Chapter 7 #2
People stay. They browse. They talk. The register tape grows, curling on the counter, and I catch myself smiling, the real kind, over and over and over.
A silver-haired woman I recognize—but could not for the life of me name—pauses at the counter, sandpaper and a paint stirrer in the bag. She reaches across, squeezes my hand, and says, “It’s good to see you smiling again.” Then she’s gone, no pause, no hint of subtext, just warmth.
Melvin doesn’t comment. He moves slow and steady, restocking plumbing, alphabetizing paint swatches, helping a customer find a specialty drill bit and never once mentioning the way Jordan keeps orbiting me, six inches away, reorganizing the drill bit display like the fate of the world depends on it.
Jordan is being Useful, capital U. Fixed the pipe, restocked copper flashing (properly, this time), helped three customers in a row, and generally moves with authority through the aisles like they own the place.
They don’t, but watching them work, so confident and right at home, does something to me I absolutely refuse to name.
It’s three o’clock before the store slows. I’m at the counter, updating inventory, and Jordan is beside me, six inches left, hands idly fussing with drill bits, cedar and coffee on the air.
Melvin straightens, sets down his clipboard, and calmly, with zero affect, looks at Jordan and asks, “You plan on mooning over Maddie near the power tools all day, or you intend to make yourself useful?”
Silence. Glacial. My ears burn. I flush, neck to temples, mortified and rooted to the spot, fingers glued to the keyboard. Melvin has just jackhammered straight through my last line of composure.
Jordan’s face splits open with a real grin. Not a smirk, not a tug at the corner, but a genuine, delighted smile that shows teeth and crinkles their eyes, bright and reckless and unrestrained. They glance at Melvin, at me, back to Melvin, and laugh a full-body, bright, uncaring laugh.
“Working on it,” Jordan answers, reaching for more masonry bits, not missing a beat.
Melvin picks up his clipboard and heads for the stockroom, pausing at the threshold. “See that you do,” tossed over his shoulder.
He’s gone, and the store hums with the fans and my heartbeat, which is probably audible in Rutland.
Jordan doesn’t say anything. They don’t need to. The smile lingers, gentler now, eyes catching mine across the counter, and something shifts; a secret, a promise, the start of something unnamed but electric.
I look away, face still on fire, hands shaking, and for the first time in years, the weight of being seen doesn’t crush me.
It feels like finally breathing.
*
The last customer leaves at 6:47, thirteen minutes past close, and I lock up, relief flooding me. Melvin disappeared with a grunt half an hour ago, which I interpret as “see you tomorrow” but could well be indigestion.
Weekdays don’t do this. They don’t triple foot traffic, unwind yards of register tape, or strip half the peg hooks in aisle 4.
Jordan’s in the back, loading returns onto a cart, whistling a folk tune, unfamiliar, but not unwelcome. I find them by the shelves, cornering them with my question. “The foot traffic.”
They don’t even look up. “Yep.”
“Suspicious.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Abnormally high for a weekday.”
Jordan finally meets my eyes, arms crossed, expression carefully blank. “You saying I had something to do with it?”
“You have that look.”
“What look?”
“The one where you’re being useful and extremely pleased with yourself. It’s a thing.”
Jordan leans, all nonchalance, and shrugs. “Maybe I sent a few texts. Called some people. Let folks know Springs the air shifted, the space remade.
Jordan tells a story about a chimney job gone wrong, whiskey in a snowbank, and I laugh so hard I nearly fall off my chair.
Then the phone rings with an Arizona area code. I know before I look. Drew’s mother, same time every few weeks, a ritual more reliable than the house itself.
I stare at the phone for two rings, thumb hovering. Jordan, washing plates, glances over, goes gentle and quiet.
I answer. “Hey.”
“Maddie, honey.” Her voice is sunlight and patience, warm as always. She asks after the store, the garden, the never-ending zucchini. I answer on autopilot, one hand crushing the countertop, the other gripping my phone. We do this dance every time, comfort and landmines all at once.
Then it comes, careful, gentle. “Elaine mentioned you’ve been seeing Jordan lately.”
I go still. My white-knuckled grip could crack the counter. I brace for the judgment, the awkward pause, the hedging.
It doesn’t come.
Just a heartbeat, then, “Good. He’d like that.”
The dam inside me goes. Not all at once, but cracks spread, like ice on a spring pond.
My breath shakes out, and then it’s tears, real and ugly, sliding down the cabinet to the floor, completely undone.
I cry into the phone, into my hand, and Drew’s mother just stays, present and silent, not fixing or soothing or papering over, just holding the space with me until I can breathe again.
Jordan appears. Soft and solid, settling beside me on the floor, close but not crowding, a steady presence at my side. They don’t touch, just wait, patient and warm.
I cry until my whole body aches, until my shirt is soaked and the tissues Jordan finds me are gone, and I have nothing left but exhausted, shaky relief.
When it passes, I wipe my eyes and say, “I’m okay.”
“I know you are, honey,” his mom says, soft and soothing in that way only a mother can manage. “Call me next week?”
“I will.”
“Love you, Maddie.”
“Love you too.”
I hang up. Silence. Jordan’s still there, unwavering, and I lean into them, letting our shoulders press together. Their arm slides around me, gentle and sure, and I let myself lean.
I look around the kitchen. Drew’s tile, his hardware, every angle and fixture and handle chosen with intention. A whole life, mapped and measured.
Then I look at Jordan. Their gaze open, quiet, waiting, nothing forced.
“I think,” I say, voice rough but sure, “I need to change the house. Make it my own.”
Jordan doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t offer help or say it’s brave or any of those things. Just nods, squeezes my hand, fingers slipping through mine like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
And maybe it is.