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Then his head comes up.
“Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“That’s a very weird thing to just wonder for no reason.” He scowls in that way he did when I first arrived. Suspicion and something very close to fury under it. “You about to tell me to stop fishing them out? Or to put up rails? Because if this is about liability-”
“It’s not about liability.”
“Good. I’m not fencing off my docks because somebody can’t read a sign.”
“Nobody asked you to.”
“They’d still find a way in.”
“I’m sure they would.”
He watches me a moment longer, then picks up the toolbox.
Not a flicker. Not one. He’s looked straight at my face while talking about hauling drowning strangers out of that water and there’s nothing behind his eyes but irritation.
I want him to remember. I want it to have meant something to him. To not just be another stupid tourist who didn’t watch her step. I want it so much it’s humiliating.
But he doesn’t. My life changed that day, but nothing happened to him. He got a kid out of the water, went back to whatever he’d been doing, and never thought about it again. Just another Tuesday.
Meanwhile I all but framed the shirt he gave me and built a fairytale man out of that one encounter.
He picks up the offcut of wood, snaps it over his knee to fit the trash can, and throws it in. Then he goes back to the window and shoves the sash up to test it, lets it fall, shoves it up again.
“I knew who you were before I took this job.”
The sash comes down with a bang that takes the whole sentence with it.
“What?”
He’s got his hand on the latch, half turned toward me, waiting.
“I said it sounds better.”
“It’s a window. It doesn’t sound like anything.”
He throws the latch and puts his shoulder into the frame one more time, satisfied when it doesn’t give, while I stand in the middle of the office with my heart pounding and nothing coming out of my mouth.
Chapter 5
Aiden
I’ve been lying here in the dark long enough to quit pretending sleep is on its way.
The house is too quiet. Down at the yard there’s always an engine ticking itself cool, gulls arguing over something dead out on the east dock, Diesel snoring loud enough to rattle the glass in the frames. Here it’s the fridge cycling on and off downstairs, the wind not doing much of anything, and me on my back with a dick hard enough to drive nails.
Ten days she’s been at that yard. Longer than I gave her. Her truck in the lot before mine every morning, her coffee in the pot instead of my mud, her new boots still stiff enough that I hear her coming across the gravel before I see her.
Ten days of walking past that office window swearing I’m not looking in it.
Haven’t touched myself once since she got here. Not once. A man can want something in the dark all he likes as long as he doesn’t move, so I’ve held still every night with my hands where I can see them, because moving is the same as saying it out loud.
Tonight I tell myself it’s plumbing. It’s nothing. Get it done, get some sleep like a man with a normal problem.
