Page 64 of The Lumberjack and the City Slicker

Big. Bold. A statement piece.

The kind of thing my agent keeps telling me will sell for obscene amounts of money if I’ll just let her market it.

Scale has been the obsession lately—taking the intimate designs I used to etch into belts and small boxes and blowing them up into something that can’t be ignored.

Tables. Bookshelves. Headboards.

Things that live in a room and make people stop talking when they see them.

I decided months ago I was going to start a line.

Hand-carved, crafted, etched, finished.

My hands, my work, my rules.

And for months it’s been willows.

Always willows.

Branches bending. Roots anchored. Leaves like whispers. A signature I never meant to become a beacon.

Sunsets too.

The mountain landscape in the background.

That’s what I remember from being a kid up here—the way my grandfather pointed at the trees and said, See? Even when they bend, they don’t break.

Like it was a lesson. Like it was a warning.

But for a while now it’s been willows.

Willows became a passion.

A message.

A brand, apparently, even if I never asked for it.

But not today.

Today, I know I’m starting something different.

The tip of the burner hovers above the wood, heat shimmering faintly in the air.

I stare at the blank surface, waiting for the first line to come to me.

I don’t move.

Because the tires are still crunching along my drive in the distance.

Because I can feel her leaving like it’s a physical thing.

Like a hand sliding out of mine.

Because even from here, even with the mask and the workshop and the tools, I can’t outrun the fact that she was in my bed this morning.

That she was warm and soft and breathing quietly beside me like she belonged there.

That I kissed the sweet tattoo on her shoulder like I had a right to.