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“Me neither.” I perch on the kitchen countertop, heels knocking lightly against the cabinets.
“What do you usually do when you can’t sleep?”
“Read,” I say. “Or make myself a snack. What about you?”
“Go out to the garage.”
I smile. “Is that code for smoking a joint?”
Sully laughs. “No, though it could be…Can’t smoke in the garage, though, that’s where I keep all my machinery.”
I perk up. “For woodworking?”
“That’s right.” Sully looks gratified that I remembered. “Haven’t been out there all week. Someone’s been distracting me…”
I like distracting Sullivan. I like when I have his attention. That’s what was so incredibly seductive from the moment he asked me to dance—those dark eyes fixed on me and me alone.
“Will you show me your workshop?” I beg.
He takes me around the side of the house to the three-car garage, which I’m realizing I’ve never seen opened because Sullivan parks in the driveway. He punches the code into the pad, making the door rumble up.
Inside is an entire woodshop, as neat and organized as Sully’s room. Every single tool is either put away inside a drawer or hung inside one of those crime-scene outlines for wrenches and hammers.
Several pieces of heavy machinery stand against the wall, but I couldn’t name the purpose of a single one.
“Want to make something?” Sullivan says.
“Make something?” I squeak. “I don’t even know what any of this is!”
“You taught me how to cut a tomato—I’m pretty sure I can teach you to use a lathe.”
“Okay…” I muster my courage, trying to view the tools as no more intimidating than a chef’s knife or a saucepan and the machinery as just another sort of oven. “What can we make?”
“Something simple to start—how about a pen?”
I have no idea how we’re going to make a pen out of wood, but I’m sure Sully does.
First, he helps me to select a block from the array on his shelf. I choose a dark walnut with a swirling grain. Sully helps me set it in place on the band saw. He puts his hands over mine, steady and firm, so the scream of the saw seems endurable and the open blade much less alarming.
Sawdust flies up as we cut the block in half, filling the air with sweet, burning walnut and dusting the front of my dress.
“I should have changed?—“
“Don’t you dare,” Sully growls in my ear. “I’m not done looking at you in that dress.”
I’m sure he can feel me shiver against his chest. I’m sure he can see the goosebumps on my arms and my nipples poking through the front of the dress.
I don’t care if he sees. I don’t care if he feels—I want him to. I lean back against Sully’s warm body, letting his hands guide mine.
He walks me through an impossible number of complex steps, drilling a hole through the block, gluing in the brass casing, cutting away the excess wood, and, finally, turning the pen on a lathe. Even after that, the sanding and finishing takes another hour.
We talk all the while, Sully explaining the machinery and processes, describing some of his favorite projects of days past.
“I think I like making bowls the best. It takes forever to sand them, but that’s what I love, the feel of the wood, the way you can bring out the color, the grain, the glow…”
I tell Sully how crepes are my favorite thing to make, blending the batter smooth, swirling it around the hot pan, peeling off the perfect, thin disc, turning it onto a plate, soft and silky.
“It’s satisfying, that perfect golden brown…”
