The grand opening is three days away. And after that, the real reckoning begins.
Chapter 16
Jace
The flour situation is still happening twenty-four hours later. I’m finding it in places that don’t make sense—under my collar, in the creases of my hands, embedded in my hair despite the shower I took that night. It’s like she’s marked me. Like I’m going to spend the next week looking like I’ve been working with her in the kitchen instead of building furniture in my workshop.
I’m not complaining.
The new bench is finished. I’ve been building it for months, in pieces, in moments stolen between cabinet jobs and oven repairs and learning how a woman’s mind works when she’s stressed. But it’s finished now, and it’s everything I wanted it to be.
This new one I built it to her measurements. I built it to the height where her forearms would rest at exactly the right angle. I built it with a work surface long enough for her to roll dough without feeling cramped. I built the storage underneath to match the way she moves through a kitchen—the things she uses first on the right, the specialty ingredients on the left, the flour at the back where she can reach it without thinking.
I built it because I’ve been watching her. Because watching her work is the same as reading her. Because when she kneads dough, I can see what she’s thinking. When she measures vanilla, I can see what she fears. When she tests the temperature of an oven by the sound it makes, I can see that she’s someone who knows things without being told them.
I built her a bench that says: I see you. I’ve been paying attention. You belong somewhere.
Every measurement says: I see you.
I have to tell her about it today. The grand opening is tomorrow. The bench needs to be there. It needs to be hers. And I need to stop carrying this secret around like it’s going to break me open. It’s just a damn bench.
I’m in the workshop when she arrives around dawn. She lets herself in—she has a key now, which is its own kind of statement—and I hear her footsteps in the main room before the truth lands: she’s coming back here.
“Jace?” Her voice is cautious. Early morning Gabby is a specific version of herself—less defended, more real. “You okay? Your truck’s been here all night.”
“I slept here,” I say. “I wanted to make sure?—”
But then she sees the bench.
The moment arrives and it hits her face like light through a door. Her mouth opens. Nothing comes out. She’s stopped talking. That terrifies me. Good surprise? Bad surprise? Terrifying surprise that makes her want to leave?
She walks toward it slowly. Her hands come up. She traces the wood like she’s checking whether it’s real.
“I built it,” I say, which is obvious, and which feels necessary to say anyway. “I measured you. I’ve been measuring you for months—” This sounds worse than I mean it to sound. “—I mean, I’ve been watching how you move in a kitchen. How yourarms go. Where you reach. What height your shoulders are at. And I built this to fit you exactly.”
She’s running her hand across the top surface. The wood is walnut—expensive, but this bench deserved expensive. I’ve sanded it until it’s smooth enough that her hands won’t catch on anything. I’ve oiled it until it glows. The joinery underneath is intricate—mortise and tenon work that’s taken me weeks. It’s furniture that will last longer than both of us.
“Jace,” she says, and her voice is small, and she’s not joking, which means something in her has broken open. “You built me my own bench?”
“I built you a bench,” I confirm.
She sits down. There’s only one chair in the workshop, and she’s chosen to sit on the bench I built instead, and the metaphor is not lost on me. She’s choosing to test it. To trust it. To sit in something that was made specifically for her.
“The height is—” she starts, then stops. She stands up. She walks to the work surface. She reaches across it like she’s working dough. Her body settles into the space like a key in a lock. Like we were both designed to fit this moment. “—it’s perfect. The reach is perfect. I can reach everything without moving my feet. And the storage?—”
She bends down, examining the drawers I built underneath. Each one is labeled. Flour. Sugar. Specialty ingredients. Tools. The things she uses constantly, organized the way her brain works, not the way a normal kitchen would organize them.
“How long?” she asks.
“Weeks,” I say. “Since you got here, I—” I stop. I’m about to explain that I made assumptions based on almost nothing, and that sounds creepy. But she’s looking at me like I just gave her the thing she didn’t know she needed. Like I’ve translated her into furniture and she’s recognizing herself in the translation.
“You’ve been building this since we met?”
“I was planning,” I say. “I was hoping. I built it for the idea of you before I knew the actual you. And then when I got to know the actual you, I kept building because it turns out you needed exactly what I was imagining.”
She doesn’t say anything. She sits back down on the bench. She places her hands flat on the work surface. And I can see the moment she understands—not just that I built it, but why I built it. That this is a confession. That this is me saying: I don’t make things for temporary people. I make things that last. And I made this for you.
“I love you,” she says.