Chapter 5
Rafe came home from picking up Nico humming.
That was the first problem.
Rafe sang badly, loudly, and with no respect for key when he was trying to annoy somebody. He hummed when he was pleased with himself. There was a difference. I had known him long enough to identify it from two rooms away and resent it on principle.
I was at the dining table with the household calendar, three invoices, and a pencil I had sharpened myself because the electric sharpener in the junk drawer ate points like it held a personal grudge.
Nico came through the front door first carrying a library book about sharks and one shoe in his hand.
“Why is your shoe off?” I asked.
“Sand.”
“There is also sand on the foot still wearing a shoe.”
He looked down at it. “Oh.”
Rafe came in behind him with both backpacks over one shoulder, Nico’s water bottle in his hand, and the expression of a man who had recently experienced excellent news or minor head trauma.
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
His humming stopped.
Interesting.
“Pickup on time?” I asked.
“Two forty-three.”
“You were due at two forty-five.”
“I enjoy exceeding expectations.”
“Since when?”
Nico dropped his shoe beside the entry bench. “Dad ran from the parking lot.”
Rafe pointed toward the stairs. “Wash hands. Snack in the fridge. Homework folder on the counter.”
Nico narrowed his eyes. “You are changing the subject.”
“Correct.”
Nico accepted that and went upstairs with one shoe on and one bare foot, which was not my problem until he reached a staircase. Then it became my problem because six months earlier June had discovered that socks and polished wood were natural enemies.
“Shoe off before the stairs,” I called.
A pause.
Then a thump.
“Done!”
I looked back at Rafe.
He set the bags down slowly.
“What?”
“You tell me.”
“I picked up my child.”
“You are humming.”
“People hum.”
“You don’t.”
“I absolutely hum.”
“When pleased with yourself.”
His mouth twitched.
There it was.
I put down my pencil.
“What did you do?”
“Why do you assume I did something?”
“Thirty-one years of evidence.”
“We’ve known each other twenty-four years.”
“I adjusted for character.”
Rafe leaned both hands on the back of a dining chair and tried to look insulted.
He failed because Piper walked in from the kitchen carrying a glass of iced tea.
She saw Rafe.
Rafe saw her.
Piper’s mouth did something small and private before she looked at me.
Rafe grinned like an idiot.
Second problem.
I knew exactly what he had done.
Or I knew enough.
Heat went through me in a fast, ugly line that had nothing to do with temperature.
I did not like it.
That was useful information.
Piper stopped beside the table. “Are these the updated repair estimates?”
I looked at the papers in front of me.
“Two are. One is a fuel invoice.”
“I was testing you.”
“You weren’t.”
“No.”
Rafe was still grinning.
I wanted to staple something to his forehead.
Instead I slid the top estimate toward Piper. “Remediation crew comes back tomorrow morning for moisture readings. If the numbers are where they expect, I can start closing the lower wall by Thursday. Flooring after that.”
Her eyes moved over the estimate without pretending she understood trade pricing she had no reason to understand.
“So the cottage might actually become a cottage again.”
“Eventually.”
Something flickered across her face.
It was gone fast.
If I had not spent most of my adult life watching people decide whether a crack was cosmetic or structural, I might have missed it.
Rafe did not.
His grin faded.
Piper put the estimate down. “Good. That’s good.”
“You don’t have to move the second it’s habitable,” I said.
Her gaze came to mine. “I know.”
“The addendum says you choose.”
“I know what the addendum says, Gray. I signed it.”
The answer had an edge.
Mine had probably had one first.
I nodded. “Right.”
Rafe looked between us and, for once, had the survival instinct not to insert himself.
Piper’s phone chimed.
She glanced down.
Then she froze.
Not like she had when Evan called. I had not been there for the call, but Rafe had told Cole and me enough to know her ex still had a talent for turning her nervous system into emergency lighting.
This was different.
Her eyes widened.
“What?” Rafe asked.
Piper read the screen again.
Then a third time.
“I booked it.”
“Booked what?” I asked.
Her smile arrived slowly, like she did not trust it yet.
“The Savannah wedding. The couple I spoke to yesterday. October eighteenth. They signed the contract and paid the retainer.”
Rafe threw both hands in the air. “Fuck yes.”
From upstairs, Nico shouted, “YOU SAID A BAD WORD.”
“CELEbrATORY EXCEPTION.”
“THAT IS NOT A RULE.”
“IT IS NOW.”
I looked at Piper.
She was still staring at the email.
“Congratulations,” I said.
Her eyes lifted to mine.
Something in her expression tightened unexpectedly.
“Thanks.”
Then she immediately ruined it.
“It’s only one wedding.”
I leaned back in the chair.
“Yes.”
She blinked.
Rafe looked at me. “Strong celebration, Bennett.”
I ignored him.
“It’s one wedding,” I repeated. “Which is one more wedding booked under Piper Hale Photography than you had yesterday.”
She stared at me.
“You don’t have to turn it into proof of your entire future for it to count.”
Rafe went quiet.
Piper’s throat moved when she swallowed.
“That’s annoyingly reasonable.”
“I practice.”
“No, you practice being annoying. Reasonable just happens sometimes.”
“Statistical overlap.”
Her smile came back.
I wanted to keep it there.
Third problem.
By dinner, I had accumulated six problems, three of which were named after adults.
Cole grilled fish on the back deck while Rafe cut fruit, which meant half the strawberries went into the bowl and half went into Rafe.
Nora sat at the table beside Piper with one of Piper’s older camera bodies between them, learning what aperture did while Piper supervised every button press without taking over.
June was building a fort under the table from two dish towels and a dining chair.
“No towels on the floor,” I said.
“It’s a roof.”
“The roof is on the floor.”
“Not when I hold it.”
She lifted both arms, raising the towel six inches.
I looked at Piper.
Piper raised her camera and took a picture of my face.
“Delete that.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Commercial license does not cover blackmail.”
“Personal archive.”
Rafe walked past with the fruit bowl. “Send me a copy.”
“No one is getting a copy.”
Nora looked up from the camera. “You look mad in pictures even when you’re not mad.”
“Thank you, Nora.”
“I don’t think it was a compliment,” Cole said from the deck.
“I know.”
Piper laughed.
Rafe looked at her.
That look was brief.
It was also unmistakable now that I knew what I was looking for.
My stomach tightened again.
I hated jealousy mostly because it was inefficient. Anger could solve something. Concern could produce a plan. Jealousy just sat in your chest and announced that another person had something you wanted.
In this case, Rafe had apparently kissed Piper.
I wanted Piper.
Those facts did not cancel each other out.
That was the problem.
After dinner, Cole took Nora down the block on their bikes because she needed poster board for a school project.
Rafe handled showers for Nico and June after both children somehow got watermelon juice in their hair.
June was mine, but she had informed me that Rafe’s shampoo technique made better spikes, and I had decided parental dignity could survive delegation.
Piper stood at the kitchen counter with her laptop open, answering the Savannah couple.
I loaded the dishwasher because it was my turn, not because a woman was in the kitchen and I had suddenly become interested in domestic competence as mating behavior.
That distinction irritated me because I had noticed myself noticing it.
“Do you always stare that hard at plates?” Piper asked.
“Only when they’re badly loaded.”
“Was that plate badly loaded?”
“It was about to be.”
“Threat neutralized.”
I closed the dishwasher.
Her laptop made the sent-mail sound.
She exhaled.
“Done?”
“Contract countersigned. Payment receipt sent. Timeline questionnaire scheduled for August.”
“Good.”
She shut the laptop.
For a second neither of us moved.
The upstairs pipes rattled. June shrieked with laughter. Rafe shouted something about conditioner not being war paint.
Piper looked toward the ceiling.
Then at me.
“You know.”
There was no point pretending.
“About you and Rafe?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
She folded her arms. “Did he tell you?”
“No.”
“Then how?”
“He came home humming.”
Piper stared at me.
“That’s it?”
“And you looked at him like you knew why.”
“That is deeply annoying.”
“I’ve been told.”
She picked up her iced tea and took a drink.
“Are you angry?”
I considered lying.
I disliked lying more than I disliked jealousy.
“No.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“That sounded like you wanted the answer to be simpler.”
“I do.”
She waited.
I put both hands on the edge of the counter.
“I’m not angry at you. I’m not angry at him. I don’t have a claim on you.”
“Good.”
“I am jealous.”
Her expression changed.
There was no triumph in it.
That helped.
“Okay,” she said.
I nodded once.
“Okay.”
“That’s all?”
“What do you want me to do with it?”
“I don’t know. You looked like you were about to hand me a building code violation.”
“I was trying not to.”
That got her attention.
“Meaning?”
I looked toward the stairs. The bathroom door was shut. Water ran. Rafe was singing badly now, which meant he was deliberately making the children complain.
I lowered my voice anyway.
“Meaning my first instinct was to start thinking about consequences. House. Work. Kids. You being here six weeks. Rafe being Rafe. Cole pretending he hasn’t noticed you have legs.”
Piper choked on her tea.
I waited.
She coughed twice and stared at me.
“Cole what?”
“Not relevant.”
“It feels extremely relevant.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It is an excellent point.”
I rubbed a hand over my face.
This conversation was escaping containment.
Piper leaned against the opposite counter. “What’s the actual point, Gray?”
I looked at her.
There it was.
The problem underneath the logistics.