stroke, like she was petting a living thing.
Her voice, when it came, was small. “It’s so much bigger without everything in it.”
“Gives us options,” I said. “We can fix some of the pinch points. Move the power outlets. You always bang your hip on that corner by the grinder.”
She looked over her shoulder at me. “You noticed that?”
“I notice everything.” I winced internally. That sounded creepier out loud. “I mean—I drink a lot of coffee, and it’s hard to miss patterns.”
Her mouth quirked a little.
God, it felt good to see even the hint of a smile on her face.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “Say I let you help. Say I let… all of this happen. What’s the catch? What do you get out of it?”
The honest answer was you, maybe, eventually, if I’m very lucky, and you decide I’m not the villain you’ve made me out to be.
Out loud, I said, “I get my coffee truck back on the way to work. The guys get their morning orders. The town gets its Twelve Stops headliner. And I get to know I did something besides stand there and watch you lose everything.”
Her expression shifted on that last part. Softened.
“You didn’t just stand there,” she said. “You pulled me out.”
My throat got tight. “I’d do it again.”
She gave a sharp nod. Looked back at the walls. “You’re really serious about this.”
“Dead serious.”
“And you’re not going to let me pay you.”
“Labor?” I shook my head. “No. Materials, sure, if you insist. But the work? That’s on us. We volunteered.”
She closed her eyes briefly, like she was absorbing a hit. When she opened them again, they shone.
“This is…” She exhaled. “A lot, Powell.”
“I know,” I said. “Take your time.”
For a long moment, she stood in silence. I let her. No rush. No pressure. Only the two of us in the hollow echo of her future.
Finally, she scrubbed her palms over her thighs like she was wiping the decision onto denim.
“Fine.” The word didn’t have much bite. “We’ll… try it. I’m not promising I won’t freak out and change my mind.”
“Fair. We’ll take it one step at a time.”
Her gaze met mine fully then. Unshielded. Raw. “Thank you.”
Not grudging. Not passive-aggressive. Not forced.
Her gratitude landed right in the center of my chest like someone had lit a candle.
“You’re welcome,” I managed.
She glanced around the empty shell again, and for the first time since she’d walked into the station, there was something other than shock and numbness in her expression.
I saw the glimmer of a woman starting to make plans again.
“We’re going to need a layout,” she murmured, more to herself than to me. “And a list of essentials. And probably three different budgets—bare minimum, reasonable, and wild fantasy. And I need to talk to my staff. And vendors. And—”
I couldn’t help it. I smiled. “There she is.”
She shot me a look. “Don’t get smug. This doesn’t mean I suddenly like you.”
“I know. But you’re talking about the future. I’ll take it.”
Her mouth twitched.
“Come back tomorrow,” I said. “Bring your notebooks. We’ll go over what you want where. I’ll wrangle the guys for a work schedule.”
She hesitated. “You’re sure Cartwright is okay with this?”
“He’s thrilled there’s something going on in here besides his grandsons sneaking beer. You’re doing him a favor. Gives him something to supervise.”
That got me an actual, if tiny, huff of amusement. It warmed me from the inside out.
“All right,” she said softly. “Tomorrow.”
As we stepped back out of the truck and into the barn’s cool air, she paused beside me, one hand resting lightly on the frame.
“Powell?” she said.
“Yeah?”
“If this is some kind of elaborate setup so you can say ‘I told you so’ about the door latch,” she said, “I will run you over with this thing when it’s done.”
Relief loosened something in my chest. I grinned. “Noted.”
She huffed again, shook her head, and headed for her car.
I watched her go, metal glinting in the afternoon light behind us, a hollow shell waiting to be filled.
For the first time since we’d dragged Pour Decisions out here in the dark, I didn’t just see what had been lost.
I saw what might be.
And the fact that she’d trusted me—even a little—to help get her there?
That seemed like the first real win I’d had with Jess Donnegan in ten damn years.