Chapter 5 Tessa
The crisis arrived on a Thursday afternoon in the form of a single email.
I was at the folding table in Noah’s workshop, laptop open, when the message from the festival committee landed.
The printer they had booked for the large outdoor banners had double-booked and could no longer meet the deadline.
If we didn’t supply print-ready files by the next morning—and find a new printer who could turn them around in forty-eight hours—the Whitaker Timber display would go up with last year’s faded materials.
I read the email twice, then a third time, feeling the familiar city-client panic rise and then settle into focus.
“Noah,” I called.
He looked up from the piece he was fitting. Sawdust clung to the front of his flannel. “Yeah?”
“We have a problem.”
I turned the laptop so he could see the screen. He read in silence, jaw tightening only slightly.
“Can you fix the files tonight?” he asked.
“I can. But I’ll need the final dimensions from the new printer, and someone who knows the local options. The committee’s list is useless.”
Noah glanced at the clock on the wall, then at the open shop doors where the light was already turning gold. “Lily’s at a friend’s until seven. We can work here. I’ll make calls.”
Just like that, the evening became ours.
The shop felt different after regular hours.
Noah closed the big sliding doors against the cooling air, and the space grew quieter, more contained.
He made a pot of coffee on the old machine in the office.
The smell of it mixed with cedar and the faint metallic tang of tools.
I pulled my hair up into a messy knot and settled in with the banner layouts while he stood at the workbench with his phone, speaking in the low, practical tone he used for business.
I watched him between keystrokes. The way he pinched the bridge of his nose when a call went long. The short, dry comments he made to the person on the other end. Competence looked good on him. Dangerous, even.
By the time he found a printer two towns over who could do the job, the windows had gone dark and the only light came from the hanging shop lamps and the glow of my screen. Lily’s friend had texted that she could stay longer. Noah set a second mug of coffee near my elbow without asking.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
“I’m calculating how many hours of sleep I’m willing to lose.” I stretched my arms over my head and felt the pull in my shoulders. “This is the part of freelance no one romanticizes.”
He leaned against the opposite side of the table, arms crossed. “You always push this hard?”
“When it matters.” I met his eyes. “Your work deserves to look like it matters.”
Something shifted in his expression—surprise, then a quieter acceptance. He nodded once.
We worked in a companionable silence for a while. The only sounds were the soft click of my keys and the occasional creak of the building settling. At some point, I became aware of how often our gazes met across the table and how neither of us looked away first.
Around nine, I sat back and rubbed my eyes. The main files were done. Only the smaller collateral pieces remained.
“You want to know the real reason I take projects like this?” I said into the quiet.
Noah waited.
“In the city people hire me because I’m good.
But they also hire me because I make things easy.
Bright. No friction. A few years ago, someone I cared about told me I was ‘a lot.’ Too intense.
Too much energy. Too many opinions.” I gave a small, humorless laugh.
“I got very good at being exactly enough and never more. Out here I keep forgetting to dial it down.”
The confession sat in the air between us, more personal than I had planned. Noah didn’t rush to fill the space. He studied me with that steady gray-blue gaze that always felt like it saw further than I intended.
“Being a lot isn’t a flaw,” he said finally. His voice was low and certain. “Some people are just too small to hold it.”
The words landed with unexpected force. Heat rose in my face—not embarrassment, exactly, but a sharp, vulnerable awareness. I looked down at my hands on the keyboard, then back up at him.
“That’s a dangerous thing to say to a woman who’s trying to stay professional.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t smile, but the corner of his mouth shifted. “Doesn’t make it less true.”
The shop felt smaller suddenly. Warmer. I could hear my own pulse in the quiet. Noah’s eyes dropped briefly to my mouth before returning to mine, and the air between us tightened like a held breath. Neither of us moved.
A car door closed outside—Lily’s friend’s parent dropping her off. The moment fractured.
Noah stepped back first. “I’ll get her.”
While he was gone, I saved the files, packed my laptop, and tried to steady my breathing. The chemistry was no longer something I could pretend was one-sided or unimportant. It was present, charged, and mutual. And it was the last thing either of us needed.
Lily came in pink-cheeked and talking a mile a minute about a science project involving baking soda. She hugged my waist without hesitation before Noah reminded her it was past bedtime. I said good night and walked out to my car under a sky thick with stars.
The mountain air was cold and clean. I sat in the driver’s seat for a long minute before starting the engine, the memory of Noah’s voice still clear in my head.
Some people are just too small to hold it.
I drove back to the cabin with the windows down, letting the night in, and told myself the same thing I had been telling myself for days.
Temporary.
Professional.
Do not want more than the work allows.
The words felt thinner than they had the week before.