Chapter 64
Rafe
One month later
Amber and misery are my best friends these days. Even building this workshop stopped bringing me joy. But still I build. Just in case.
My memories still haunt me. She’s in my mind every second of the day, worse since I’ve been building this space for her.
Imagining what she’d look like hunched over a worktable crafting her wooden miniatures.
I’d buy her an apron to protect her clothes, and over time sawdust and wood shavings would probably fill the pockets. But I’d keep cleaning it for her.
“You hear that!” I yell into the overcast sky. “I’d clean her apron for her!”
My laugh is thunderous. No doubt sardonic. Because it’s the funniest thing—all this will be for nothing. When she re-writes her past and gets her tongue back, my memory of her will be lost forever, so will this workshop still be standing?
It won’t be will it. I’m an idiot.
I stand before the wooden structure, bringing the bottle of amber to my lips, leaving white fingerprints on the glass from my dusty hands used sanding the wood.
“Don’t want my woman getting any splinters.” I laugh again.
The fire of rage in my core burns to near inferno as amusement soon changes to sourness at the loss of her. And just like that my heart shatters all over again.
I raise the bottle, rearing back my shoulder to throw at the workshop.
It never leaves my hand.
“Stop,” he says, gripping the bottle. “The drinking stops, Rafe.”
“Fuck you.” I stumble away from his hold, plonking my drunk arse on a nearby tree stump.
“How long do I have?” I ask. Is that why he’s here? To warn me, prepare for the impending loss? To tell me to stop building the workshop because it’s all due to disappear soon.
Fuck, I’m pathetic. Never have I been so cut up over a woman. I’m convinced I’d have dealt with this better if I had Sam here. But I have no one.
Except for future Rafe. Someone I loathe right now, yet don’t push away. I’m not too ashamed to say I’m still so fucking lonely.
“Looking good. Coming along nicely.” He skirts around my question, running a palm down the smooth plane of wood I’ve not long installed around the sill of what will be a window.
“Is it all for nothing?” I point the bottle at the workshop. Rafe sits on another tree stump; he winces when his bare arse cheeks slap against the wood.
“Thought you hated when I gave you nuggets of the future?”
I snort, shaking my head. Bastard using my own philosophy against me.
“Why you here then?”
He points to my bottle. “Because that needs to stop.”
“Let me guess,” I say, taking a swig. “I saw a finger off?”
He chuckles, wiggling all ten digits at me.
“Give me one good reason why I should stop drinking?”
He blows out a long-drawn-out breath. “Because you’re drunk when you install the decking stairs, the un-levelness makes her go wobbly every time.”
My head snaps up. My heart thunders. Rafe grins, showing all his white teeth.
“And then I have to correct it later on and end up tweaking my back.” He stands, stretching his spine out, groaning for emphasis.
I don’t care about him and his dodgy back; I’m stuck on what he said prior — ‘makes her go wobbly.’
I scrub my hands down my face with aggression, waking myself up from the drunk haze before grabbing the bottle of amber from the ground and launching it into the wooden area, feeling Rafe’s heat behind me, smacking my shoulder.
She doesn’t erase me.
“Would she prefer one window, or two?”
Crickets are my only reply. He’s gone.
Motherfucker.
I bark out a laugh, yelling to no one, “No drinking. No wonky stairs. Let’s do this.”