The oven is preheating. My hands are in flour. Apple cinnamon something — I haven't decided what yet, just that my fingers need to be busy and the alternative is thinking about the weight of his arm.
Liam comes downstairs in the same dark henley. His hair is damp. His jaw is set. He pours coffee from the pot he madebefore I came down — always the right strength, always with my mug waiting, handle facing the direction I reach from.
"Morning," he says.
"Morning."
He takes his coffee to the porch. The screen door catches cleanly — the latch he fixed — and I press my flour-dusted knuckles against the counter and exhale.
The pillows are back in place upstairs. I rebuilt the wall before I came down, shoving the bolster into position like a barricade against a siege I've already lost.
"You're being ridiculous," I tell the oven. The oven's preheat light blinks in a way that suggests judgment.
Nina's coffee shop smells like cardamom and roasted hazelnuts and small-town surveillance disguised as hospitality.
We walk in together because that's what fake boyfriends and their fake girlfriends do. Liam holds the door. His hand lands on the small of my back for exactly two seconds, and those two seconds burn through my shirt like a brand.
Nina sets down two mugs without being asked. She's known our orders since the second visit, because her former career in corporate marketing apparently trained her to build customer profiles with military precision.
A woman at the next table leans over. Mid-fifties, silver earrings, open face. "You two are at the Foxglove, right?"
"That's us. I'm Kari. This is Liam."
"Britt Lindahl. I'm over on Alder, behind the dry cleaner." Her mouth tightens, then recovers. "How did you two meet?"
The question lands between us like a grenade.
Liam's coffee mug stops halfway to his mouth. His gray eyes cut to me — we didn't rehearse this — and then he sets the mug down.
"We met through a mutual professional connection," he says.
Oh no.
"I was contracted to provide — " He pauses. Recalibrates. "I was working in the area, and Kari was establishing a hospitality operation at the property, and our paths intersected through a shared associate who identified a compatible — "
"He means a friend introduced us," I say.
Britt's eyebrows are climbing. Nina has stopped pretending to wipe glasses.
"Right," Liam says. "A friend. Del. She's in the food service industry. She made a referral based on — "
"Based on the fact that she thought we'd hit it off." My hand finds his forearm. A rescue mission disguised as affection. His muscle tenses, then releases. "Del's my best friend. She finally wore me down."
"And? Love at first sight?" Britt asks.
"It was a disaster," I say, and something loosens in my chest because this part is almost true. "He showed up looking like he hadn't slept in three days, didn't smile for the first hour, and the first thing he said was that my locks were insufficient."
Britt laughs. Nina snorts.
"The locks were insufficient," he says.
"He fixed them that night. And the porch step. And a drawer in the kitchen." My thumb traces a circle on his forearm. "He's not great with words. But he's very good with his hands."
The sentence lands before I hear it.
Heat crawls up my neck. Nina's eyebrows hit her hairline. Britt makes a sound that's half laugh, half delighted gasp.
"I mean — tools. He repairs things."
