Chapter 18
Seth
The sun was high over Oak Street, beating down on the tarps and ladders scattered across town. My crew hammered shingles into place, shouted building material orders from one to the other, while I stood on the curb with my clipboard, pretending the noise in my head wasn’t louder than all of it.
Uncle Seth.
Olive’s little voice still rang in my ears. Light. Certain. Sweet in a way that cut deeper than I expected.
I shouldn’t have smiled. Shouldn’t have let it hit me the way it did. But I had. And now the weight of it sat square in my chest.
I wasn’t built for that kind of role. Not anymore.
There was a time when I thought I was. A time when I’d believed in big gestures and promises. When I’d been stupid enough to think love could hold steady, and the possibility of starting my own family.
I was twenty-two, fresh out of school, already drawing plans for my first big project when I met her.
Claire. Golden hair, quick laugh, the kind of smile that made you think the world wasn’t such a hard place after all.
I thought she was it. The one. I planned a future with her, rings, kids, a house with the porch swing that she’d always wanted.
And then, just like that, she was gone. No warning. Like the five years that we spent together meant nothing to her.
A job offer in Chicago. A new circle of friends. A fiancé six months later that wasn’t me. I got the news through a damn Christmas card. Her in a red dress, her new man’s hand on her stomach like he already owned every part of the life I’d once imagined for us.
That was the day I decided I wouldn’t let another woman in again. Not the fool that believed someone would be faithful when they told you they loved you.
So I built walls instead of a home for myself. Blueprints became my closest companion, and work filled the emptiness that I felt. If I kept busy enough, if I stayed sharp, gruff, and untouchable, no one could get close enough to hurt me again.
And it worked. For years.
Until Madison Cole showed up on my porch with her sharp tongue and stubborn eyes. Along with her little girl, who looked at me like I was steady ground instead of the mess I knew myself to be.
Olive didn’t know the rules. She didn’t know that I’d locked those doors tightly years ago. She didn’t know that calling me Uncle Seth in a crowded coffee shop was like trying to find the key to unlocking my heart.
I barked orders at my crew, flipping through my clipboard like the paper could shield me from the truth,
I could rebuild a whole town with my bare hands. But I couldn’t stop the crack that kid had just put in my chest.
And I didn’t know what scared me more, that the walls were breaking, or that part of me wanted them to.
The Hollow Tap was quieter than usual for an early evening, the kind of lull that happens between the late lunch crowd and the evening rush. I was halfway through a sandwich when I heard a familiar voice behind me.
“Well, well. If it isn’t Cunningham himself. Thought you swore off bar food unless it came from your own grill.”
I turned. Maddox Rees leaned in the doorway, same backwards ball cap, same smirk.
“Maddox,” I said, shaking his hand. “Didn’t think you’d wander into town before five.”
“I like to keep people guessing. Besides, Grey’s got the night off, and Blair threatened to lock me out if I hovered too much. Figured I’d spread my charm elsewhere.”
He slid onto the stool beside me. “So… rumor mill says you’ve got company out at your place. Madison Cole and her little girl?”
I set my glass down carefully. “Yeah. They’re in the guest house.”
He studied me for a long moment, that look he always had when he was about to cut through the crap. “And how’s that working out?”
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine,” he echoed, grinning. “You’ve always had the emotional range of a brick wall, Seth. I’m asking if you’re happy.”
I looked at him, then away. “It’s complicated.”
Maddox raised his bourbon in a toast. “Everything worth a damn usually is.”
And that was the end of it. He turned to the baseball game, like he hadn’t just stripped me bare in two sentences.