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CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
Noah stared down at Mindy as they each held on to the broom, completely and utterly lost in the familiar, comforting brown of her eyes.
His gaze flicked down to her lips, aching to bend down and bring his mouth to hers. He wondered if her kiss would be as soft as it had been all those years ago, if it would still make him feel as happy and whole as it had then.
Just like it had the other day, something built between them, as if an invisible force were pulling them together. But before he could take the leap and lean down to kiss the woman standing before him, Mindy cleared her throat, stepping back. The moment between them broke, the tension in the air dissipating.
“Thank you,” Mindy told him, letting out a breath. “For coming to the shop to help me. I really appreciate it.”
Noah shook his head. “You don’t have to thank me. I was glad to do it.”
“Well, I’m still grateful.” She lifted one shoulder and then let it drop in a small shrug. “Not everyone would do something like that, and it means a lot to me that you came.”
They gazed at each other in silence for a long moment, the quiet broken only by the sound of the wind outside blowing lightly against the tarp they had taped to the window. Finally, Noah licked his lips and opened his mouth to speak.
“Do you want to— ”
“I have wine in the back,” Mindy blurted at the same time, and they both gave each other an amused grin. She eyed him, clearly waiting for him to continue with what he’d been saying, but Noah just waved his hand between them, gesturing for her to go on.
“Wine,” she tried again. “In the back. I have a bottle. Do you want to split it as a thank you?”
“As a thank you? No. I don’t,” Noah said, and then hastily amended as he watched her expression begin to fall. “But Iwillsplit it with you just because I enjoy your company.” He grinned as he added, “I told you. You don’t need to thank me.”
She chuckled and rolled her eyes at him before heading to the kitchen. She returned a moment later, carrying both the bottle and two oversized coffee mugs.
He watched as Mindy glanced around at the space before deciding to sit on the floor with her back pressed against the counter. She patted the floor beside her before she began uncorking the bottle of wine.
Noah laughed quietly as he walked over to sit beside her, and the moment he was fully seated, the cork was freed from the neck of the bottle with a satisfyingpop.Mindy poured the wine into the mugs that she’d brought over, then passed one of them to Noah.
He took a sip, savoring the way the wine flowed across his taste buds and warmed him from the inside out.
“Ah…” Mindy let out a sigh after taking a drink as well. “This is just what I needed.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
They chatted easily for a while, discussing the window and what each of them had done that day. As Noah finished describing a stressful video conference he’d had to attend during the day, Mindy looked over at him curiously.
“If you could do anything other than what you’re doing now, what would it be?”
Her question caught him off guard, and Noah blinked at her in confusion.
“You mean, for work?” he asked, and she nodded. He took a moment to consider before answering. “I think I’d want to start consulting.”
“What do you mean?” She took another sip from her mug.
“I’ve worked in real estate development with my dad for so long,” he explained. “But the part of this job I like the most is the project planning. I like seeing the blank space of everything, seeing what something could be and then bringing it to life. I think I’d like to do that for small businesses and startups.”
Mindy eyed him, a smile that reflected something like pride beginning to tick up the corner of her mouth.
“Sounds like you’ve got some pretty big dreams,” she said, her grin widening.
“I don’t know if you’d call them big.” Noah paused to take another drink of his wine, swirling it in his mug. “But they’re definitely something. I don’t know. I guess now that I’ve done this for so long and see the grind that it takes, I could see myself wanting something a little slower. Something where I can find fulfillment doing what I enjoy during the day, and then go home to my wife and kids.”
He realized what he’d said a few seconds after the words left his lips, and his eyes widened before flicking to Mindy. She was watching him with open interest, cocking her head to the side.
“A wife and kids, huh?”
Noah nodded. There was a part of him that thought it was strange to be talking about this with her, of all people. Especially considering that there had been a significant portion of his life where he’d thought the wife he would be coming home to and the kids that he would have would all have been with her. But there was another part of him, one that was growing a little bit louder every day, that was begging to talk about it with her. That thought it wouldn’t make sense to talk about it with anyone elsebuther.
