17. Small Victories
Small Victories
The roof supplies arrived just after sunrise, a delivery truck backing into the driveway with the kind of beeping that made Biscuit bolt under the bed.
Jenna stood on the porch with her coffee, watching Cole gesture instructions to the crew in that same calm, controlled way that always made everything look manageable.
Travis whistled low at the stacked bundles of shingles, “Christmas morning.”
“Roof edition,” Cole muttered, but he was grinning. He seemed to love this part. The finish. The last push.
But Jenna knew she felt the same odd mix he did; that excitement and dread braided so tightly she couldn’t pull them apart. This was the last big thing. After this, it was touch-ups and cleanup. After this . . . summer ended.
The guys split off to their tasks, the kind of silent coordination built over years of working together. Tarps unfurled across the flower beds. Nail guns hissed to life. By eight a.m., the whole property echoed with the percussion of hauling shingles, lifting boards, and air compressors kicking on.
Cole moved through it all with that easy command he never bragged about, checking angles, adjusting chalk lines, anchoring ladder feet with the heel of his boot. He didn’t bark orders; people just paid attention when he spoke.
Around nine, Jenna brought out a plate of cut fruit, claiming she’d made too much for breakfast.
“You mean you’re worried we’re all about to pass out?” Travis said, shoving a strawberry into his mouth.
“It’s Florida,” Jenna replied. “Hydration is survival.”
Cole caught her eye and gave a small nod, a thank-you wrapped in something cozier.
By noon, the tarps were off, the decking secured, and the first rows of shingles were going down clean and straight. The sun beat down with the full intent of August, and Emmie wandered outside every half-hour with cold waters, claiming she was “doing hydration rounds” for safety.
“Your safety officer takes her job seriously,” Jenna murmured to Cole as Emmie disappeared back inside.
Cole nodded. “She likes having a job.”
“She’s been the master baker for weeks. You all inhale food like you’re training for some sort of eating competition, plus she wants to practice recipes on you like test subjects,” Jenna added.
Travis’s voice floated down from the roof, “We are a gift to science!”
Despite the heat, despite the noise, despite everything the last few months had held, the day moved with an unexpected lightness. The crew teased each other endlessly—
“Hey Cole, this shingle’s upside down.”
“It’s not.”
“Would’ve been funny if it was.”
“Do the work, Travis.”
“Micro-managing, boss. It’s unattractive.”
Jenna laughed more that afternoon than she had in weeks. Even Cole cracked more smiles than usual, though every so often she caught him scanning the newly shingled sections like he was holding onto something he wasn’t ready to let go of. Like he knew what finishing this roof meant.
By mid-afternoon, the last shingle was set, the ridge vent secured, and the compressor fell silent. The quiet after a full workday always felt like something exhaled, but today it made her throat tight.
Cole gave a final nod. The crew packed up. And it felt like every tension line in Jenna’s shoulders loosened at once, only to twist again with the knowledge that they were nearly done here.
“Small victory?” Cole asked as he walked beside her toward the driveway.
“Massive victory,” she said. “You did it.”
His smile flickered, warm but fleeting. “We did it.”
“I did nothing of the sort.” She said with a laugh, ignoring how much the comment meant to her.
And that, more than the roof, more than the work, was the part she wasn’t ready to lose.
* * *
That night, they gathered at Capt’n Jack’s, Cole’s idea, Emmie’s insistence. A back-to-school sendoff, a goodbye to the crew, and a celebration of finishing the last big piece of the renovation.
The patio overlooked the sponge docks, lights shimmering across the water, live music drifting from the open-air bar. The air smelled like salt, fried seafood, and summer.
Jenna hadn’t realized how much she needed a night like this.
Travis had arrived first, already halfway through a basket of hush puppies. “Don’t judge me,” he said when Jenna raised a brow. “I’ve been roofing since six.”
Two of the not-so-new guys showed up together, both arguing over whether a mullet or a grouper made better tacos. Grouper for sure. She knew them now to be Jerrod and Kevin.
“Don’t even talk to me about school starting,” Casey groaned, sinking into the seat beside Emmie. “It should be illegal to begin in August.”
“Agreed,” Emmie said, stabbing a fry with unnecessary force. “Summer should last until at least November.”
Jenna laughed. “You two don’t get to complain. I’m the one who has to drag you out of bed at six starting Monday.”
Casey dropped her head onto the table. “Six? As in . . . morning?”
“Is there another six?” Jenna teased, earning a round of laughter at the obvious answer.
Emmie pointed a fry at her. “Aunt Jenna’s about to become a drill sergeant. I can feel it in my bones.”
“It’s for your own good,” Jenna said. “You two are going to regret every life choice when those alarms go off.”
“Already traumatized,” Emmie said.
The girls bickered softly, but Jenna felt the truth settling beneath the jokes: School meant change.
And it wasn’t the only thing shifting with summer ending.
Change meant the long, strange bubble she and Cole had been living in was about to burst. And she wasn’t sure she was ready for it to pop.
Cole arrived last, cap off for once, his tight curls flattened from a long shower, dark and close-cropped enough that she noticed the water still clinging at the edges.
“You clean up nice,” Jenna said, bumping his arm lightly.
“You should see me when I try,” he deadpanned.
Dinner was loud, easy, and full of the kind of laughter that bubbled without effort. Emmie sat with her friends but popped over every so often to steal bites from Jenna’s plate. At one point, she pointed her fork at Cole.
“You better take good care of her when all this construction stuff is done,” she said.
Cole held up a hand. “Cross my heart.”
Then he turned toward Jenna and said, “If I get the chance.”
It was so low, more breath than sound, that she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. Surrounded by people, she forced herself not to react, even as every muscle went tight.
Cole’s expression shifted too fast for her to read, something warm, something pained, something he immediately tucked away behind a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Jenna had been around him enough by now to know this was usually the kind of night he loved: good food, loud crew, work well done.
But he kept glancing at his phone like he was expecting bad news, or maybe trying to avoid saying something he couldn’t take back.
Jenna kicked his boot lightly under the table. “You okay?”
He blinked, startled. “Yeah. Just—long day.” But that wasn’t it.
There was a tightness in his shoulders she’d never seen before, a restless way he kept shifting in his seat like staying in one place too long made him uneasy, as if he didn’t know what to do with himself now that the job was almost done.
She didn’t have the words for it yet, but she recognized the feeling anyway.
Melancholy.
The kind that sits just beneath the surface, waiting for the wrong moment to split wide.
As the night stretched on, the guys teased Cole about the next job waiting for them, how the new client wasn’t nearly as fun, how no one made cookies for them like Emmie did, or how they were spoiled here and wouldn’t survive the downgrade.
Travis lifted his drink. “To the Hart’s,” he said. “Both of ’em keeping us fed and paid.”
Jenna raised hers in return. “To the best crew in Pinellas County. Let’s just hope the check clears.”
Casey and Emmie were already halfway out of their seats, pointing toward the giant fiberglass shark at the entrance.
“Oh my gosh, we have to take a picture in the shark mouth,” Casey said, practically vibrating.
Emmie snorted. “Absolutely. That thing is peak Tarpon Springs culture.”
The deck was buzzing with laughter from the next table, umbrellas flapping in the marina breeze, and the sunset bleeding orange across the water. Boats bobbed gently against their lines, their hulls catching the last of the light.
Jenna waved them off. “Go on, just don’t break anything that belongs to the city.”
As the girls darted toward the shark, Travis leaned back in his chair. “Those two could outrun the Coast Guard if they had to.”
Cole snorted. “They’d outrun you without trying.”
“Rude,” Travis said, grabbing a fry, “accurate, but rude.”
Jenna elbowed Cole lightly. “Be nice. You’re all limbs and work boots; they’d leave you in the dust, too.”
Cole just shrugged, the corner of his mouth tipping up in a way that made her chest go warm.
The music shifted to something with a sway, and lanterns flickered as the wind swept up from the water. Jenna felt warm, content in a way she hadn’t expected to feel again.
She caught Cole watching her more than once, but every time she turned toward him, he looked away, shoulders loosening like he’d been caught doing something dangerous.
Eventually, the crew drifted out in ones and twos, waving and calling goodbyes as they crossed the lot. The crowd thinned until only Travis remained, pretending to straighten chairs while very obviously eavesdropping.
Emmie hugged Jenna tight, then leaned in to whisper, “Don’t be weird.” She shot Cole a knowing glance and jogged to Casey’s car with a dramatic little spin.
For the first time all night, the noise calmed, stretching into something that made Jenna’s pulse stutter.
She leaned back in her chair, nudging Cole’s boot with her sandal.
“So,” she said lightly, “your next client, are they going to appreciate you as much as we do?”
Cole smirked. “Depends. You all feed us like we’re half-starved.”
“That’s because you act half-starved,” she shot back. “I’ve seen how you inhale tacos.”
He raised a brow. “And yet you still agreed to be seen with me in public. Interesting choice.”
“Oh, I enjoy the challenge,” she teased. “But seriously, you think this next homeowner is going to be as cute as me in a swimsuit?”
Cole choked on his drink.
Travis, who had absolutely been listening, held up his hands. “I, nope, not getting involved,” he muttered, backing away like a man evacuating a blast radius.
He disappeared toward the parking lot. Leaving her and Cole alone.
Finally.
Jenna grinned, pleased with herself. “What? Simple question.”
Cole dragged a hand over his jaw, fighting a smile he absolutely did not win against. “It’s a seventy-six-year-old man,” he said finally. “So . . . probably not.”
“Probably?” she echoed.
He shrugged, “Haven’t met him yet.”
She laughed, bright and warm, and he looked at her like the sound hit somewhere he didn’t have armor.
The smile faded slowly from his face. Something shifted behind his eyes—quiet and heavy, a thought he didn’t want her seeing.
He went still. Too still.
And then he looked away, jaw tightening like whatever he was thinking was too big to say out loud.
It startled her, the shift. One second, he was teasing her back, and the next, he looked like a thought had hit him so hard he had to swallow it.
Something about her joke had landed somewhere she couldn’t see, and she wasn’t sure if she’d stepped too close to a truth he wasn’t ready to share.
Cole leaned forward, forearms on the table, eyes warm in the glow of the string lights. “Jenna, I—”
“Last call!” the bartender shouted behind them.
Cole closed his mouth, shoulders tightening with frustration.
Jenna laughed under her breath. “Guess the universe isn’t ready for whatever that was.”
He huffed out a breath. “Apparently not.”
They walked outside together, the air warm and tasting dully of salt. The docks glowed across the water, boats swaying gently. When they reached Jenna’s car, she turned to him.
“You did good work today,” she said with careful restraint.
The way he looked at her made her feel warm and unsettled all at once. “So did you,” he said again, gentler this time.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You kept us going,” his voice dipped lower, almost apologetic, “you keep me going.”
That caught her off guard, the smoothness of it, the specificity. She had no idea what he meant by it.
Did he mean he’d stop by for ice cream if she weren’t in the middle of his jobsite? Did he mean the way he invited her on bike rides and took her to piano night and bought her pistachio ice cream, would he do that for any grief-stricken client trying to stay upright?
Would he rearrange another bakery owner’s fence without being asked? Would he walk another woman to her car, as if it were his job to make sure she got home safely?
Or . . . Or was he talking about her? Just her.
He didn’t explain, and she didn’t ask. She was afraid the answer would undo her. “Jenna, I . . .” he started.
“What is it?”
He opened his mouth again, but no sound came out this time.
His hand flexed at his side, fingers curling like he wanted to reach for her and had to stop himself physically.
“Cole?” she whispered.
His jaw tightened. “I shouldn’t—” He cut himself off, shaking his head like trying to clear something dangerous. “I don’t want to make things complicated for you.”
“You’re not,” she lied.
“You don’t know that,” he murmured. And God, he looked miserable saying it.
She didn’t know what was happening in his chest, but whatever it was, it scared him. It made him take a step back, as if proximity itself were a threat.
They stood there in the thick quiet, both of them aching for more than whatever currently hung between them. Jenna was realizing that if they stayed there any longer, she’d lose her nerve entirely.
He took another step back like he didn’t trust himself not to reach for her, “Goodnight, Jenna.”
The air between them felt warm and fragile, stretched thin by everything left unsaid. She didn’t know why he suddenly looked like someone bracing for a blow.
She wanted to ask him what he’d been about to say. He seemed to want to say it, too.
But neither of them moved.
Then, he turned and walked away, back to his truck, the same way he had so many times before.
She drove home with the windows down, the music low, her heart somehow too full and too empty at the same time.
Biscuit waited curled at the foot of her bed when she slipped in under the quilt. She scratched behind his ear, letting the quiet settle.
She crawled into bed that night with her thoughts tangled between the porch, the dream she still couldn’t quite shake, and the words he’d almost said before swallowing them back down.
She didn’t know what any of it meant. She only knew it wasn’t leaving her alone.