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The phone buzzed again. He reached for the sander instead.

It had taken four weeks, but Gavin had finally stopped checking his phone every time it buzzed.

Mostly.

The first few days after dinner had been embarrassing. Every notification had sent a stupid jolt of anticipation through him before he looked down to find a client asking about grout colors or his father sending a photograph of something he’d built in the garage with no explanation whatsoever. None of them had been from Dom, and eventually, Gavin had stopped expecting messages that never came. He’d gotten used to not sending texts too, though that had taken longer.

Gavin switched on the sander, and the vibration traveled up his arm while fine dust rose off the walnut and into the air.

He’d almost broken the silence the morning he’d finished replacing the fence at Evan and CJ’s house. He’d been standing in their backyard, staring at a clean line of newly set cedar posts, when the thought had slipped in uninvited. It was just a quick snippet of a memory, of Dom looking at him like he needed to be kissed right before he let Gavin back him against the kitchen counter. It’d been enough to make want coil tight in his gut, and he’d reached for his phone. For a second, he’d forgotten how that night had ended, and his fingers had been typing a message before he stopped himself.

He’d deleted the message before he made the mistake of sending it.

Another time he’d passed a display of Barracuda onesies in the frozen aisle of the grocery store, of all places. Gavin had picked one up and wondered if Lucia had one. He hadn’t asked.

He didn’t text after games anymore either, even when Dom hit a double in the eighth that drove in the tying run against Seattle.

He left him alone, just like Dom wanted. Maybe he hadn’t said so in those exact words, but Gavin had gotten the message just the same. I can’t do this. Lucia comes first. I’m sorry. There wasn’t much room for interpretation. Neither of them reaching out was probably for the best, and Gavin had told himself that often enough that he was almost ready to believe it.

The phone buzzed a third time.

“Jesus.”

Gavin shut off the sander and wiped sawdust from his hands onto his jeans before digging his phone out of his pocket. Three notifications waited on the screen. The first was an email from his supplier, and he swiped it off the screen without reading it. The second and third were a missed call and a voicemail from a client that he would listen to later. Another notification slid across the top of the screen, and Gavin froze, his thumb hovering above the phone as he stared at the name.

His body reacted before his brain could catch up. His pulse jumped and his stomach tightened, and every bit of calm he’d built up over the last month disappeared under a ridiculous amount of adrenaline. He unlocked the phone and opened a painfully simple message.

Dom

Hey

Gavin stared at it, then laughed once under his breath because, of course. Four weeks of silence and Dominic Rizzo reappears with “hey.” He should probably give him points for being concise. Gavin leaned one hip against the workbench and read it again. There were a dozen ways to interpret one word if he overthought it enough. Maybe Dom had a question about the house or needed something fixed. Or maybe four weeks had been enough time for Dom to decide they should officially clear the air so they could go back to being casual friends who might occasionally end up at the same dinner table again someday.

He didn’t like the way that possibility dropped like a rock in his stomach, and he hated that it bothered him at all. They’d shared one kiss. That was all. One kiss didn’t make a relationship. It should barely qualify as a complication. Except it hadn’t felt like just a kiss. It had felt like every small thing between them—every text, every call, every joke they’d exchanged—finally made sense.

The phone buzzed again.

Dom

I know that’s probably a shitty opening after disappearing for a month.

Gavin’s mouth twitched. At least Dom was self-aware enough to know he could have done better. Another message appeared before he could answer.

Dom

Even though technically I guess I didn’t disappear because you knew where I was.

Gavin laughed now. There he was. He could practically hear Dom talking himself into a justification for his silence, and he waited as the typing bubble appeared, stopped, then appeared again.

Dom

That sounded better in my head.

Gavin shook his head and typed.

Gavin

You’re doing great.