13. Timothy
Chapter thirteen
Timothy
Bethany is already outside when I come around the side of the lodge.
She has a clipboard tucked beneath one arm and a travel mug balanced in her other hand. She has her 'war face' on which makes her look about as fierce as a kitten.
I can't help but smile.
A white contractor van idles near the rink. The guy beside it is unloading a measuring wheel and other equipment.
Bethany spots me and lifts her chin toward the gate.
“You’re late.”
I resist the urge to make a tiny growl sound. Instead, I check my phone. “By two minutes.”
“Three.”
I shove my hands into my coat pockets and walk toward her.
She's wearing a dark green jacket I haven't seen before. The kind with actual pockets, deep ones, the sort of coat a competent person owns. That detail irritates me for reasons I don't feel like examining.
The contractor straightens as we approach. Mid-fifties, work jacket, pencil behind one ear.
He offers Bethany his hand first. “You’re the project manager?”
There is the smallest pause before she answers.
“I’m coordinating the renovation.”
Her voice changes when she says it.
The man nods.
I catch the flicker of surprise on Bethany’s face before she smooths it away.
Apparently, being taken seriously still catches her off guard.
The contractor starts at the gate, checking the opening against the measurements Bethany sent him.
“Six feet, two inches,” he says.
Bethany glances at me.
I pretend not to notice.
That is the number I stood in the dark and cold to confirm for her, and her quick look feels dangerously close to a private conversation.
He moves along the boards, stopping every few feet to measure, press at the wood, and make notes of his own. Bethany keeps pace beside him, answering questions.
She knows every answer.
I am supposed to be here for the player perspective, but for several minutes, all I contribute is following behind them with a notebook and trying not to look too impressed.
It is not going well.
Bethany writes something down, then pauses and frowns at the page.
The pen is backward again, cap pressed against the paper.
It's a nervous habit of hers, that in fairness should no longer be charming.
But it is.
She flips the pen around in her fingers and jots her notes down.
When she's done, I reach over and capture the pen before thinking better of it.
Her gaze drops to my hand.
Then rises to my face.
“Don't worry, I'm just protecting it for you,” I say.
Her mouth twitches. “Secret service for my pen?”
“Apparently it's needed.”
The contractor crouches beside the gate and scrapes a boot across the ridge in the ice.
“This will have to come up before we replace the hardware,” he says. “The slab may have shifted underneath.”
Bethany steps closer. “Can you tell how far it runs?”
“Not without clearing it.”
She sets her mug on the boards and crouches beside him. I move in automatically, holding the measuring tape while she marks the edge of the raised section.
The contractor walks back toward his van for another tool.
Bethany stands and turns in one motion, stepping toward the gate, and her boot catches the edge where the ice has pushed up in a thin, mean little ridge.
One second she is standing beside me. The next, her boot shoots sideways.
I catch her around the waist before she hits the ice.
Her hand closes around the front of my jacket. Momentum brings her against me hard enough that I take one step back, then another, until my shoulder catches the boards.
And then neither of us moves.
Her face is inches from mine.
Close enough that I can see the faint crease between her eyebrows. Close enough that her breath touches my mouth before the cold steals it away.
Her grip loosens on my jacket but does not let go.
My arm is still around her waist.
I know I should release her.
The problem is that she is looking at me like she knows that too, and she has not moved either.
The noise of the rink falls away. No contractor van. No lodge behind us. No list of reasons this cannot happen.
Just Bethany’s eyes dropping, briefly and unmistakably, to my mouth.
Something inside me goes very still.
Maybe I am not imagining this.
I lean closer, the invitation of her mouth is calling me forward.
“Found the pry bar,” Cal calls from the lot.
Bethany jerks back so quickly I nearly have to catch her a second time.
“Liability hazard located,” she says, breathless enough to ruin the dryness she is aiming for.
I laugh, but it comes out rougher than usual.
“Yeah, that ridge will get you everytime.”
She looks away, cheeks pink from more than the cold.
My internal list of reasons this is a bad idea runs fast and familiar. Jenna. Work. Timing.
Bethany brushes something off her sleeve.
"I'm fine," she says, before I've asked.
She wobbles, maybe half an inch, the instant the words leave her mouth.
My hand starts toward her elbow but I catch it back to my side.
"Okay?" I ask.
"I have been fine in conditions significantly worse than this," she says.
The cold feels sharper suddenly. Or maybe I'm just standing still enough to feel it now.
The contractor promises a formal estimate by Friday, loads his equipment into the van, and drives away.
The instant his taillights disappear, Jonah and Maxon come out of the lodge carrying the red tool kit and a stack of orange cones.
Their timing is suspicious enough that I wonder how long they were watching through the windows.
Bethany does not look at me.
I do not look at her.
We are both extremely interested in workplace safety.
Across the rink, one of the guys steps past a safety cone Bethany set on the slick patch near the gate, laughing at something Jonah said, not looking down.
He waves a hand when he clocks the cone. "Relax, I've skated on worse." Grinning, already mid-step.
"She said stay off that section," I say. Flat. No drama. He stops.
There's a moment where he weighs pushing it. Then he doesn't, and goes around.
I don't look at Bethany after. Making it about whether she heard would undo the whole point.
She looks at me anyway. I catch it in my peripheral vision and keep my eyes on the ice.
Then she nods, once, short, and goes back to the clipboard.
My chest does something small and uncomplicated I don't have a good word for.
Bethany works from the center of the rink, assigning tasks and checking measurements against the contractor's notes.
Every few minutes, her eyes find mine.
Each time, she looks away first.
That should make this easier.
It does the opposite.
I have spent a lot of time telling myself the pull between us is one-sided. A private inconvenience I can manage as long as I keep enough distance and remember every reason she is off-limits.
But I felt her hand tighten in my jacket.
I watched her look at my mouth.
And for one suspended second beside those warped boards, she leaned toward me too.
Bethany glances over again.
She catches me watching.
Her smile is small and uncertain, nothing like the confident one she uses when she is holding a clipboard and telling grown men what to do.
I smile back.
No joke. No escape route.
Just the sudden, dangerous possibility that I am not the only one that might want more.