Chapter Twenty-Six
Fixer Upper
Crew
The cabin is a disaster.
Nine hundred square feet of rotting wood, busted windows, and a roof that leaks in four different places. The previous owner—an elderly man who’d died two years ago—had let it fall into disrepair, and his kids had been happy to unload it for a price that should’ve been a red flag.
I bought it anyway.
It’s three hours from Dallas, tucked into the woods outside Broken Bow, Oklahoma. No cell service. No neighbors. Nothing but pine trees and silence and a structure that needs so much work I could spend the next decade fixing it and still not be done.
That’s the point.
I swing the hammer, driving a nail into the new porch boards I’m laying down. The impact reverberates up my arm, sharp and satisfying. Swing. Hit. Swing. Hit. A rhythm I can lose myself in.
It’s been five weeks since I ended things with Emmie.
Five weeks of living in the same apartment, passing each other in the hallway like strangers. Five weeks of her bedroom door staying closed, of meals eaten separately, of silence so thick it feels like a physical presence.
Five weeks of watching her move on like I never mattered at all.
I heard her on the phone with Sadie three nights ago. I wasn’t eavesdropping—I was getting water from the kitchen, and her door was cracked, and her voice carried.
“His name is Reece. He’s a sous chef at that new place in McKinney. We’re going out Saturday.”
Reece. A sous chef. Someone who probably knows how to talk to people, how to be warm and open and emotionally available. Someone who won’t flinch when she reaches for him. Someone who can give her everything she deserves.
I’d stood there in the dark kitchen, glass of water in hand, and felt something inside me crack.
Then I’d gone back to my room and started packing a bag for Oklahoma.
Swing. Hit. Swing. Hit.
“You know, when you said you bought a cabin, I pictured something a little less… condemned.”
I look up. Foster is picking his way across the overgrown yard, a six-pack in one hand and a bag of sandwiches in the other. He’s wearing jeans and boots that look brand new—probably bought specifically for this trip.
“I told you it needed work.”
“You said it needed work. You didn’t say it was one strong wind away from collapsing.” He climbs the half-finished porch steps and surveys the damage. “Jesus, Crew. This place is a tetanus shot waiting to happen.”
“It has good bones.”
“It has bones, period. Like a skeleton. The dead skeleton of a cabin.” He sets down the beer and sandwiches. “Please tell me the inside is better.”
“The inside is worse.”
He pushes open the front door and peers in.
I watch his face as he takes it in—the warped floorboards, half of them rotted through.
The kitchen that’s missing most of its cabinets.
The stone fireplace crumbling in the corner, a birds’ nest visible in the exposed chimney.
Water stains bloom across the ceiling like bruises, and the smell of mildew and decay hangs thick in the air.
“Is that a hole in the floor?”
“Raccoons got in last winter. I’ve got plywood coming next week.”
“And the kitchen?”
“Previous owner ripped out the cabinets for firewood. Near as I can tell.”
Foster turns to look at me, something between horror and pity on his face. “Crew. This isn’t a fixer-upper. This is a tear-downer.”
“It has good bones,” I repeat.
“You keep saying that, but I’m not seeing bones. I’m seeing a crime scene.”
I gesture to the pile of lumber. “Porch needs to be finished. Then I’m replacing the windows.”
“Today?”
“Today’s a start.”
Foster shakes his head but grabs a hammer. For a while, we work in silence—him following my lead, asking occasional questions about measurements and technique. He’s not useless with his hands, but he’s clearly more comfortable behind a desk or chasing suspects than doing manual labor.
“So,” he says eventually. “You want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Cool. We’re going to talk about it anyway.
” He drives a nail in crooked, curses, and pries it out.
“It’s been over a month, Crew. You look like shit.
You’re barely sleeping—don’t deny it, I can see the bags under your eyes.
And now you’re out here in the middle of nowhere, building a cabin like some kind of post-apocalyptic hermit. ”
“I’m not building it. I’m renovating it.”
“That’s your takeaway from what I just said?”
I set down my hammer. “What do you want me to say, Foster?”
“I want you to admit you made a mistake. I want you to stop punishing yourself—and her—for something that doesn’t have to be over.”
“It is over.”
“Because you decided it was.” He turns to face me fully. “She didn’t leave, Crew. She didn’t ask you to end things. You did that. You blew it up before she had a chance to—”
“Before she had a chance to do it herself.” The words come out harsher than I intend. “I know how this ends, Foster. I’ve seen it play out a dozen times. People get close, they see what’s underneath, and they leave. Everyone leaves.”
“She’s not everyone.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know she looked at you like you hung the goddamn moon. I know she learned your routines and your quirks and your damage, and she didn’t run. She stayed.”
“Because of the contract.”
“Fuck the contract!” Foster throws his hands up. “You think she was curled up on that couch with you because of a piece of paper? You think she held you through nightmares because of a clause?”
I don’t answer. I never should have told him that.
“She’s dating someone else now,” I finally say. “Some chef named Reece.”
Foster goes quiet, his jaw working. There’s more he wants to say.
“She’s moving on. That’s good. That’s what she should do.” I pick up my hammer again, stare at the nail I was about to drive in. “She deserves someone who can give her what she wants. The family, the kids, the whole picture. She deserves someone who isn’t—”
“Isn’t what? Broken?” Foster’s voice is softer now. “Crew. Everybody’s broken. That’s not a disqualifier for love. That’s just being human.”
“I’m not just broken. I’m—” I struggle to find the words. “She wants Sunday dinners and Christmas mornings and a house full of kids making messes. She wants normal. I can’t give her normal. I don’t even know what normal looks like.”
“So you learn. Together.”
“And what if I can’t? What if I try and I fail and I hurt her worse than I already have?” I shake my head. “At least this way it’s clean. She can move on. Find someone better.”
“Someone like Reece the chef?”
The name feels like a knife between my ribs.
“Yeah,” I manage. “Someone like that.”
Foster is quiet for a long moment. Then he sets down his hammer and sits on the porch steps, looking out at the trees.
“You know what I think?” he says. “I think you’re so scared of being left that you’d rather do the leaving yourself. I think you convinced yourself this is noble—protecting her from you—when really it’s just cowardice.”
“Thanks for the support.”
“I’m not here to support your bad decisions. I’m here to tell you you’re being an idiot.” He glances back at me. “That woman is the best thing that ever happened to you. And you let her go because you were too afraid to find out if she’d stay.”
The words land somewhere deep, somewhere I’ve been trying not to look.
“It’s too late,” I say. “She’s already moving on.”
“One date isn’t moving on. One date is trying to distract herself from the asshole who broke her heart.
” Foster stands, brushing off his jeans.
“It’s not too late, Crew. But it will be if you keep hiding out up here, building a cabin you’re never going to live in, pretending you’re fine when you’re clearly falling apart. ”
I don’t respond. Just stare at the boards beneath my feet, the nails I’ve driven in, the tangible evidence of work I can point to and say I did that. I fixed that.
If only everything were that simple.
We work in silence for the rest of the afternoon. The porch takes shape, board by board, nail by nail. Something solid emerging from something broken.
Part of me wishes it were that easy with people.
Part of me wishes I could tear out the rotted parts of myself and replace them with something new, something worthy of the woman I fell for.
Not because someone forced me. Not because it was expected. But because she deserved more than the man I used to be. More than the man I still am.
But I don’t know how to be anyone else.
And some things, once broken, can’t be fixed with a hammer and nails.
* * *
That night, I lie on the cabin’s bare floor—no furniture yet, just a sleeping bag and a lantern—and stare at the ceiling.
Through the windows, I can see stars. Thousands of them, bright and clear in a way they never are in Dallas.
You can see them from my balcony sometimes, I’d told her once. Late at night, when most of the city’s asleep.
I wonder if she’s looking at the sky right now.
I wonder if she’s thinking about me at all, or if she’s already replaced me with someone who doesn’t make everything so goddamn complicated.
I wonder if Reece the sous chef knows how she takes her coffee, or that she cries at commercials about paper towels, or that she hums off-key when she’s testing recipes.
I wonder if he’ll learn to read her the way I did—every shift in mood, every unspoken need.
I wonder if she’ll let him.
My phone buzzes. I pull it out—one bar of service, barely—and see a text from Foster.
It’s not too late.
I stare at the words for a long time.
Then I set the phone down and close my eyes.
But I don’t sleep.