I turn around.
Keer. Waterskin in one hand. Wood dust in his hair, sawdust on his forearms, sweat at his collar. He's been raising a beam. He looks it.
Cedar and sweat and sawdust. I didn't think sawdust would smell so sexy—
Keer's eyebrow shoots up.
Behind me, Bram grunts. He picks up his hammer and removes himself to the far end of the rail.
I turn my head to Bram. "Oh, shut it, Bram. Get used to it."
"Mm."
I turn back to Keer. "Hi."
He hands me the waterskin.
"I'm not dehydrated. I want to make that clear up front. I'm drinking water at appropriate intervals. Bram and I have a system. Well, Bram and I do not actually have a system, that was a lie. Bram's refusing to drink water and I'm drinking water spitefully on his behalf in order to model the behavior. He hasn't adopted the behavior. He's decided he's in a hydration competition. He's losing the hydration competition and he refuses to acknowledge—"
His thumb at my cheek. Brief.
"Drink. Eat."
"That was—that was two words, Keer. You can't just—"
He's already walking back toward the dwelling.
Hmph. I drink the water.
Bram, after: "He's not wrong."
"Hammer the rail, Bram."
Another grunt.
I drink more water.
The water hits my stomach wrong.
I don't notice it for a second. Then I notice it. It sits there. Cold. Sloshing.
The post in front of me shifts slightly. Then it's not the post that's shifting, it's me. Heat goes up my spine and across my scalp and the back of my throat fills with what is not saliva.
I brace one hand on the rail.
I haven't slept. I slept four hours, maybe five. The wood treatment Axan uses on the corner posts smells terrible up close—black, sticky, acrid—and I have been bending over rails for three hours. That's all this is.
The heat goes. The cold replaces it.
I push off the rail.
"Pegs, Bram. Three more long pegs. Cross brace."
He looks at me. Goes for pegs.
I sit on the log. Not because I need to sit. Because the log is there, and it is sometimes useful to sit.
I drink more water.
