We stand there again, shoulders angled toward each other, both of us working to accept the thing we’ve said out loud. The thing we can’t undo.
We like the same woman.
And she might like both of us. Or someone else. Or all three in ways she hasn’t figured out yet.
The thought should tear something in me. Instead, it feels like a knot loosening. At least we’re not pretending anymore.
Jude shifts his gaze toward the far end of the hall, where Maisie has convinced two grown men to build a tower out of broken drywall pieces.
“She really likes Norah,” he murmurs.
“Yeah,” I say. “She does.”
“She hasn’t liked anyone like that since…”
I nudge him lightly. “You don’t need to finish that.”
He nods. We both know how much his niece adored our mate.
We both look over the hall together. Volunteers moving. Hammers swinging. Sawdust rising. Maisie shouting at a pile of wood.
Jude says, “We need to reinforce that far wall, and the sink needs replacing.”
“We can do that.”
“And the floor’s uneven.”
“We’ll fix it.”
“And I need to talk to Norah.”
I nod. “Good.”
“You gonna tell her how you feel, too?”
“Eventually.”
He turns toward me. “You’re not backing down.”
“No.”
He dips his chin. “Okay.”
That’s it. The shift. The acceptance. The unspoken agreement that liking the same woman doesn’t make us enemies.
That we can walk this without tearing each other apart. That there’s room for more than one truth in the same messy story.
Jude rubs his thumb across his palm, thinking hard. “She’s going to complicate everything.”
“Yeah,” I say. “But she already did.”
We share a look. Long enough to acknowledge that the ground between us has changed forever.
Then Chase yells that the drywall tower has collapsed, and Maisie is cheering like it’s the best thing she’s ever seen.
Jude huffs a breath that almost counts as a laugh. “I’ll get her.”
“I’ll tell Chase the steel post needs to go in.”
