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“The guys are here to install the new sign.” I gave him a tiny smile. “Want to watch?”
He studied me. “If you’ll join me.”
Carefully, I nodded, and left his office while he followed.
Chapter Fourteen
Aiden
I’d almost convinced myself that the invitation for her to join me meant nothing. Almost. Because as we walked side by side, a low, humming awareness arced between her body and mine even though we didn’t touch.
Nothing more would ever be possible with her, I’d come to realize. But it was tolerable, at least for my own sanity, as long as it didn’t progress past this.
It was that awareness that had me stepping just a little farther away from her, because the last thing I needed was to ruin the ease we’d found in the recent stretch of days.
“Lemonade?” she asked.
In my head, I laughed out loud. But I kept my face even as I answered. “Nope.”
When I glanced in her direction, she was frowning.
“It’s not fair, you know,” she said lightly. “I know you asked Amy what to get us.”
I pushed open the gym door and gestured for her to exit the building in front of me. “Life never is fair, is it, Ward?”
She snorted.
The men standing in the cherry picker affixed the sign with precision as Isabel, and I found a spot to stand and watch. The edges of the H appeared, a vivid blue that would glow brightly when the lights turned on at night.
Next to me, Isabel shaded her eyes and watched them work.
Her frame expanded on a deep inhale, and I found myself waiting to see if she’d speak, what she’d say.
“Before I came here for the first time, I had no idea how to handle all the things I’d shoved down. At fourteen, I didn’t know it was just … anger waiting to get out.” She licked her lips as more of the sign appeared. “Fear too, I guess. I ended my first workout a sobbing mess.” She paused, a rueful expression on her beautiful face, and I couldn’t tear my eyes from her. “I hate crying. But this place gave me something safe. Somewhere safe to put all the things that were too big for my body.”
It was easy to imagine her at that age, blazing eyes and emotions exploding out of her.
The workers moved to the other side, half of the sign now visible.
“I have never loved a place more than the home where my brother raised us,” she continued. “Until I walked through those doors.” Isabel turned to me, eyes soft and solemn. “I’m really proud to be a part of what you’re building here, Aiden. You’re taking something I love, and you’re treating it with the same care that I would if it were mine.”
My reaction to her words, her admission, wasn’t peaceful or soothing, and it took everything in me to hold still, not to reach for her hand, simply to find an anchor in the moment. “Thank you,” I said in a gruff voice.
Through the sound of the drills they used, the loud tinkering of metal on metal, Isabel and I fell into a comfortable silence.
I closed my eyes as the sun warmed my skin, and I imagined Beth seeing this. She’d be proud, in this home I’d found, this haven I was building.
The workers pulled the last of the protective coverings down, and as the cherry picker lowered, I finally saw the name in full.
“Looks good,” she said quietly.
The words were slow to crawl up my throat, past the hard-edges of emotion crowding the space. “It does.”
Somehow, it felt right that it was just her and I witnessing this moment, and I refused to dig into why.
“You didn’t want to have a big ribbon-cutting or anything?” she asked.
I shook my head.
