19. Edda #2
I turn to Bennett.
“That’s what most days look like,” I say. “People with problems I can fix. It’s simple. I like simple.”
“I know.”
“You’re not simple.”
A faint pause. “I know that too.”
I move toward the back of the shop where the record player sits on a shelf beside spare parts and a small space heater I only use in January. I can feel him follow without looking, his pace measured, giving me room like he’s learned where the edges are and is careful not to cross them.
“You filed the defamation response,” I say, keeping my focus on the shelf, on anything that isn’t the weight of him in the room. “I read about it.”
“Full disclosure. Everything. The contract terms and consulting rates. All of it.”
“That cost you.”
“It cost me the story I was telling,” he says after a beat. “Not anything that mattered.”
I turn to face him. We're in the narrow hallway now, bicycles lined on both sides, the same place where we stood three weeks ago when everything shifted.
The record player is silent. Light from the high window breaks through the dust in the air, slowly drifting pieces of it between us.
"I'm keeping the baby," I say. Not because it's news, but because I need it anchored here again, in this space where nothing about us is simple anymore.
"I know," he says. His voice doesn't change. "I'm not asking you to change that. I'm not asking you to do anything."
"What are you asking?"
He doesn't answer right away.
Instead, his hand goes into his pocket. This time, he doesn't hesitate. He pulls out the St. Christopher medal and turns it over once in his palm. The worn brass catches the light.
"I don't know," he says at last. "I think I'm asking to be here. To learn how to do this differently. To stop trying to fix what doesn't need fixing and start showing up for what does."
His fingers close around the medal. Not tight. Just steady.
"I don't know how to do that," he adds. "But I want to learn."
I watch his hand. That stillness feels new on him. No performance in it, no careful edges, no attempt to manage what I see. Just him, holding something that once belonged to his mother, standing in my bicycle shop like he doesn't quite know where to put himself yet.
"You don't have to earn this," I say, quieter now. "You understand that, right? You don't have to pass tests or prove anything. That's not what I'm asking for."
“Then what are you asking for?”
“To be here. The way you’re here right now. Without the agenda.”
He nods once. The medal slips back into his pocket. “I can do that.”
“Can you? Because the Bennett Thornhill I met two months ago couldn’t stand in this shop for forty-five minutes without trying to buy something, fix something, or optimize something.”
A faint pause.
“That Bennett Thornhill hadn’t met you yet.”
The words land lower than I expect them to. Warm, inconvenient. I ignore it the way I ignore most things that threaten to slow me down.
So I move.
“Come on,” I say. “I need to measure the expansion unit for shelving. You can hold the tape.”
He follows me through the back door into the adjoining space.
It is still empty except for dust and possibility, the kind of room that feels like it is waiting for permission to become something.
Brown paper still covers the windows from the last tenant, and the light slipping through is muted, almost honeyed in its dullness.
I pull the measuring tape from my tool belt and hand him the loose end.
“Against that wall. Keep it steady.”
He crosses the room without comment, but there is nothing careless about it. He plants the metal tip against the baseboard and holds it there as it matters.
I extend the tape across the space, tracking the numbers, writing them into the small notebook tucked in my back pocket.
Twenty-three feet four inches.
“Good,” I say. “Now the width.”
I glance up long enough to catch him still holding the tape in place. Still waiting. Not rushing me. Not trying to take over.
That alone feels like its own kind of pressure.
We move through the space together, him holding, me measuring, both of us working without talking. The silence no longer unsettles me the way it once did. It doesn’t feel charged anymore, just functional. Two people sharing a task, moving through the same air without colliding.
When we finish, I coil the tape and clip it back to my belt. Bennett brushes dust from his hands onto his dark trousers, unconcerned by the pale streaks it leaves behind.
“The business loan came through,” I tell him. “I’m buying the expansion outright. My money. My terms.”
“I know. I heard from the bank.”
I pause. “You heard from the bank?”
“They called to verify the building ownership before approving the loan. Standard procedure.” He hesitates just long enough to register it, then adds, “I told them to approve whatever you submitted. I didn’t review the numbers or the terms. That was between you and them.”
Something in my chest loosens, subtle but real, like a grip I hadn’t noticed easing. “You could have.”
“I could have. I didn’t.”
“Why?”
His gaze holds mine for a second longer than necessary, not quite soft, not quite guarded either. “Because it wasn’t mine to decide.”
"Because you asked me to stop having answers. I'm stopping."
I look at him for a long moment. He meets my gaze without flinching. Neither of us moves.
"Okay," I say finally. "That's progress."
"Is it enough?"
"I don't know yet." I turn toward the door leading back into the main shop. "But I'm willing to find out."
He follows.
We end up back at the workbench, where this whole morning started.
The purple mountain bike still waits in the repair queue.
Mrs. Petrova's grandson's Schwinn sits polished by the register. The bell above the door will ring again soon. Another problem. Another fix. The day is moving forward whether I’m ready for it or not.
But something about the space between us doesn’t settle the way it used to.
"Lunch," I say. "Noon. The diner across the street. You're buying, and I'm getting a burger."
"I can do that," he says.
His voice is even, but he doesn't leave right away.
“And after lunch, if you’re still here, you can help me organize the parts bins in the back. They haven’t been sorted in six months, and it’s driving me crazy.”
“I can do that too.”
“Bennett.” I stop him before he can agree to anything else. “This isn’t a transaction. You don’t owe me labor in exchange for time with me. You’re not earning anything. I’m just asking you to be here. With me. Doing normal things.”
He holds still for a beat. “I know. I’m learning.”
“Good.” I pick up my pliers and turn back to the workbench. “Then learn. I’ll be here.”
Behind me, the stool by the register shifts softly under his weight. He doesn’t reach for his phone. Doesn’t glance toward the door. No restless checking of time, no escape route forming in his posture.
He just stays.
Present in a way that feels almost unfamiliar in the space between us.
I keep working, but something in the air has changed, subtle but steady, like the room has adjusted itself around the fact that he’s still here.
The bell over the door chimes. Another customer. Another problem waiting to be solved.
And Bennett Thornhill doesn’t move.
He stays right where he is.