I try again, and I think I’ve got it this time. Until I let the board go and it swings down, smacking me in the toe. “Shit!” I shout, grasping the fence for balance.
“What are you doing?” A voice comes from behind me, followed by a mean laugh.
I continue what I’m doing, picking up the board, not giving him the satisfaction. “Fixing the fence.”
“That’s not what it looks like from here.”
Will comes to stand beside me, hands in his pockets, his hoodie from before stripped down to a t-shirt, looking at the piece of fence I’ve been working on for the past twenty minutes with an expression identical to the one Frank left me with.
“I’ve got it under control.”
“You’re holding the nail gun wrong.”
“You sound like Frank.”
“Frank may have been right this one time.” He holds his hand out. “Give me that before you kill yourself.”
“I’ve got it.”
“Nolan.” He says my name the way I say the kids’ names when they’re being particularly annoying, wiggling his fingers. “Give it.”
I hand it over, no idea why I’m arguing in the first place.
He takes it, and it looks right in his hands, like he has some idea how to use it. “Hold that flat against the post.” Lining up the nail gun, uncomfortably close to my fingers, he pulls the trigger. The nail goes in straight on the first try.
“How did you do that?”
“Dad taught me,” he says, already moving to the next section.
We work our way down the fence line, me holding boards and Will doing the actual work, and we’re actually efficient, unlike the previous half hour I spent out here. He knows what he’s doing.
“You held it crooked that time,” he speaks up, breaking the comfortable silence we’ve fallen into.
“I’m a doctor, not a carpenter.”
“Yeah,” he says, turning back to the fence. “We all noticed.”
On the next board, my eyes catch on his arms. The muscles that flex under his short sleeve when he lifts the nail gun. The goosebumps pebbling his skin from the wind…
That board is crooked, too.
When we finish, Will steps back and looks at the fence with his hands on his hips. I look at it too. “Well, it looks like shit, but it’s what the old man wanted.”
“He said it would blend in with time,” I inform him.
“Let’s hope so,” he says, reaching down and grabbing the hem of his shirt, lifting it to wipe the sweat from his face. Right about the time I’ve turned to look at him.
My eyes catch on his torso. On the definition of his toned stomach, the lines and the trail of hair leading lower…
“What? I got something on my shirt?”
I flinch, looking up quickly to meet his eyes. He’s dropped his shirt, and his eyebrows are raised in question. “Oh. Um. No, nothing,” I stutter, turning away from him. I can feel his eyes on me, burning a hole in the back of my head, heating my ears. “Are we done?”
“Yeah,” he says slowly. “We’re done.”
I hesitate, looking in the rearview mirror. Addie has her phone out, and Ollie is resting on her shoulder, watching a video. Shemust feel me looking at her because she meets my eyes through the mirror.
“I’m gonna go talk to Uncle Will for a second. Lock the doors.”
