Page 49 of What Remains of Grace

So why ask now?

She told herself it was nothing, just a friendly gesture, another kindness in a long list of them. But part of her brain replayed every mixed signal: the rain-soaked night he wouldn’t step inside, the way he’d looked at her on the floor today, the softness in his voice that didn’t match the distance he kept.

He was a contradiction, or at least he seemed that way to her. Constant, unreadable, warm in small flashes that felt accidental. Distant in ways that were probably just him doing his job.

And she was the fool trying to decode it like it meant something. Or maybe he wasn’t a contradiction at all.

Maybe she just wanted more than this arrangement allowed, and anything that didn’t move in that direction felt like a mixed signal.

When he went back to work, she ran her fingers along the edge of the chalkboard. The dust came away soft against her skin.

It wasn’t the only thing Grace left behind. Not by a long shot. But it was something she could touch.

Something that remained.

13

Slack Water

Jenna poured a cup of coffee and stood by the sink, watching the weak ripple of heat over the mug.

The morning light made everything feel simpler than it was. Jenna knew better.

Because somehow the thing she couldn’t stop thinking about wasn’t the storm or the bakery or even the way Cole kept appearing exactly when she needed him.

It was paddleboarding.

He wouldn’t come in out of the rain, but he wanted to meet her on the water at sunrise.

She couldn’t make sense of him.

Maybe that was the point. A man reckless enough to patch a roof in a storm in the middle of the night, careful enough to keep his distance, but bold enough to ask her to meet him at dawn.

No wonder her brain was short-circuiting.

She checked her email, closed the tab, then reopened it. Pointless. Her eyes weren’t tracking a single word.

Next door, the bakery started its usual morning racket, voices carrying through the open windows, the soft thud of something heavy being set down, laughter she could almost place. She should go over. She knew she should. But embarrassment tugged at her heels like a hand on her ankle.

What if they’d seen her crying?

What if Cole had told them she fell apart over a chalkboard?

Told them?

God, who was she kidding?

They were all standing right there. Of course, they knew.

She wasted the first half of the day pretending to be busy, typing, re-typing, reorganizing files that didn’t need reorganizing, anything to avoid facing the audience from yesterday.

A knock jolted her upright.

Not the delicate two-knuckle tap she’d grown accustomed to. This one was louder, abrupt, unmistakably not Cole.

She opened the door to find Travis and the two new guys, one in a Braves hat and the other one who always argued about football.

“Peace offering,” Travis said, lifting a paper sack that smelled like gyro meat and grilled onions. “We got extra.”