"God forbid."
I set the hammer free and set it back on its hook. Third hook. Where it lives. Even in pitch darkness, my garage maintains its organizational integrity.
Now. Seating.
Two five-gallon buckets. One held wood stain, now empty and clean. The other held deck screws, which I transfer by feel into the parts organizer on the second shelf. I flip both buckets upside down and set them against the wall, spacing them eighteen inches apart because anything closer would be presumptuous and anything farther would waste heat.
"Sit."
The bucket scrapes against concrete as she drops onto it. Her teeth are chattering. Not the polite kind, the real kind, the full-body tremor that starts in the jaw and works its way down to the knees.
I strip off what's left of my shirt. Useless. Shredded and soaked. I ball it up and toss it toward the laundry bin in the corner. Miss, probably, but I'll deal with that later.
The flannel is on the emergency peg behind the door. Heavy cotton, red and black buffalo check, size triple-XL because orc shoulders don't fit in human pattern cuts. I bought it at the same thrift store where I found the dad shirt. It's my backup layer for early morning mowing sessions when the dew sits heavy and the air bites.
I drape it around her shoulders.
The flannel swallows her. The hem hits her knees. The sleeves hang past her fingertips. She pulls it tight across her body and her chattering slows, then stops, replaced by a long exhale that fogs in the three-inch gap of cold air bleeding through the door.
"This is warm."
"It's flannel."
"It smells like you."
I sit on my bucket. The plastic creaks under my weight but holds. Good bucket. I knew the brand was worth the upcharge.
Quiet settles between us. Not the awkward kind. The kind that happens when two people have sprinted through a thunderstorm, climbed a ravine, and nearly been crushed by a tree in the span of forty minutes. The kind that strips away small talk and leaves whatever's underneath.
Rain drums the roof. The three-inch gap whistles when the wind gusts hard. My hands throb inside Junia's makeshift bandages. The cloth is warm now, body temperature, pressed against my palms like her hands are still holding them.
"Why'd you leave the warbands?"
The question lands soft. No edge to it.
"Too much chaos."
"That's it?"
"That's everything. Warbands are all chaos. No structure. No routine. You wake up and the plan changes six times before breakfast, and breakfast is whatever you can grab while running. I spent eleven years like that. Eleven years of disorder. When I left, I bought a house with a lawn and I mowed it in perfect lines and I slept twelve hours straight for the first time since I was a child."
The flannel rustles. She's pulling it tighter.
"And then I moved in next door with my exploding plants and my animated flamingos."
"Yes."
"And I ruined your perfect lines."
The three-inch gap whistles again. I flex my damaged hands. Open. Closed. The splinter wounds sting and the bandages pull.
"You didn't ruin them."
"Flynn, your lawn had bite marks."
"The lines grew back." I stare into the darkness where she sits. Can't see her face. Can see the vague shape of her, small inside my flannel, curls starting to spring back as they dry, one knee pulled up against her torso. "The lines always grow back. That's what grass does. That's what order does. It reasserts itself. I've spent eleven years making sure of it. eleven years of identical mornings. Identical routines. Everything in its place."
The garage is small and dark and the words come out at the volume they want to, which is barely above the rain.
