Chapter 10 Owen
Owen
I packed my life into boxes on a Sunday morning.
It didn’t take long. That was the thing about being thirty and single: you accumulated less than you thought.
Clothes, books, and kitchen stuff I never used because I ate most of my meals at the station or at Grace’s.
A few framed photos. The toolbox my grandfather had left me.
My father’s old turnout coat—the one I couldn’t wear but couldn’t throw away.
The apartment had been month-to-month since Sarah left. I’d been meaning to find somewhere permanent, but permanent required decisions I wasn’t ready to make. Now the decision had made itself.
I called my landlord, gave thirty days’ notice, and loaded everything into my truck.
The carriage house was small but solid. One bedroom with dormer windows that caught the morning light.
A bathroom with tile so old it had come back into style.
A kitchenette with a two-burner stove and a refrigerator that hummed like it was thinking about something.
Built-in bookshelves along one wall, empty and waiting.
It smelled like dust and old wood and possibility.
I unpacked the books first. Mostly technical manuals—fire science, building codes, the chemistry of combustion.
A few worn paperbacks my father had given me before he died: Hemingway, McMurtry, and a Louis L’Amour western with a cracked spine.
I lined them up on the shelves and tried not to think about how permanent that looked.
The uniforms went in the closet. The kitchen stuff in the cabinets.
The photo of my father on the nightstand, the one I’d carried with me through every move since I was fifteen.
Dad in his gear, grinning at the camera, three months before the warehouse fire that killed him.
He looked young. Younger than I was now.
That first night, I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Through the window, I could see the light in Grace’s kitchen. She was up late, probably baking. She did that when she couldn’t sleep.
A hundred feet away. Close enough to hear if she called out. Close enough to be there in thirty seconds if something went wrong.
This is practical, I told myself. This is what friends do. She’s pregnant and alone, and I’m helping her through a hard time—the same way she sat with me after Sarah left. That’s all this is.
The lie settled heavy in my chest.
I started in the nursery without being asked.
Grace was five months along now, her belly rounding beneath the loose sweaters she still wore. She'd stopped trying to hide it. There was no point anymore. The whole town knew, or would soon enough. Small places had long memories and short attention spans for secrets.
She needed to start preparing. Needed somewhere for the baby to sleep, to be changed, to exist. But every time I saw her look at the empty room at the end of the hall, something in her face went tight.
Like she couldn't quite make herself go in there.
Like making it real meant admitting she was doing this alone.
So I did it for her.
I measured the room on a Tuesday night after she'd gone to bed.
Drew up plans on graph paper the way my grandfather taught me, every dimension precise, every joint accounted for.
The next day, I drove to the lumber yard in Millbrook and came back with enough pine to build a crib, a changing table, and a set of shelves.
The work started after my shifts and stretched into the early morning hours.
Measuring, cutting, and sanding. The smell of fresh-cut pine filled the carriage house, sawdust settling into my clothes, my hair, the creases of my palms. I'd forgotten how much I loved this.
The rhythm of it. The way building something with your hands made your mind go quiet.
The cribs in the stores looked flimsy to me.
Particle board and dowels, the kind of thing that would wobble after a year, fall apart after two.
I wanted something solid. Something that would last. So I built it the way my grandfather had built the furniture in my childhood home: mortise-and-tenon joints, no nails, wood fitted so tight it would hold for generations.
I painted the walls the exact shade of yellow Grace had mentioned once, months ago. We'd been talking about childhood memories, the places we felt safest. She'd said her grandmother's kitchen had been yellow. That the color made her feel like everything would be okay.
I found the paint at the hardware store. Held up six different swatches before I found the right one. The clerk asked if I was decorating a nursery.
"Something like that," I said.
I positioned the rocking chair by the window, angled so the moonlight would fall across it. Grace had told me once that her grandmother used to rock her by that window when nightmares came. That she'd wake up terrified, and Gran would carry her downstairs and hold her until the fear passed.
Every choice was deliberate. Every detail pulled from something she'd said, something she'd mentioned, something I'd filed away without realizing I was keeping track.
I was building a nursery for another man's baby.
I didn’t ask myself why that sentence landed so hard. I didn’t slow down long enough to examine it. Thinking had never been my strength. Doing was.
So I kept building.
I held her until the shaking eased. Until her breathing slowed and the weight of her settled into something steadier against me.
When she pulled back, she wiped at her face and laughed softly, embarrassed.
“I’m sorry. Hormones.”
“You don’t need an excuse,” I said.
She nodded, like she was storing that away for later. Then she turned back to the room, walking in slowly, as if it might disappear if she moved too fast. Her fingers brushed the edge of the crib. Traced the curve of the rail.
“This is… Owen.” She swallowed. “This is too much.”
“It’s wood and paint,” I said gently. “It’s just a room.”
She shot me a look. “You know that’s not true.”
I did. But I didn’t argue.
She crossed to the rocking chair and lowered herself into it carefully, testing the weight, the balance. It didn’t creak. It held. She rocked once, twice, her hand drifting to her belly like it did now—unconsciously, already protective.
“I kept telling myself I’d do this later,” she said. “That I had time. That if I didn’t make it real, it wouldn’t be as scary.”
I leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, giving her space. “Making it real doesn’t make you weak.”
She looked up at me. Studied my face the way she did when she was trying to decide whether to believe something.
“You didn’t ask,” she said. Not accusing. Just stating a fact.
“No.”
“Why?”
I could have lied. Given her something easy. Practical. I didn’t.
“Because if I asked, you might’ve said no,” I said. “And I didn’t want you to have to carry one more decision.”
She was quiet for a long moment. The morning light shifted, warming the yellow walls, catching in the grain of the wood.
“Thank you,” she said finally. “For seeing me. Even when I don’t know how to ask.”
Something in my chest tightened. Not pain. Recognition.
She stood, crossed the room, and stopped a careful distance in front of me. Close enough to feel her warmth. Not close enough to touch.
“This doesn’t mean—” she started, then stopped. Took a breath. “I don’t want you to feel like you owe us anything.”
“I don’t,” I said. “I’m here because I want to be.”
Another long look. Measuring. Honest.
“Okay,” she said. Just that.
Okay meant trust. It meant acceptance. It meant she wasn’t pushing me away.
It also meant the line between us was still there. Clear. Necessary.
She slipped past me into the hallway, one hand trailing along the doorframe as she went. “I’m going to make more coffee,” she called over her shoulder. “The strong kind. Don’t say anything.”
I smiled despite myself.
When she was gone, I stayed where I was for a moment, alone in the nursery. In the quiet proof of something I’d built without permission but with care.
I looked at the crib. The chair. The space waiting to be filled.
I didn’t let myself imagine beyond that.
I turned off the light and followed her back into the kitchen, back into the ordinary shape of our days.
For now, this was enough.
It had to be.
The crew showed up on a Thursday.
I’d made some calls. Pulled in favors. Explained the situation: a friend in trouble, code violations, a sixty-day deadline.
The big stuff—the electrical and plumbing—was already scheduled with licensed contractors.
Grace had finally agreed to let me co-sign a small loan, just enough to cover the permitted work.
But there was plenty of other stuff. Structural repairs. Cosmetic fixes. The kind of work that didn’t require permits—just time, hands, and the willingness to show up.
Firefighters were good at showing up.
Grace woke to the sound of hammers.
I watched from the carriage house as she stumbled outside in her robe, six months pregnant, confusion and sleep still on her face. Her hand went automatically to her belly, the way it always did now.
Cal was on the roof with a tool belt around his waist, pulling up rotted shingles. Liam was replacing a window while Riley ran caulk along the seams. Reyes and Kowalski were hauling lumber from a truck. Lucy sat on the porch with Gabrielle on her hip, watching the chaos with an amused smile.
I met Grace in the yard, clipboard in hand.
“What is this?” Her voice was rough from sleep.
Cal grinned down from the roof. “Mitchell called in reinforcements. Said your gutters were a fire hazard.”
“They’re not a fire hazard.”
“They are now.” He held up a rusted section of gutter. “See? Rust. Very flammable.”
“Rust isn’t flammable.”
“Are you a fire professional?”
Grace looked at me. Her eyes were wet again, that same overwhelmed expression she’d had in the nursery. “Owen. You didn’t have to do this.”