CHAPTER 34
“I still can’t believe it doesn’t smell like skunk,” Willa marveled as she clattered around by the stove.
He sat at the kitchen table, watching her, just in his jeans. Willa was wearing his T-shirt over a pair of panties that peeked out flirtatiously every time she stretched up to reach something from a high cabinet. She was barefoot and cooking something that smelled delicious.
Technically, there was no reason for him to be there. He’d finally finished the last of her punch list, and she’d insisted on paying him, even though by that point, he hadn’t cared. The house was successfully deskunkified. No, he was there because they both wanted to be together. After putting in a day of work troubleshooting a finicky freezer at the grocery store, he’d showered, stuffed some clothes in a duffel, and then headed over to Willa’s.
When she opened the door, her smile had been wide and bright as a floodlight. “Guess who finished her cookbook?”
“Congratulations,” he’d said, before sweeping her up in a kiss that left them both breathless. “Guess somebody gets a reward, huh?”
Which he’d then proceeded to give her. Several times. In a couple of rooms.
Honestly, he was having more sex with her, in his forties, than he’d had with anyone in his twenties or thirties. It was kind of amazing. And anyone who thought that women in their forties somehow put sex aside? Ought to meet Willa, because the woman was wearing him out in the best way.
Actually, they shouldn’t. He wanted to keep the woman to himself.
Now, it was close to ten o’clock, and they were both ravenous. She brought bowls over, graceful as always, putting them on the table before sitting herself. “You sure you’re okay with spicy?”
“I used to drown stuff in sriracha, I’m sure I’ll be fine,” he said. “Smells great, by the way.”
“I order Korean ramen from Amazon when I can’t get to Asian markets,” she said. “Trust me, once you have it, you won’t go back to those block things again.”
“You’re ruining me,” he said, and the truth of the words sank in a little. He stared at the bowl instead. There were noodles, yes, but also a poached egg and a sprinkling of green onions. He took a sip of the broth. “It’s good.”
Then the heat hit, and even though he tried to suppress it, he couldn’t help but cough and reach for his water.
She laughed, shaking her head. “Don’t worry. My dad can’t eat spicy food either. And there’s a little hack—I learned it on TikTok, actually.” She got up, walking to the fridge and grabbing a narrow white bottle that she put next to him. “Kewpie mayo. You can put it in the noodles. It’ll tame the heat a bit.”
“Mayonnaise?” he said, uncertainty clear in his voice.
“Just try it.”
He did. And unbelievably, it was delicious. He started eating for real, digging in with his fork, watching her eat the noodles enthusiastically with her chopsticks. I should learn how to do that.
“I have to ask. Why the degree in food science? What even is that?”
“It’s, like, figuring out how to make french fries more addictive,” she said. “The evil side of it, anyway. It can be about how to make things taste like different things, or how to make things have better mouthfeel. How to make things sweeter, or saltier, or more pleasing.”
“Huh. I didn’t even know that was a thing.”
“I didn’t either,” she admitted. “Until my parents basically said that there was no way I was going to culinary school. They said that if I did, I’d be in dead-end jobs for the rest of my life, until I was too old to stand up and cook, and then I’d live under a bridge.”
He widened his eyes. It was too uncomfortably close to Amanda’s mindset, honestly. Don’t they need to take care of themselves? Are we doing them any favors?
Unaware of the turn of his thoughts, Willa kept going, a small, amused smile on her face. “So I convinced them that food science was basically biochem—which, honestly, it kinda is—and that I’d be able to get a lab job. Science, they could get behind. And I still got to work with food, so I thought I was set.”
He studied her. “Then what happened?”
“Well, then Steven happened,” she said. “I was interning at a restaurant where his friend worked, studying ... I don’t even remember. But we met, and it was like a lightning bolt. He swept me off my feet. When he knew that I didn’t want to work for some big corporation, making sawdust taste like Parmesan cheese, he told me to work with his friends. Introduced me to chefs, and vintners, and artisanal-food makers. It was amazing, and I didn’t look back.”
“And your parents?”
“Super, super pissed,” she said, with a rueful laugh. “What about you? Did you go to college?”
He stopped eating. He knew that she wasn’t asking with any kind of malice or judgment. At least, he hoped there wasn’t judgment. But she’d gotten a degree in something that, despite her downplaying it, was really hard ... and her parents obviously had high expectations. “I didn’t want to go to college,” he said. “I’d had enough of school, honestly. Paper writing, the whole thing. I wanted to work with my hands.”
“That makes sense,” she said, and he felt his stomach unknot as tension left his body. “You’re good at it.”
“Thank you,” he said. “But all you’ve seen is me being a handyman, honestly. That’s not exactly brain surgery.”
“You told me you’re a contractor. I’ve seen people build restaurants, and we worked with a contractor getting ours up and running. I know what that entails,” she corrected. “And even if you were ‘just a handyman,’ like you say—that’s still harder than you’re making it sound. Do you think Patrick would know how to shut off breakers and fix a dead outlet, or patch drywall, or ... I don’t know, any of those other things? Or even deskunkify a house?”
He grinned, his chest warming.
“You help people stay where they want to stay. You fix the most important place in their lives. You make things better. That’s not nothing either.”
He felt amazingly comforted. His family had always encouraged him, tried to validate him—but on some level he’d written it off because they were family and they were supposed to be supportive. Willa didn’t have to say any of those things, yet she still got him.
Still ... he realized, especially after his talk with Amanda, that it didn’t cover everything either.
“You know, I wanted to specialize more in remodeling and restoration,” he said. “I like antiques, and old houses. Stuff like that.”
Her eyes glowed. “You’d be great at that, I bet,” she said.
“How can you tell?”
“Because you like fixing things, but preserving them too. Like this place.”
He sighed. She just ... she got him. “There’s one thing I was obsessed with,” he finally said.
He hadn’t told this to anyone, outside his family and Amanda, back when they were young and foolish and thought sex and love were the same thing. Willa looked at him expectantly, eating noodles like he wasn’t going to admit the biggest dream of his heart.
“I wanted to be a horologist.” He laughed, because it just seemed so ridiculous now. Like a kid wanting to be an astronaut.
She blinked. Then she frowned. “That’s ... like a clock ... something. Right?”
Of course she’d know. She was so fucking smart, it was gorgeous. “Yeah. Clock specialist. Repair, restoration. Design, sometimes. Clockmaker.”
She rested her cheek on her hand. “How did you get into that?” she said, turning the question on him.
“My grandfather—my mom’s dad—loved clocks,” he said. “He took me around to garage sales and estate sales, made it like a treasure hunt. And then he let me open one up. I couldn’t believe how everything worked together so perfectly. It was like a secret little world, the best puzzle I’d ever seen.”
She smiled at him. “That’s awesome.”
“I think I was the only kid in middle school to have a subscription to Horology Monthly ,” he admitted, and her laugh was sweet, not mocking. “After he died, I didn’t go out and find clocks that much, even though I still really like them. Then after the twins were born—well. Things just got too busy, you know? My life had a different focus.”
She made a sympathetic noise. He knew that she, more than anyone, would understand the need to shift from dreams to survival. From making things up to making shit work .
“The twins are awesome,” she said slowly. “But ... do you ever think about what you’d have done if you hadn’t had them? Is there any dream you would’ve wanted?”
He froze. Was this Amanda all over again? Was she saying that she didn’t want to just be with a handyman?
“I’m happy with where I am,” he said, and his voice was harsh.
Was he convincing her, though? Or himself?
She put a hand on his forearm. “I’m not saying you should be anything other than what and who you are,” she said, clear and calming. “I’m just asking because you strike me as someone who’s put other people before himself for a long time.”
Of course she’d think that. Of course she’d say that. He stroked her cheek with one hand, then leaned over and kissed her softly.
“There was a thing—you can take a yearlong course, in Bern. Switzerland,” he said. “It’s with Jaquet Fonjallaz-Debayle. They’re a world-famous clockmaker. Like, their clocks are tens of thousands of dollars to buy. Some of the antiques have gone for over a hundred thousand.”
She blinked, looking stunned. “Wow. That’s ... wow .”
“And they’re amazing ,” he enthused, feeling like the biggest dork but not caring because Willa didn’t seem to mind.
“And you learn to make them?”
“It would take longer than a year,” he said. “But you’d learn how to repair them, restore them. You’d be learning from basically the greatest horologists in the world.”
“How hard is it to get in?”
He shifted. “Well ...” He cleared his throat. “I kinda took a class. A few years ago, when the kids first went to college. Got certified in basic clock repair.”
God. He hadn’t even told his parents that.
“But I didn’t do anything with it. It’s just a hobby.”
“But one you love.” She said it.
Fuck it. “In a perfect world,” he admitted in a scratchy voice, “I’d still be a handyman, sure. I love the island, and they need me. And I love being around my family. I’m not ashamed of that, no matter how weird or whatever people might think it is ...”
“It isn’t,” she said staunchly.
He took a deep breath. “I’d probably still do the contracting too. But I would love to have, as a side hustle I guess ... I’d want to restore more houses on the island to their past glory because we’ve got some beauties that are being torn down for McMansions by people trying to move in and drive up prices. And I’d really, really love to be a certified Jaquet Fonjallaz-Debayle repairman. Maybe even design clocks at some point, after I retire.” He smirked at himself. “Probably sounds ridiculous.”
She pushed the bowls aside, then moved to him, straddling his lap. She framed his face with her hands, kissing him.
“Steven once told me, after a restaurant he and his friends had opened basically flamed out in under a year, that it hurt like hell but that it was worth it,” she said. “Because the dream was always worth it. Even if it hurts, if you don’t feel anything, if you don’t go for it ... what’s the point?”
He kissed her throat, then pulled back to look at her. Her eyes shone with so much faith in him, it was almost blinding.
“I’m not saying you have to do anything,” she added, stroking his bangs out of his eyes. “But whatever you do want to do ... I’m saying I believe in you.”
He kissed her hard, and she melted into him with a soft, happy sigh.
As they moved against each other, the kiss deepening, he couldn’t help but wonder what she’d say if she knew that right now, the biggest dream in his life ...
Was her.