Reid
The path behind the community center had almost disappeared beneath overgrowth.
Maya had predicted it. She’d added this path cleanup to the volunteer calendar weeks ago.
He pulled his thickest gardening gloves on and got to work.
The work was brutal in a simple, mindless way. Saw through the thick limbs, drag them aside, clear the trail. Sweat gathered between his shoulder blades beneath his T-shirt.
The deposition was on Monday.
Cross would be there. Maya would be there. Reid would be there too.
Reid cut through a branch with more force than necessary.
Julian had lied to his face. Lied in bank records, lied in emails, lied through shell accounts and signatures and carefully staged paper trails. And tomorrow he would lie in the deposition. Under oath and on the record.
Which meant when Reid framed him, Julian would be facing a perjury charge, too.
Reid snapped another branch.
Good.
Tires crunched over gravel behind him and straightened. A truck pulled into the lot and three people climbed out carrying water coolers and work gloves.
They stopped when they saw Reid. For a terrible second he thought they might leave.
They didn’t. One of them lifted a hand awkwardly, another nodded toward the trail.
“You’ve made a good start.”
Reid swallowed. “Still a lot left.”
“That’s why we’re here.”
They moved past him, setting down supplies, talking about brush removal and drainage like this was normal. Like the community work still mattered. Like Maya still mattered.
Ten minutes later, another car arrived. Then another.
A retired couple got out with pruning shears. A woman with two teenagers carrying rakes over their shoulders. Someone had brought trash bags.
Reid stood there with a cut branch in his hands and felt something in his chest go tight and painful.
His public dunking at the picnic hadn’t done it, he knew that. It had been Maya’s words when she’d spoken to them. They believed her now.
Maya should have had this all along.
Reid bent and picked up another branch.
By the time the sun rose properly over the trees, the parking lot was almost half full.
Reid hauled another armful of branches toward the growing pile near the trailer and froze.
Maya.
The morning sunlight caught in her hair, and Reid forgot how to breathe for a second.
God.
It was like his entire nervous system oriented toward her.
She wore old jeans and a faded community fundraiser T-shirt. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life.
The volunteers noticed her and Reid watched as she braced herself.
Someone lifted one gloved hand and called out a greeting. “Morning, Maya.”
The call was picked up, everyone started calling out to her. A couple of people dropped their tools to go give her a hug, a handshake.
Reid watched as she was welcomed into the group.
God, he loved her.
Hopelessly. Pathetically. With the full terrible understanding now of what it meant to lose her.