Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Ben
The sun is high enough that the outdoor tables bake in the heat, the pints sweating faster than I can carry them. I balance a tray on one hand, set three beers down in front of the guys from the hardware store, and nod at their thanks before retreating back inside.
The Wandering Pint stirs with the usual midday lull—too late for lunch, too early for dinner—but we’ve got a few stragglers who like drinking on their lunch break, and the regular crew who’ll come no matter the time.
I wipe down the counter, listening to the chatter and the clink of glasses. It should feel normal. Comfortable. But my eyes keep drifting to the front windows, where the light outside is too bright, too distracting.
Because just beyond that light, right next door, sits the bakery.
Paige’s shop.
I’ve kept my distance since the afternoon in her kitchen three weeks ago. We’ve crossed paths on the sidewalk, exchanged quick hellos, but nothing more. She passes The Wandering Pint sometimes, and I keep myself busy so I won’t watch her through the glass. But I do. Every time.
At night, when I close up, I walk past her shop, even though my house isn’t in that direction. Most nights the lights are already off. But sometimes there’s a glow inside, and I stop like an idiot and peek through the window. Just a quick look.
The walls painted, the floors gleaming, the counters waiting. Once or twice I’ve caught her in there, setting something new up or scribbling notes at one of the little mismatched tables she’s found.
I don’t stay long. Just long enough to see proof that she’s still moving forward, even if I’m stuck circling the same handful of words I can’t unsay.
I promised her space, and I’ve been keeping that promise. But keeping it feels like pressing my palm against a burn—it hurts like hell and I can’t pull back.
The door swings open at the back, a rush of warm air flooding in from the lot. Mike waves me down with a crooked grin. “Truck pulling up. Looks like someone’s getting a big delivery next door.”
I step toward the doorway and sure enough, a big rig has eased itself behind the building, brake lights flaring.
Two guys hop out, clipboard in hand, already barking at each other about angles and alley space.
They head toward the back door of the shop, and I don’t need a label to know where that shipment’s going.
Appliances. Ovens. Mixers. The real bones of her bakery.
“Paige,” I mutter, before I can stop myself.
I don’t move right away. I grip the bar towel at my hip, stare at the truck, and tell myself it’s none of my business. She doesn’t need me barging in. She doesn’t need me at all.
I make myself turn back to my work.
But a while later, when I hear the delivery guys arguing, I’m already out of the bar, crossing the space, before my brain catches up to my feet.
The back door of her shop is propped open, sunlight spilling across the scuffed threshold. I stop just before coming into view. One of the delivery guys is swearing, the other is laughing at him, and then—
“Careful!” Paige’s voice, sharp but steady.
And there she is. She’s standing just inside, hair tied up, dust streaking her shoulder like she wiped her hand there without thinking.
She’s watching as the men wrestle a massive industrial fridge off the dolly, trying to angle it through the door.
The thing’s not budging, the doorframe just an inch too tight, and frustration is rolling off all three of them.
My heart does that thing it always does when I see her: kicks once, hard, like it’s trying to get free.
I should turn around. I should.
Instead, I clear my throat. “Need a hand?”
Her head snaps up. Our eyes meet, and for half a second something flares there, but it’s gone too quickly. Careful as always these days.
“We’ve got it handled,” she says, even though clearly, they don’t.
The delivery guys glance over their shoulders at me, sweat beading on their foreheads. “You know him?” one asks, already angling to pass the work off.
“He’s the landlord,” she mutters. Then, with a sigh, “Yeah. He can help.”
I step in before she can change her mind. The space smells like lemon cleaner and that sweet scent that follows her around. It hits me like it always does—bright, clean, alive.
“Where do you want it?” I ask her, nodding at the fridge.
She gestures toward the far wall, near the counter. “There. Next to the ovens. If it ever makes it through the door.”
I crouch by the frame, eyeing the angle. The problem is the width. It’s just a bit too wide to fit through the frame with the door attached.
“We’ll take the door off,” I say. “We’ll pull the hinge pins and lift it off the frame. You’ll get another inch and a half clear.”
One delivery guy snorts; the other looks like he wants to argue with geometry. Paige just watches me, arms folded, waiting to see if I’m talking out of my ass.
“I’ve got tools next door,” I add. “Two minutes.”
She hesitates, then gives the barest nod. “Fine.”
I jog back through the lot, cut into the Pint’s back hall, and snag the red toolbox off the office shelf.
By the time I’m back at her threshold, the delivery guys have the fridge balanced on the lip of the dolly, muttering to each other.
I set the box down, flip open the latches, and pull out a flathead and a rubber mallet.
“Hold the slab steady,” I tell them, then kneel, slide the screwdriver under the bottom hinge pin, and give it two clean taps.
The pin jumps up in the barrel; I grab it with my fingers and set it in Paige’s outstretched palm before I can think better of the contact.
She doesn’t move except to curl her fingers around it.
“Top,” I say, and repeat. The second pin comes easier. I lean my shoulder into the door, lift an inch, then look at the taller mover. “Help me take it straight up and back.”
He nods, grunts, and we lift. The door comes off clean. I walk it ten steps inside, lay it carefully against the wall on a moving blanket.
“Threshold’s still high,” I say, eyeing the metal strip. “You got any Masonite or a spare blanket?”
The shorter guy drags a folded pad from the truck, and we lay it over the threshold to make a ramp. I plant my boots. “Okay. Same pivot as before, but you’ve got the width now. On three.”
We count, tilt, and the fridge rides over the pad, clearing the frame with little to spare.
Paige steps back to give us room, her jaw tight, eyes tracking every inch like she’s willing it not to nick her freshly painted trim.
We clear the ramp and the thing’s inside.
When it settles, the floor sighs a little under the weight.
Her breath lets out in a single sharp note.
“Leveling feet?” I ask.
The taller mover taps the box with his boot. “In the bag with the manuals.”
I bite my tongue before I can tell them to grab a level. They know what they’re doing, and I’m not really supposed to be here anyway.
I stand back while they get the feet on and level it. They get the final nod from Paige and step back.
“Great,” the shorter mover says, already halfway to the door. “Freezer’s next.”
We stand there in the silence that follows, broken only by the sound of the movers unloading the freezer. She doesn’t look at me, her focus on the fridge, as if she stares hard enough, it’ll do a trick.
I shift my weight, glance around. I can’t see the kitchen from the front window, and the last time I was in here, about six weeks ago, they were finishing up the electrical work.
The floors are dirty at the moment because of the movers, but I can see under the dirt that they’ve been buffed and shined more than once. The walls have been painted in here too, and the miles and miles of counter gleam in the bright lights of the kitchen.
“You’ve done a lot,” I say quietly.
She doesn’t answer right away. Then, softly: “Yeah.”
I want to say more. That I’ve seen the lights on at night, that I’ve been stupid enough to press my hand to the glass like a kid at a candy store just to feel close to it. To her. But I bite it back.
The delivery guys are back at the door with the freezer balanced on a dolly, and the whole process starts over again.
And over again with each appliance they bring in. By the time they’re done, paperwork is signed, and the movers are out the door with a message that the team to install everything will be by tomorrow, my shirt is stuck to my spine, and Paige’s hair is falling out of her ponytail.
We’re left in the wake of settling dust, alone with a line of gleaming steel that makes the room feel smaller and bigger at once. Outside, the truck rattles away. Inside, it’s quiet enough to hear the tick of metal settling and the faint hiss from the A/C.
Paige pushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear with the back of her wrist, breathing out like she’s been holding it in since the first appliance hit the threshold. “Okay,” she says to no one, to the room, to herself. “Okay.”
“The door,” I say, nodding toward the slab leaning against the wall. “Before you have a raccoon in here making himself at home.”
Her mouth almost curves. Almost. “Right. Forgot about the door.” She grabs the pins from the counter where she set them and steps to the frame with me.
“You have to slide them back in while I hold the door in place.”
I shoulder the door and manage to line up the top hinge with her guiding it. She lines the pins up and manages to slide the pin down. “Bottom now,” I grunt.
After she’s done, I instruct her to tap them into place.
Once she’s done, I carefully let the door go, and it swings true.
She pulls the handle and lets it fall shut. It seals with a satisfying click. She tests it again. I memorize the small sound she makes—something like approval, something like relief.
“You want a proper stop for that?” I ask, looking at the sugar canister that was propping the door open before I came. “I can bring one over tomorrow.”
“Is that usually something the landlord provides?”
I huff a laugh. “This one does. I have a bin full of them. It’ll only take a few minutes to screw one in.”
She studies me for a second too long, then lets it go with a small nod. “Okay. Tomorrow. Thanks.”
“Water?” she asks abruptly, already moving. She pulls two bottles from the little dorm fridge she has tucked under the counter and tosses one lightly across to me. I catch it one-handed, twist the cap, and drink cold, crisp water.
The kitchen feels fuller with the hulking appliances lined up against the walls, all that stainless catching the overhead light. Paige leans her hip against the counter, drinks, eyes skimming the room, taking in every detail.
I remember the exact feeling when I was opening The Wandering Pint. The wonder of knowing it was my place, the excitement, the terror.
“Feels real now, huh?” I say before I can stop myself.
Her eyes cut to me, then back to the fridge. “Yeah. It does.”
“It looks good,” I say quietly.
She doesn’t look at me, but one shoulder lifts in the barest shrug. “We’ll see when it all turns on tomorrow. And after the inspector comes by.”
“You’ll pass,” I say.
Silence again. I can’t stand it. I just want things to be normal.
I don’t even know what normal is. I don’t think I’ve ever had normal with Paige.
She went from being Jason’s kid sister who didn’t care about my existence to Jason’s kid sister who had a crush on me.
And now, she’s a woman. She’s a woman I can’t stop thinking about. Can’t stop remembering the feel of her under my hands, the taste of her skin against my tongue. The way she squeezed me tight when I was inside her. The way she said my name in that throaty cry.
“I measured this wall six times,” she says, startling me. “I still thought I was going to puke when the fridge hit the threshold.”
It takes a moment for me to catch up to her.
“You measured right,” I finally say. “The jamb was the liar.”
“The jamb,” she repeats. “Exactly. The jamb screwed up. Not me.”
One corner of my mouth tilts in a smile.
“I’ve been—” I start, and stop. Do not say I’ve been walking past your window like a creep. Start over. “It looks good. The whole place.”
Her mouth quirks. “It’s starting to.” She tips her head toward the front. ”They’ll install all this tomorrow and bring some more smaller appliances. I have some more furniture coming in this week. I scoured the thrift stores. Just need to sand and paint, well, most of it.”
“I like what you have so far,” I say. “It works, the mismatched tables and chairs.”
“Thanks,” she says. It’s neutral, but it doesn’t feel like nothing. “Ben.”
I look at her. She looks back. The line between us is a thing we ironed into place and told ourselves not to touch again. I keep my hands hooked in my belt loops anyway.
“Thank you,” she says. “For…all of it. The door, the ramp, the muscle.”
“You’d have figured it out,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says and shrugs. “But not as fast.”
The compliment does things to me that I don’t want to think about, so I settle for a swift exit.
“It’s probably getting busy at the Pint,” I say. “I should get back.”
Her gaze lingers on me a beat. Then she nods. “Right. Thanks again, Ben.”
“Anytime, Paige,” I say.
I push away from the counter, every step toward the door louder in my head than it is on the floor. My boots scuff against her not-so-gleaming tile, and I wonder if she notices, if she’ll think of me later when she sees the faint marks.
At the threshold, I hesitate. I should walk out—clean break, no lingering. But I glance back. She’s still by the counter, arms crossed now, watching the gleaming line of appliances like she’s trying to memorize every bit of it.
“Paige.” My voice comes out lower than I mean it to. She looks up, and for a split second I forget the rules we set. “I’ll be back with a door stop tomorrow.”
She nods, and I tug the door open, step into the late-afternoon light. The air smells like cut grass and fryer oil. I hear Paige start humming behind me as the door clicks shut.
As I walk back toward the Pint, I know two things with bone-deep certainty: Paige’s building something that’s going to shine, and I’m already in so much deeper than I ever wanted to be. And I don’t want to step back.