Chapter 10
MAX
Warren is going to be pissed off, but I don’t care.
I bump up the road toward Lacey’s place, the furniture in the back of the Jeep carefully strapped down. I had to take the top off to make everything fit, and the cool morning air filters past the windows.
For the past week, Lacey and I have been steadily working through everything on her list.
Although I told her to come down for dinner at my place, we’ve always worked too late to make it happen. Still, each night before bed and in the mornings before coming up here, I’ve been working on the aspen pieces.
And, instead of giving them to Warren to sell, I’m going to give them to Lacey.
She’s on the front porch when I rumble up the driveway, and I see her set her laptop to the side, sitting up and watching me come to a stop, her eyes darting to the stuff in the back.
Although she hasn’t made it to my place for dinner yet, I did make sure to take her to the general store so she could stock up her fridge.
If I’m honest, I thought she might have brought a bunch of fancy organic groceries with her when she drove up here. Or maybe I’d thought she would order something special into town. I wasn’t expecting her to be eating Jasper’s knock-off soup, cold, from the can.
The more time we spend together, the more I learn about her.
And maybe my first assessment — that she was nothing but a rich, entitled airhead — was off the mark.
Lacey grew up poor, like me, at least before her mom’s career took off.
So, Lacey knows what it’s like to eat a ninety-nine-cent pot pie from the microwave for dinner.
Luckily, when we went to the general store, Warren was too occupied with a pair of tourists — who were, coincidentally, looking at some of my stuff — to harass me about the competition.
“Max!” Lacey calls, coming down the porch as I swing out of the Jeep, unhooking the straps and starting to unload the furniture. “What’s all this?”
“Chairs,” I say, a little too gruffly, not looking forward to the moment where she asks where I got them.
When she gets closer, she gasps, bringing her hand to her mouth and running the other over the top of one of the chairs. “Max, these are gorgeous. Did you get them from the general store? Who is making these?”
I ignore her. “I’ll take them into the dining room.”
She picks up a chair and follows me inside, and we nestle them in the newly painted dining room, underneath the gold chandelier that we wired up and hung last night.
The furniture fits Lacey’s intended vibe perfectly, just like I thought it would. She might want to add some cushions to the chairs, but I’m shit at upholstery, so that will have to be an extra project on her part. It might be best to commission someone else or buy the kind you can tie on.
“Max, seriously, hold on a second,” she says, catching my arm as I turn to walk out. “How much for all this?”
I shake her hand off, not liking the way her touch draws every ounce of my attention.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, which is starting to sound like my catchphrase.
“Max,” she says, shaking her head. “These are clearly very nice chairs. My mom is in real estate. She hires out decorators all the time for her properties. This isn’t the same as just, like, going to IKEA. How much did you pay?”
I stare at her, thinking about the aspen tree I processed myself, the time I spent in the workshop laboring over the planing and sanding, how I turned each piece to bring out the prettiest parts of the grain, and the carvings that spiral down the sides of the legs, giving them a look that’s somewhere between classic and modern.
“Two hundred dollars,” I say finally, because I have no idea how much Warren would get for these at his store. Not to mention the fact that he’s targeting tourists, who always salivate over the idea of the furniture being hand-made by some sort of rugged mountain man.
Which, I guess, is what I am.
Lacey starts shaking her head, but I ignore her, opening the sliding door on the porch and heading down that way to the Jeep. I heft the table up and carry it inside, ignoring her offer to help and also her insistence that she needs to pay me more than that.
“Do you have Venmo?” she asks, after I’ve set the table down in the middle of the room. Before I can answer that, she laughs at herself and shakes her head, tucking her phone in her back pocket. “On second thought, don’t answer that.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
When I turn to face her, she’s looking at me intently, and I don’t like it.
“I can’t even…” She trails off, clears her throat, and catches her elbow in her hand. “I can’t even figure out how to compensate you for this. Or how to say thank you. Like— I mean, I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”
“Pretty sure you could have figured out the painting,” I say, because I feel uncomfortable with the sincerity on her face.
She shakes her head, laughing under her breath.
“Wouldn’t be much to paint if I’d started an electrical fire.
Seriously, this place is all I have left of Jasper.
And even though we’re painting and stuff…
I feel like I’m hanging out with him again.
A project that’s half him, half me. It feels good.
And, like I said, I couldn’t do it without you.
And I don’t really even understand why you’re helping me. You don’t even like me that much.”
She says that last part on a laugh, half-kidding but also half-not. I swallow down my first instinct, which is to tell her that of course I like her, and look away. I want to tell her that she has no idea what she’s talking about.
“Well, I thought it was obvious,” I say, not missing the way her breath catches in her throat. The moment suddenly feels charged, and for a second, I think I might bring it up.
The energy between us the past few days. How it feels when I brush my arm against hers. The fact that I’ve talked to her more in the past week than I have to anyone in years, even Warren.
“It is?” she asks, and my resolve crumbles. What if she doesn’t see it, doesn’t feel it? Then I’ll be imposing my personal feelings onto her. It might make her uncomfortable.
“Yeah,” I say, bringing my eyes back to hers, smiling. “I help you fix up the place, and you protect my peace. Promise not to rent it out to college kids. No bachelorette parties. That sort of thing.”
Lacey blinks, and regret washes through me. I should have said what I really wanted from her, but now the moment has passed.
And, besides, she’s leaving. Going back to California.
This is something I have to remind myself of a million times per day; each time she laughs at something I say, or I hear another story from her childhood. Last night, when I caught myself halfway to pushing a lock of hair out of her face.
I’ve never been flirtatious like that. I have no idea what I’m doing, and it’s not like I want something casual with her, either. I’ve never been casual about anything in my life.
It’s already bordering on dangerous, how I feel about her. And I’ve only known her for a week. If I allow this to go any deeper, I’m going to set myself up for heartbreak.
And I’ve had more than enough of that in my lifetime.
“Okay,” Lacey says, twirling a lock of that copper hair around her finger and flashing me a smile that makes my heart stutter in my chest. “You’ve got a deal.”
I told myself on the drive over that I wouldn’t be staying all day. That I would drive home and get started on another set of furniture, but now it’s like my feet move without my permission, steering me into the other room.
“What are we doing in here?” I ask, glancing back at her.
“Just some fixtures,” she says, rubbing her arm again. “But I can—”
It’s too late. I’m already pushing up my sleeves and grabbing the drill.