Chapter 24 #3
I handed Caleb and Owen the envelopes.
The humor disappeared.
“What now?” Owen asked.
“Open them.”
Each contained a bonus statement and written confirmation of the profit-sharing plan that would begin after the next quarter.
Caleb read his without expression.
Owen swore softly.
Noah looked over his shoulder.
Then at me.
“You arranged this?”
“They kept the yard operating.”
Caleb folded the paper.
“We already had this argument.”
“I ignored your objections.”
“You cannot keep solving emotion with money.”
“I also bought coffee.”
Owen sat heavily.
“This is too much.”
“No.”
“You were considering selling your car two weeks ago.”
“And the settlement has now reimbursed the business for work you did while I lived at the hospital.”
Caleb’s jaw tightened.
“You would have done the same for us.”
“I hope so.”
“Then we are even.”
“No.”
I looked at both of them.
“You protected Noah’s position when none of us knew whether he would ever return. You protected mine when I could barely answer the phone. You spoke to customers, postponed your own plans, worked every available hour, and never made me believe I had to choose between the hospital and the yard.”
My voice roughened.
“This is not payment for friendship. It is recognition of labor.”
Neither man spoke.
Noah’s hand settled in the center of my back.
Caleb looked down at the letter again.
“Profit sharing?”
“Yes.”
“That is permanent.”
“Yes.”
Owen cleared his throat.
“I was going to ask for a new drill.”
“Approved.”
Caleb laughed suddenly.
The tension broke.
We ate.
Then we spent twenty minutes attempting to make the espresso machine produce something drinkable.
The first cup emerged as a spoonful of black tar.
The second overflowed onto the counter.
The third triggered a warning light no one understood.
Noah sat at the table laughing hard enough to hold his ribs.
Owen read the manual.
Caleb ignored the manual.
I regretted buying the machine.
Eventually, Noah discovered that we had failed to remove the transport lock.
The machine worked immediately.
Caleb drank the first proper espresso and closed his eyes.
“I forgive you for the profit sharing.”
“That is generous.”
We remained together longer than lunch required.
Noah kept one hand on my thigh beneath the table. When Caleb and Owen began debating coffee beans with the seriousness of a maritime tribunal, Noah leaned closer.
“You’re good to them.”
“They are good to me.”
“That is not the same.”
“It should be.”
He studied my face.
“I love this about you.”
“What?”
“You notice what people are carrying.”
I looked toward Caleb and Owen.
“Not soon enough.”
“It still counts.”
He kissed the point of my shoulder.
The touch was small.
In a room full of people, it felt more intimate than it should have.
Caleb noticed.
He pretended not to.
Owen noticed Caleb pretending and smiled into his coffee.
Noah’s energy began to fade after lunch.
He stretched his back and blinked slowly.
“I’m going upstairs.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“You have work.”
“I need to inspect the new stair strips.”
“They were installed yesterday.”
“I am thorough.”
His mouth curved.
“You want to watch me climb.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Your ass.”
Caleb groaned.
“I was trying to eat.”
Owen pointed toward the empty boxes.
“You’ve been trying for half an hour.”
Noah laughed.
“Come on, then.”
We left the break room together.
The workshop radio was mounted high on the wall beside the north bay. Owen had connected his phone while setting up the coffee machine.
Most days, background music played quietly enough that we could work over it.
As Noah and I crossed the floor, another song began.
Not new.
Old.
A gentle pattern on acoustic guitar.
A male voice, worn rough at the edges.
I recognized it before the first line ended.
“Low Tide Morning.”
A song by a small coastal band that had played the Greyhaven tavern years earlier.
Noah and I had heard it on our third date.
Later that night, we had danced barefoot beneath the green navigation lamp while a storm rattled the apartment windows.
I turned toward him.
Wondering whether the music would mean anything.
Noah had stopped walking.
His cane slipped from his hand.
Metal struck concrete.
He did not react.
“Noah?”
His face had gone empty.
Not confused.
Absent.
His eye closed.
Opened.
His hand rose toward the scar at his temple.
The singer reached the chorus.
Noah swayed.
I caught his arm.
“Look at me.”
A small sound came from him.
Trapped.
His pupil widened.
“Noah.”
The workshop disappeared from his expression.
He was seeing something else.
Rain.
Metal.
Darkness.
I could not tell.
His knees folded.
I caught him against me.
The song continued.
Owen lunged toward the radio.
Before he reached it, Noah screamed.
The sound tore through the yard.
Not pain alone.
Recognition.
Terror.
His fingers clawed into my shirt.
“Turn it off!”
The music stopped.
Silence crashed through the bay.
Noah shook violently in my arms.
“Cal,” he gasped.
“I’m here.”
“No.”
His eye found mine.
Wild.
Wet.
Filled with something that had not been there a moment before.
“No,” he said again. “I remember.”