Page 5

"No."

"Good afternoon to you too." I set the caramels on the corner of his workbench that isn't covered in wood shavings. "Salted caramels from Pistachio Sweets. Maya says hi."

"Maya doesn't say hi to me. Maya is scared of me."

"Maya is not scared of you. She told me her daughter sleeps with that wooden fox you made."

Something shifts behind his jaw. Barely there. A micro expression that vanishes before it fully forms. "What do you want, Kennedy?"

My name in his mouth does something I'm going to file away and deal with later. Something about the way his voice drops on the second syllable. Low and rough, like he didn't mean to say it that gently.

"New pitch." I flip open the clipboard. "Forget the whole lot. Give me half. Twenty cars. We'll keep them to the east side, away from your shop entrance. You won't even know they're there."

"I'll know."

"How? You don't leave the shop."

He sets the hand plane down. "I leave the shop."

"When?"

"When I want to."

"Which is never."

The corner of his mouth twitches. Not a smile. A twitch. But I see it, and something warm sparks in my stomach.

"Twenty cars," I press. "Three days. Nobody comes inside. Nobody touches your things. Nobody talks to you unless you talk first, and we both know that's not happening."

He picks the hand plane back up. Long, slow stroke down the wood. The curl peels away clean and falls to the floor. His hands are enormous. Scarred across the knuckles, calloused, steady. Carpenter's hands that look like they could take apart everything they build.

"What is this?" He nods at the piece he's working on without looking up.

"A table."

"What kind of table?"

"I don't know. A pretty one?"

"It's a console table. Red oak. Live edge. For a couple in Galena celebrating thirty years." Another long stroke. Another perfect curl. "You know what makes it work? The grain. See how it runs?" He tilts the plank and the light catches the wood's natural pattern, dark ribbons winding through the pale surface. "You can't force red oak to do anything. You work with what it gives you or you ruin it."

"Are you comparing yourself to a piece of wood right now?"

Those gray eyes come up. Steady. Warm despite everything his face is doing to pretend otherwise. "I'm saying some things don't respond to pressure. No matter how good the donuts are."

"The caramels are better."

"I'll be the judge of that."

We stare at each other across the workbench. Late afternoon light pouring through the windows behind him, turning the sawdust in the air into gold. His beard has a copper thread running through the auburn that I didn't notice yesterday. His jaw is set but his eyes are doing something else entirely. Something that makes me forget what I'm negotiating for.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. Then again. Then again.

Lisa:

Vendor 14 dropped out. We need someone for the east row near the corn maze.

Mom: