Chapter 25 #2
"YES." Laine grabs my arm. "Yes, Blake. This is why we work."
Something warm floods through my chest at those words. This is why we work. Casual. Like it's obvious. Like she doesn't know she just handed me something I'll carry around for weeks.
"He's going to kill us."
"Worth it."
She picks up Margaret again, cradling the doll like a baby. Marches over to the vendor. Pays eight dollars for our instrument of psychological warfare.
"This is a terrible idea," I tell her as we walk away.
"The best ideas are terrible ideas." She loops her arm through mine, Margaret tucked under her other arm. "Also I want to see his face when he finds her."
"We need to set up a camera."
"Obviously." She steers me toward a table covered in old tools. "Now help me figure out what all these things are."
I let her tow me along, pointing out hand planers and spoke shaves and things I've used a hundred times. She picks up each one, turns it over in her hands, asks questions. Real questions — not small talk questions but how does this work questions.
"What about this one?"
"Marking gauge. For drawing lines parallel to an edge."
"And this?"
"Coping saw. For cutting curves."
"This?"
"That's a..." I take it from her. Turn it over. Run my thumb along the mechanism. "Actually, I don't know. Some kind of specialized joinery thing."
"Ha!" She pokes my chest. "I found one you don't know."
"Enjoy it. Probably won't happen again."
She grins up at me, and something shifts in her expression. Softer. Warmer. The teasing energy settles into something quieter.
"I'm having a really good time," she says.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." She squeezes my arm. "Thank you for letting me come."
"Thank you for wanting to."
We stand there for a moment, surrounded by junk and strangers and the smell of old things. Margaret stares up at us from under Laine's arm, dead eyes gleaming. Creepy as fuck. Reid's going to hate it.
Laine rises on her toes and kisses me. Quick. Soft. Just because she can.
My brain short-circuits for a solid three seconds. Just — gone. No thoughts. No self-recrimination. No waiting for the other shoe to drop. Just her lips and the flea market noise and the warmth of her hand on my arm.
That. More of that. For the rest of my life, please.
"Come on," she says. "Let's go find more stuff."
She takes my hand again and pulls me toward the next aisle. I follow, still feeling the ghost of her mouth on mine.
Three weeks.
I'm more in love with her than I know how to handle. And I think — maybe — she's starting to feel something too. She hasn't said so, but the way she's looking at me lately feels different. Like she's not just tolerating my presence or being kind. Like she actually wants me here.
Don't get ahead of yourself. She said she wasn't there yet. She might never be.
I know. I know that. And I told her I could work with honest.
But the way she kissed me just now — unprompted, casual, like it was the most natural thing in the world — that felt like more than "not there yet."
Or you're seeing what you want to see because you're desperate.
Yeah. That too. Probably.
My phone buzzes.
Reid
don't bring home anything big
I'm not helping you carry it
threw my back out last time
man the fuck up
Reid
I'm serious
my back is still weird
Laine
your back is fine you're just dramatic
Reid
BETRAYAL
from BOTH of you now
I see how it is
I pocket the phone, grinning.
Reid's been a surprise. A good one. I expected jealousy. Expected the tension to ratchet up every time I came home from a date with Laine, or held her hand, or kissed her in front of him. I braced for the fights. The ones where nobody says what they actually mean and everyone walks away bleeding.
But it hasn't been like that.
There've been moments. Small ones. A tightness around his eyes when Laine laughs at something I say. A beat of silence when she mentions our dates. Once, I caught him staring at us on the couch — something complicated moving across his face before he smoothed it away.
But nothing big. Nothing like what I feared.
And me? I keep waiting for the jealousy to hit. Waiting for the poison to spread through my chest when I see them together — when Laine curls up against Reid during movies, or when they kiss goodbye in the kitchen, or when I hear them laughing together through the walls.
It hasn't come.
And that's... confusing. Because I know what I'm capable of. I know the version of me that watched them from the outside for months and let it curdle into something toxic. That guy's still in here somewhere. He has to be.
So where is he?
Okay. Maybe a little. The tiniest flicker when Reid mentioned Laine stayed over last Tuesday — the night I was delivering the moulding in Seattle — and they made pancakes together in the morning. Some old reflex trying to sink its teeth in. Trying to twist it into something ugly.
But it passed. Quick. Easier than I expected. And that's the part I don't trust — how easy it's been. Because easy isn't something I get. Easy means I'm missing something. Easy means the bomb hasn't gone off yet.
Or maybe — and I know this is a radical concept — maybe things are just actually okay.
Maybe. I'm working on believing that.
"Blake!"
Laine's voice cuts through the crowd noise. I look up and find her three stalls ahead, frozen in front of a furniture display.
She's not moving. Just staring.
I weave through the browsers until I'm beside her. "What'd you find?"
She points.
It's a dresser. Old. Massive. Six drawers with brass pulls, carved details along the top edge, solid legs that have held this thing up for probably eighty years.
My hands are already twitching — that automatic assessment again.
The finish is shot. Water stains, scratches, years of neglect.
One of the drawer fronts has a crack running diagonally across the grain.
It needs work. A lot of work.
But the bones are beautiful. Whoever built this knew what they were doing.
"Look at it," Laine breathes.
I look at her instead. At the way her eyes trace the lines of the piece, the way her hand reaches out like she wants to touch it but isn't sure she's allowed.
"It's huge," I say.
"I know."
"And heavy. Probably two hundred pounds."
"I know." She finally touches it, running her fingers along the carved edge. "It's perfect."
"It's a wreck."
"It's a beautiful wreck." She crouches down, examining the joinery like I taught her something in the last hour. "Is it solid? Like, could it be fixed?"
I kneel beside her. Check the corners. Test the drawer slides. Look for rot, for structural damage, for anything that would make this a lost cause.
"Yeah," I say. "It's solid underneath. The finish is destroyed, but that's cosmetic. This crack would need to be repaired — butterfly joints, probably. New hardware. Strip everything down, start fresh." I run my hand along the side panel. Feel the grain under my palm. "I could do it."
Laine looks at me. Something hopeful in her expression that makes my chest hurt.
"You'd do all that?"
The question hangs there. I think about my empty workbench. About the rocking chair sitting in the vendor's holding area. About all the projects I've taken on — for strangers, for clients, for people who don't care about the pieces beyond what they're worth.
This would be different. This would be for her.
"For you?" I say. "Yeah."
Her eyes go soft. "Blake —"
"I want to." And there it is again — that reflex to deflect, to make a joke, to find some way to avoid saying what I actually mean. Because saying it makes it real, and real things can be taken away.
Say it anyway, you coward.
"Let me refinish it for you. I'll fix the crack, strip the finish, bring it back to what it was. Better."
"That's... that's a lot of work."
"I don't care."
"It would take forever."
"I don't care about that either."
She's quiet for a moment. Studying my face the way she does — like she's running a diagnostic. Checking my vitals.
"Why?" she asks.
Because you deserve beautiful things. Because my hands need something to build instead of destroy. Because I spent months tearing you down and I will spend the rest of my life making things for you if you'll let me.
"Because I'd give you anything you asked for," I say. "Anything. And you didn't even have to ask."
Laine's breath catches.
"Blake."
"I mean it." My voice comes out rough. Raw. More exposed than I wanted. "Whatever you want. If it's in my power to give you, it's yours."
She doesn't say anything. Just steps into me, her hands finding my waist, then sliding up my back under my coat. Her palms are warm through my shirt. She presses her cheek against my chest.
I wrap my arms around her. Hold on. Not too tight. Loose enough that she can leave if she wants.
She doesn't leave.
Remember this. Whatever happens next — whatever I screw up, whatever falls apart — remember what it feels like to hold her in the middle of a flea market while she presses her face into your chest like you're something good.
"You can't just say stuff like that," she mumbles into my jacket.
"Why not?"
"Because it makes me feel things."
"Good things?"
She tips her head back to look at me. Her eyes are bright. Maybe a little wet.
"Yeah," she says. "Good things."
She kisses me. Soft. Slow. Her fingers dig into my back like she's trying to pull me closer. I let her. Let myself sink into it, into her, into this moment in the middle of a crowd of strangers who probably think we're just two normal people having a normal day.
We're not. But that's okay.
When she pulls back, she's smiling.
"So you're really going to refinish my dresser?"
"Our dresser. It'll be in your apartment, but I'm going to put six weeks of my life into it, so I get partial credit."
"Fair." She kisses me again, quick. "Thank you."
"Thank me when it's done."
She steps back, still grinning. I turn to the vendor, start negotiating. The guy wants three hundred, which is insulting for the condition it's in. We settle on one-seventy-five, which is still high, but I don't care. The look on Laine's face was worth ten times that.
"How are we getting it home?" Laine asks as I hand over the cash.
"Vendor's going to help me load it in the truck."
"Then to your workshop?"
"Yeah." I pull out my phone. "But we're going to need help getting it inside."
so about that "nothing big" thing
Reid
no
too late
Reid
BLAKE
dresser. six drawers. solid oak. probably 200 pounds.
Reid
I LITERALLY JUST SAID
it's for Laine
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
Reid
fine
but I'm complaining the whole time
and if my back goes out ur paying for the chiropractor
I show the screen to Laine. She laughs, loud and bright. The sound hits me right in the center of my chest.
"He caved fast."
"He always does." I pocket the phone. "The second he finds out something's for you, all his complaints disappear."
"That's sweet."
"That's Reid." I grab her hand, pull her toward the next aisle. "Come on. We still haven't finished our lap."
She threads her fingers through mine. Swings our joined hands between us as we walk.
"Best day ever," she says.
"Be better if you lost that thing." I nod toward her bag where Margaret is stuffed, one dead glass eye peering out from under the flap.
"The haunted doll is part of why it's the best day ever." She pats the bag protectively. "Speaking of which, we need to figure out the camera situation. I want multiple angles."
"Reid's going to get us back for this."
"I know." She grins up at me. "Worth it."
We walk through the last few aisles, hand in hand.
Laine finds a set of vintage salt and pepper shakers shaped like lobsters.
I find a hand plane from the 1940s that's been neglected but not ruined.
We argue about whether a painting of a sad clown is "outsider art" or "a cry for help.
" Laine wins by pointing out those aren't mutually exclusive.
By the time we load the dresser and the rocking chair into my truck — the vendor helping me lift while Laine directs from the tailgate like a tiny, bossy air traffic controller — the afternoon light is going golden. That Oregon autumn light that makes everything look like a painting.
Laine climbs into the passenger seat, Margaret on her lap, and leans her head back with a contented sigh.
"Thank you," she says. "For today."
"You already said that."
"I'm saying it again." She turns her head to look at me. "I mean it, Blake. This was exactly what I needed."
I start the truck. Don't trust myself to respond to that without saying something stupid.
She reaches over and rests her hand on my forearm as I drive. Light. Warm. Just — there.
I keep my eyes on the road and let myself have this.
Three weeks. I'm in love with a woman who might love me back someday.
I'm not destroying anything. I'm not hurting anyone.
I have a workshop full of projects and a group chat that makes me grin like an idiot and a haunted doll in my passenger seat that we're going to use to psychologically torment my best friend.
It might fall apart. My track record says it probably will.
But right now? Right now I'm just going to enjoy it.