20. The Fall
The Fall
On Sunday morning, Jenna got ready for a walkthrough as if she were getting ready for a date. Which was ridiculous.
It was a contractor meeting. A final check before the inspector came on Monday. She’d done dozens of these in her career, some in blazers, some in steel-toe boots, some in the same T-shirt she’d slept in after an all-nighter with spreadsheets.
But she had never done one just two days after kissing the contractor in the middle of the night and then spending an entire Saturday pretending nothing had happened.
She stood in front of the mirror in her bathroom, hair twisted up, then down, then half-up, then back down again. Her makeup bag sat open on the counter, untouched except for the tinted moisturizer she’d already applied and then immediately regretted, because who was she trying to impress?
She wasn’t fourteen, getting ready for a dance. She was a grown woman who had buried a sister, moved states, and dissolved a company in the span of months. She had a teenager who needed her, a bakery to launch, and a house still smelling of paint.
She did not have time to be thinking about the way Cole Bennett’s mouth had felt on hers. But her body didn’t care about her schedule.
The way the world had tilted when he kissed her, no careful lead-in, no hesitation, just every charged moment between them finally giving way.
And then the way he’d pulled away, breath unsteady, eyes holding something she couldn’t quite place, only feel.
He’d barely said anything to her the next day at the bakery. Just enough to do the job. Just enough to prove he hadn’t died of embarrassment. No teasing. No water bottle discreetly appearing at her elbow. No small comments meant only for her.
Maybe she should have been grateful. Maybe distance was safer.
She tossed the elastic band onto the counter and dragged her fingers through her hair, letting it fall loose over her shoulders.
It brushed the top of the soft blue blouse she’d finally settled on, nice enough to look like she wasn’t falling apart, plain enough that she didn’t feel like she was trying too hard.
“This is a job,” she muttered at her reflection. “Not a . . . whatever this is.”
From the hallway, Emmie’s voice floated toward her. “Are you talking to yourself again?”
“Always,” Jenna called back, grateful for the interruption. “You ready?”
“Been ready.” Emmie appeared in the doorway, ponytail high, the Blue Cypress T-shirt knotted at her hip. She paused, giving Jenna a once-over. “You look . . . professional.”
“That sounds like an insult.”
“It’s not, it’s like . . . you look like someone who knows what she’s doing and will sue people if they mess with her.”
“Great,” Jenna said dryly, “intimidation chic.”
Emmie leaned against the doorframe. “Are you nervous about the walkthrough?”
“Yes,” Jenna said, then immediately, “No. Not really. It’s just the last one. It’s . . . big.”
“It’s going to be fine,” Emmie said with teenage certainty. “The place looks amazing. If they fail us on anything, I’ll egg the inspector’s car.”
“You’ve had a lot of egg-based solutions lately.”
“It’s a bakery,” Emmie replied. “We’re rich in ammunition.”
Jenna smiled, just for a second. “Let’s go, menace,” she said, grabbing her keys. “We’ve got a date with the finish line.”
Her stomach fluttered at the word date. She ignored it.
* * *
Cole parked half a block down from the bakery even though there was a spot right in front.
He told himself it was because he wanted a minute to take in the building as a whole, like he always did before a final walkthrough. Like he was giving himself one last outside-in view before it officially stopped being a job site and became somebody else’s place.
It wasn’t entirely a lie.
The Blue Cypress sat under the late-morning sun as it had always belonged there, with its fresh white trim, clean blue door, and the new sign catching the light. It didn’t look like the sagging, storm-worn space he’d first stepped into months ago.
He grabbed his clipboard from the passenger seat. His hand hovered for a second before he picked up the cold bottle of water in the cup holder.
It was the good kind. The kind Emmie had once accused him of bringing “only for Jenna.” And she wasn’t wrong. He’d noticed what she liked. He’d bought it on purpose.
Peace offering. An apology he wasn’t brave enough to say out loud.
He walked the half block with his shoulders loose and his stride easy, or at least that’s how he hoped it looked. Inside, he felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his calm and left the pieces clattering around.
When he stepped inside, the bell over the door gave a cheerful little jingle that felt at odds with the way his heart thumped.
Jenna and Emmie stood near the front counter, heads bent over the binder. Emmie lifted a hand in greeting. Jenna straightened, smoothing her blouse in a way he almost pretended not to see.
“Morning.”
“Morning,” he echoed, grateful his voice sounded normal. “You ready to do this?”
“Born ready,” Emmie said. “I’m mostly here to heckle.”
Jenna nudged her. “She means she’s here to take notes.”
Cole held out the water bottle to Jenna before he could overthink it. “For you. Hydration. It’s . . . hot.”
Her gaze dropped to the label, then flicked up to his face, something unreadable moving through her eyes.
“Premium service today,” she said quietly, taking it from him.
“Final walkthrough perks,” he managed.
If Emmie noticed anything in that exchange, she didn’t show it. “Okay, Mr. Bennett,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Show us what several months of emotional upheaval have bought us.”
He snorted. “We call it a scope of work, but sure.”
They started in the front, like they always did.
Cole walked them through every detail: counter edges, outlet placements, how the lights could dim for evenings, and the emergency exit routes.
He pointed out caulk lines and sealant and things he knew Jenna already understood, but it was part of the ritual.
Final walkthroughs were part performance, part reassurance.
He kept it businesslike. Efficient. Professional.
He did not talk about porches or midnight or the way his hands had shaken after kissing her.
Jenna listened carefully, asked smart questions, made two notes on her pad, and circled one item on the punch list for him to fix before the inspector came. She was perfectly polite, perfectly attentive.
She did not crack a single joke at his expense.
They moved through the hallway, the storage room, and the small office in the back. Every room felt smaller with the three of them in it, but somehow the space between him and Jenna felt bigger than ever.
When they made their way outside to walk the property line and check the exterior, Emmie hung back for a minute to answer a call from Casey. The door shut behind them with a muted click, leaving just the two of them in the sunlight.
The last time they’d been alone outside a building together, it had been her house. He pushed the thought away.
“Everything look right?” he asked, nodding at the newly painted siding, the trip-resistant ramp they’d added by the back door.
“It looks . . .” She exhaled, and for the first time that morning, the professional mask slipped. “It looks like my sister’s dream didn’t die with her.”
His throat went tight. “Good,” he said quietly, “that’s what we were aiming for.”
They stood there for a moment, the late-summer heat pressing close, weighted with everything neither of them said.
“Casey sends love and demands we name a muffin after her,” Emmie announced.
Jenna arched a brow. “She has delusions of grandeur.”
By the time they made it back to the front, the list was done. The walkthrough completed. Jenna signed the final acknowledgment sheet with a firm stroke of the pen.
“So,” she said, closing the clipboard and handing it back. “As far as I can tell, we’re ready for him tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “You’re ready.”
They looked at each other then. Not long, not the way they sometimes did when the room went silent. Just enough for him to see the faint shadows under her eyes and for her to see the way he’d bitten his lower lip raw sometime between Friday and now.
He should have said, “Congratulations,” and left it at that. He should have shaken her hand and walked out the door, gone back to his truck, and let this be the clean end it was supposed to be.
Instead, he heard himself say, “There’s a dive bar near my place.”
She blinked. “That’s . . . a bold transition.”
He cleared his throat. “They, uh, do cheap champagne on Sundays. Twenty bucks a bottle. Real fancy operation.” His mouth tugged sideways. “I usually go after big sign-offs. To celebrate.”
“Ah,” she said, “tradition.”
“Something like that.” His pulse picked up. “You could . . . if you wanted . . . join me. For a drink. To mark the end of this thing. No construction talk required.”
He expected her to hesitate. To say she had work, or laundry, or a teenager to wrangle.
To remind him of all the reasons this was a bad idea.
He wasn’t blind to the whiplash of it. Two nights ago, he’d pulled away from her like a man terrified of his own impulses, and now he was the one asking her out at night.
But the truth was simple and relentless, and he had spent every hour since beating himself up for walking away on Friday.
The project was almost done. His time with her was almost over.
If he didn’t take a risk now, he might never get another chance to tell her how he felt.
“Okay,” she said immediately.
He almost dropped the clipboard. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said. “We survived a roof, through monsoon season, I might add, and all seventeen of Emmie’s menu drafts. I think we’ve earned twenty-dollar champagne.”
Emmie, who had been pretending not to listen and doing a terrible job of it, perked up. “You’re going out?”
“Briefly,” Jenna said. “After we get everything ready for tomorrow.”
“Good,” Emmie said. “You should. You look like your brain is melting.”