Page 24 of Where Roads Lead

“You don’t owe me anything. It should’ve been done before you moved in.”

I frowned. “You’re not my landlord, are you?”

I shuddered to think of the possibility.

“No, but I handle stuff like this around town,” he said.

“Shouldn’t Mr. Briggs’s family be handling it?” I asked. “They’re the ones I’m renting from, aren’t they?”

“They don’t really care about stuff like this,” he said. “As you can probably tell, they’d be happy enough to let the house fall into ruin. Clearly, it doesn’t stop people from renting.” He shot me a pointed look.

Well, he had a point. There hadn’t been an apartment for rent with a price this low since the early 2000s, let alone a whole house.

“It was sort of a hasty decision,” I admitted.

“I figured,” he said. “No one rents a place without coming to see it first.”

“In this housing market? I’d say seven out of ten people would. Besides, it doesn’t look that bad, does it?”

I was proud of it, in a way. It was the only place I’d ever lived in by myself. And despite some foundational flaws (i.e. the possible leaky roof and some insulation issues), I was settling in nicely.

“It’s not an aesthetic issue, it’s a safety hazard.”

“Why do you care so much about this stuff, anyway?” I asked. “I mean, who made you the appointed fixer-upper guy for the town?”

“Necessity,” he said. “Everyone else is—”

“Unreliable?” I grinned.

“Incompetent, mostly,” he said, and I could’ve sworn there was the hint of a smile there, if he were capable of it.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m highly competent.”

“Clearly,” he said. “I mean, you did make muffins.”

“Right. They were supposed to be a peace offering. Did they work?”

This time he did smile. It was sort of beautiful.

“They were fine,” he admitted, biting his lip as if he could hide the fact that he was feeling something other than raging indifference.

“So,” I raised my brows, outstretching my hand in his direction, “can we call a truce?”

“We were never at war.”

“Maybe not, but you have to admit what was between us could at least be worthy of the term battle.”

He sighed. I smiled at the way he rubbed a hand over his face. It was quite a feat to bring a man of his size to such a profound level of exhaustion through words alone.

“I’m starting to realize it’s easier to just go along with these bits of yours,” he said, accepting my outstretched hand. “So fine, truce.”

I looked down at our hands.

“This is legally binding, you know. It’s an official white flag.”

He rolled his eyes and pulled his hand away to reach for the tool bag on the kitchen floor. I almost felt sorry to see him go.

He might not be pleasant, but he definitely had a way of filling the room. A stark difference from the utter loneliness I’d gotten used to, long before I came to Colbridge.