Chapter 24 Ben
Ben
The wind was moving through the timber frame with a low, hollow whistle, enough to make me check my safety tether twice.
I was thirty feet up on the roof deck, kneeling on fresh plywood that still smelled resin.
We were sheathing the roof before the predicted snow squall hit at noon, and the pace was frantic.
It was Tuesday morning, and I was losing a fight with my own attention span.
I reached for the pneumatic nailer, lining up the next shot, and as I shifted my weight, I caught sight of Olivia below.
She was standing near the garage entrance, clipboard in hand, talking to the lumber delivery driver.
She reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and the movement drew my eye up to her left hand.
The ring, I knew, was gone.
I'd noticed it first thing Monday morning, but twenty-four hours later, I still couldn't stop looking.
She'd pulled into the clearing at six-fifty yesterday, headlights cutting through the pre-dawn gray. I was already on the ground staging lumber, sorting it out in a cold that made my bleeding hands ache. She climbed out of her car, grabbed her thermoses, and headed straight for the garage.
But when she reached up to adjust her coat collar, the morning sun caught her hand and there it was. Or, rather, wasn’t. The gold was gone. In its place was a thin, pale band of skin. A ghost line where the ring had lived for eight years.
I'd stood there with a plank in my hands, staring at that bare finger until she disappeared inside the garage. Now I was up on the roof, trying to focus on sheathing panels and racing the weather, and all I could think about was that white band of skin.
"Boss, you got the next sheet ready?" Collins called from the opposite corner of the roof.
"Yeah, coming."
I dragged a four-by-eight panel across the deck, my shoulders screaming in protest. The pneumatic nailer provided the soundtrack—thwack-hiss, thwack-hiss—a rhythm that usually kept my brain from wandering to places it shouldn't go.
It wasn't working today.
Below us, Olivia was on the phone. Her tone was sharp and professional, that of someone tired of being told no. She'd been fighting with the roofing membrane supplier all morning, and from the sound of it, she was winning.
I risked another glance down through the open rafters.
She was pacing in the garage, phone pressed to her ear, her bare hand gesturing as she talked. Her hair was dusted with sawdust. Her jeans were muddy at the knees. She looked like she'd been born on this site, like she belonged to it now.
And I needed to stop looking at her.
"Boss!" Collins's voice cut through. "You gonna hand me that sheet or just admire the view?"
I looked over. The kid was grinning, that knowing look on his face that made me want to throw a framing hammer at him.
"Shut up and nail, Collins."
His grin widened, but he went back to work. We positioned the next sheet together, the wind trying to rip the plywood from our hands. We fired nails every six inches along the rafters, racing the gray clouds piling up on the western horizon.
The sky looked mean. We had maybe two hours before the weather hit.
That's when I heard the tires. I looked toward the driveway just in time to see a white Tesla, pristine and wildly out of place, pulling up next to Olivia's mud-splattered sedan. The door opened, and Chloe stepped out.
Ryan's sister, still with that crazy hair and with expensive boots that were about to be ruined by frozen mud. She had her phone pressed to her ear, talking animatedly as she stepped out, gesturing with her free hand.
Then her eyes found the garage, and then Olivia. She said something quick into the phone, then pulled it away from her ear and started walking toward the garage, her face breaking into a smile.
"Who's that?" Collins asked, pausing mid-nail.
"Ryan's sister."
"Oh." Collins looked at me, then back at the woman approaching Olivia. "You good?"
I didn't answer. I just unhooked my safety tether and started climbing down.
By the time I reached the ground, Chloe had already pulled Olivia into a hug.
They were standing just outside the garage entrance, Chloe's arms wrapped around Olivia's shoulders. I could hear her voice carrying across the clearing, bright and charged with that kind of restless energy she had always had, even as a young kid.
"—told you I wanted to see it before I flew back. I couldn't leave without—oh my god, Liv, look at this place!"
Olivia was laughing, a sound I hadn't heard enough of lately. "It's a construction site, Chloe. It's not exactly Architectural Digest."
"Are you kidding? This is insane." Chloe pulled back, her hands still on Olivia's shoulders, and turned to take in the timber frame. "Jesus. He really went big, didn't he?"
"Yeah. He did."
For a second, something dark crossed Chloe’s face. Then she shook it off and turned back to Olivia. "Show me the bones real quick? I've got like fifteen minutes before my next call."
"Yeah, come on."
They started walking toward the house, and that's when Chloe noticed me standing near the ladder. She stopped, her eyes locked on mine, and for a beat, neither of us moved. There was something assessing in her expression.
Finally, she smiled.
"Ben Walsh," she said, walking over. "The man of the hour."
"Chloe." I shifted my weight, suddenly aware of how I must look—covered in sawdust, hands still wrapped in bandages. "Didn't know you were coming by."
"Last-minute decision. Flying out soon, but wanted to see what Liv's been working on." She glanced up at the roof, then back at me. "Looks like you've been busy."
"Trying to stay ahead of the weather."
"Yeah, I heard." She tilted her head, studying me for just a beat too long. Then her phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out, glancing at the screen. "Shit. Okay, I gotta take this. Don't let me keep you."
"Right," I said. "I'll be up on the roof if you need anything."
Chloe's eyes flicked back to me, that knowing look still there. "I'm sure you will be."
I turned and headed back to the ladder, feeling her eyes on my back the whole way.
I tried to focus on the work.
Collins and I knocked out three more panels, the rhythm automatic now. But I kept glancing down at the garage, where I could see Olivia and Chloe standing near the massive window openings, Olivia pointing up at the cathedral ceiling.
Chloe had her phone out, taking pictures. Then she was on a call again, pacing, gesturing with one hand while Olivia waited patiently beside her.
She wasn't here to observe or assess the whole operation.
She was here to see it, acknowledge it, and move on.
She had her own life, her own work, her own shit to handle.
This was just a quick stop on the way to the airport.
But even from thirty feet up, I could see the way she kept looking at Olivia.
And then at me. And then back at Olivia.
She was clocking something.
After maybe ten minutes, they walked back to the Tesla. I watched Chloe hug Olivia again—quick, fierce—and say something that made Olivia laugh and shove her shoulder.
Then Chloe stepped back, pulled her keys from her pocket, and looked up at the roof.
Directly at me.
"Hey, Ben!" she called up. "Come down here for a sec?"
I cleared my throat. "Yeah, sure."
I climbed down the ladder, hands clumsy on the rungs. By the time I reached the ground, Olivia had already gone back into the garage, her phone pressed to her ear.
Chloe was leaning against her Tesla, arms crossed, watching me approach.
When I got close, she didn't say anything at first. Just looked at me in a way that made my chest tight.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For doing this. For all of it."
"You don't have to—"
"Yeah, I do." She glanced back at the garage, where Olivia was visible through the opening, pacing as she talked. "My brother fucked up. Massively. And you didn't have to step in, but you did." She looked back at me. "So. Thank you."
I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything.
Chloe was quiet for a moment, studying my face.
"She's going through a lot," she said.
"I know."
"Yeah." She held my gaze for a beat longer. "I think you do."
She reached out and squeezed my arm once, her touch quick but firm.
"Take care of her, Ben. My brother was a dickhead, but at least he chose the right guy as a best friend."
She let go, climbed into the Tesla, and started the engine. Then she rolled down the window.
"Don't fuck this up," she said, grinning. "I'm scrappy as hell and I know where you live."