1. She Didn’t See What Could Be #2
I glanced at the wall behind him. Still almost bare like it was yesterday.
But now, tiny red spacers dotted the gaps between rows of freshly laid subway tiles.
On the wooden counter, a faded blue towel had been thrown down, with an assortment of tools lined up neatly on top—absolutely none of which I could name.
Balls.
Shame curled a slow, fiery path up my neck. The poor man wasn’t a villain lurking behind the door, waiting to attack. He was finishing the break room renovation.
My glasses hadn’t budged, but my finger trembled when I pushed them up anyway. “I—I’m s-sorry.” A gulp of air didn’t help get the words out any easier. “I wasn’t expecting…” An enormous brute to be lurking in the break room . “You.” Or anyone else, for that matter.
“Yeah, uh… We were supposed to finish—”
The back door swung open.
My heart jumped when a second man barrelled inside. He was much younger and impossible to miss, with a bright crop of ginger hair and a blinding neon safety shirt. His khaki shorts were the only dull thing about him.
“Lola from the City!” he cried.
My eyes bulged.
Did everyone call me that?
He dropped a toolbox on the floor. “Everyone in town is talking about you! I’m Harry.” Grinning, all dimples, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “The old man is Aiden. Has he talked yet? He does talk.”
I masked the tremble in my hand with a tight fistful of skirt but stayed pinned to the safety of the wall.
Harry hooked his thumbs in his toolbelt. Tilting his head, his ginger brows squished together. His eyes went from me to Aiden. We must have looked ridiculous—each of us squashed into opposite corners, refusing to say a word, barely looking anywhere but at our shoes.
Harry sighed. “Did you already scare the new girl?” His pointed look fell on the man wearing red-checked flannel. “What the hell, old man? Were you raised in the Hollyoaks’ barn or something? Say hello. ”
“Oh, uh…” Aiden stood taller and squared his shoulders. He dipped his chin and ground out a simple “Hello.”
“Frigging hell,” Harry muttered. “The cows would do a better job than that.”
Aiden glared at him.
A cautious smile spread across my face. I didn’t mind Aiden’s awkward greeting.
His deep, gravelly voice was the kind that should’ve set me on edge, but instead, it calmed something in me.
I raised a hand in a clumsy wave, even though we’d already been introduced.
It just felt like the right way to say hello… officially .
“It’s nice to meet you, Harry.” I edged away from the wall. “And…Aiden.”
Crinkles touched the corners of his grey eyes. Was that the start of a smile? Maybe.
Feeling braver, I asked, “Are you a carpenter, Aiden?”
Dead silence.
Harry slapped his hand against his forehead. “Why are you like this?” he hissed at his friend.
Aiden’s dark brows furrowed as he glanced from Harry to me. “No, I’m a cabinetmaker.” Each word came out rusty. Harry said Aiden talked, but I got the sense he didn’t usually say much. “I build furniture and do renovations like the, uh…” He waved a hand at the unfinished kitchen.
My eyebrows shot up. Aiden could make things? His own furniture? Impressive!
Other than cooking and perfecting the feature wall in my consultation room after watching a hundred online tutorials, I was rubbish at anything creative.
Watercolours? Forget it. I’d tried pottery once, too.
What a disaster. The coffee mug I’d laboured over for hours had come out of the kiln resembling a perfectly wonky lump of poop.
“We were supposed to sign off on this reno before you started,” Harry said. “We’re running behind schedule because someone couldn’t decide what finish he wanted on the cabinets.” He shot an accusing glare in Aiden’s direction. “But the old man finally settled on wangdang—”
“Wainscot.” Aiden’s correction was gruff.
Harry shrugged. “What do I know about wood? I’m an electrician.” His chest puffed out with pride. “I share a workshop with Aiden. I also dabble in a bit of tiling and stuff. Whatever the old man needs—”
“Stop calling me old.”
“Dude, you’re—what—pushing forty?”
“Why don’t you get back to work instead of wasting the doctor’s time talking about how many steps I am away from the grave?”
Harry grinned. “See?” he said to me. “He doesn’t deny it.
Old . But don’t worry—we’ll be out of your hair soon enough.
Damn, even sooner if I get one of these biscuits in me!
” His hand shot out for the plate on the counter.
A melting moment stuffed with lemon icing disappeared from the pile. “Where’d these bad boys come from?”
“Brooke said they’re from the, um… ladies at the church,” I said.
“Thought so.” Most of the biscuit disappeared in Harry’s mouth in one big bite.
“Yolanda Briggs once convinced me to escort her granddaughter to the church dance with a plate half the size of this. It was totally worth being stepped on for three hours.” He chewed, eyes on the ceiling, before popping the last of it in his mouth.
“Whose grandson did you have to promise to meet for coffee? Geez, a haul this big, and they might bribe you into a date with the old man!”
Aiden sighed. “Kid, come on—”
“Nah, I’m just fooling around.” Harry wiggled his eyebrows. “A whole basket of goodies couldn’t convince a woman to be alone with you, smooth talker!”
Aiden grunted, but he leant over the counter, careful not to get too close, his gaze flicking up just once to meet mine as he slid the plate of biscuits across the wood.
“You better grab one before Harry eats them all,” he said. “You’ll need to keep your strength up to fight off all the invitations.” Another twitch tugged at the corner of his mouth. Maybe that was his smile, after all.
Whatever the expression was, it was enough to coax a genuine smile from me. I reached for a biscuit but couldn’t quite get my fingers on a melting moment.
Aiden nudged the plate closer. “The ones with pink icing are the best.”
A soft laugh escaped me. Maybe I’d been wrong about him. He wasn’t a brute or a man I needed to cower away from. He was just…
Aiden.