My grip tightened on the hammer.
It’s not my business or my place. I'd given up the right to be angry on her behalf eight years ago.
***
I was still on the deck, when she came home at five. I was now shirtless now because the afternoon had gotten warm despite what she'd said, sweat dripping down my back as I hauled the last of the rotted lumber to the discard pile.
I heard her car pull up. Then I heard the door slam and her footsteps coming around the side of the cabin.
I didn't stop working as I kept my back to her, lifting and carrying, letting my muscles do the talking.
Petty? Maybe. But I'd spent eight years turning myself into someone worth looking at, and if she was going to hate me anyway, she might as well hate me while noticing what she was missing.
"You're still here."
I set down the lumber and turned as I wiped my forearm across my forehead.
Daisy was standing at the corner of the cabin, bag over her shoulder, eyes carefully fixed on my face. But I caught the flicker. The quick drop of her gaze to my chest, then lower, before she forced it back up.
Good.
"Told Cal I'd get the teardown done today," I said. "Almost finished."
"Great." Her voice was flat. "I'm making dinner. There's enough for three if you're hungry."
The offer caught me off guard. I stared at her, trying to figure out the angle.
"Cal asked me to be civil," she said, reading my expression. "This is me being civil. Don't make it weird." She turned toward the back door. Paused. "Dinner's at six thirty. There's a hose on the side of the cabin if you want to wash up."
I stood there, shirtless and sweating, trying to figure out what the hell had happened.
Daisy Taylor had invited me to dinner. Not warmly, but hell, she’d invited me, and that was more than I'd expected.
I found the hose and washed up.
Maybe there was hope yet.
***
Dinner was awkward.
Cal carried most of the conversation, talking about work, the weather, the upcoming festival in town. Daisy responded in short sentences. I responded in shorter ones. The tension was thick enough to cut, and Cal either didn't notice or pretended not to.
The food was good, though. Some kind of pasta with vegetables. Daisy had always been a good cook, I remembered. She'd made me dinner once, that summer, in the tiny kitchen of my old apartment. We'd eaten on the floor because I didn't have a table, and afterward she'd kissed me with garlic on her breath and I'd thought I was the luckiest guy alive.
I pushed the memory away.
"Deck's looking good," Cal said, scraping the last of his pasta onto his fork. "You work fast."
"Teardown's the easy part. Building takes longer."
"How long?" Daisy asked. Her first direct question of the meal.
I met her eyes. "Three weeks, maybe four. Depends on the weather."
I could see the resignation in the slump of her shoulders.
"That long?"