Epilogue
ADDIE
The sandpaper caught a rough grain and I leaned into it, following the curve of the spindle with my palm flat and my wrist rolling how Gran taught me.
Morning sun cut through the front windows and lit every speck of sawdust in the air gold, which was the only nice thing about breathing that shit all day.
The shop smelled right again. Dye and pine oil and the deep mustiness of old wood giving up its secrets under pressure.
A handful of chairs waited by the wall for new webbing, a rocker needed caning, and Mrs. Delancey's dining set was due Friday.
The code violation had been dead over a month.
The hand-lettered sign was back in the window, MERRITT RESTORATION, same block letters Gran used, same teal paint I mixed from her notes.
Cage's boots sat by the apartment door upstairs.
Steel-toed, grease-blackened, parked next to my work boots like they'd always lived there.
His cut hung on the hook by the door, cracked soft and stinking of the garage.
Mine hung right next to it, softening up.
He stopped asking if he could leave his shit here weeks ago. I stopped pretending I minded.
"Got a delivery that needs the truck bed," he said from the doorway, a sweating bottle of Ale-8 hooked in two fingers, the other hand braced on the frame.
He filled it without trying, and my stomach still did that stupid dip every damn time.
"Your oak panels from Danville. Want me to grab them on the parts run, or you want to ride along and inspect them yourself? "
I blew sawdust off the spindle. Held it up to the light. Checked the grain.
He waited.
My chest tightened, and I let it.
"Grab them," I said. "But if they sent quarter-sawn instead of rift, haul them back and make somebody over there cry a little."
His mouth twitched. "Define a little."
"Use your judgment. You're scarier than me."
"Debatable." He crossed to the bench, set the Ale-8 down where I could reach it, and pressed his lips to the top of my head.
His calluses caught on my hair. His hand dropped to my hip as he straightened, thumb pressing into the sore spot from last night, and the bastard knew exactly what he was doing.
I leaned into it before I could stop myself. "Love you."
"I know," I said, grinning at the goddamn spindle like an idiot and absolutely not looking up because my face was doing something undignified and I had a reputation to protect.
His phone buzzed before he hit the door.
Club business—his shoulders squared and his hand went to the back of his neck, president mode clicking into place.
He answered it walking, voice low. I caught one word before the screen door banged shut behind him.
Ridge. His voice had changed on it, dropped low and flat, how it always went when something out there hadn't finished circling.
I drank half the Ale-8 with sawdust still on my fingers.
Through the side window, the garage. Mercy's bike was already in the lot, which made no goddamn sense for a Saturday.
He was at the desk in the office, visible through the glass, phone facedown in front of him, and he was just staring at the wall.
Hands flat on the desk. Jaw locked. Mercy, who never shut up, who made Wrench laugh so hard beer came out his nose last week, sitting there like the air had gone out of him.
I turned back to the spindle.
Not mine to open. Not this morning, anyway.
I sanded the curve until the grain quit fighting me, and the sun hit Gran's note in its frame above the vise.
I pressed my thumb against the warm glass.
Her cursive, shaky at the end and stubborn as she'd been to the last day, hadn't faded a shade.
You always did have good hands, come finish what I started. Finishing, Gran. Getting there.
Outside, Cage's engine turned over, and the sound rumbled through the shop floor and up through the soles of my bare feet. I pressed my thumb into the wood and felt the grain hold.