He doesn’t smirk. Doesn’t even look like he’s considering it. Just nods toward the workbench. “Ronnie’s out for the day. We’ve got to get the window trim cut and installed before the rain moves in.”
My stomach dips.
No Ronnie means no one to fill the silence, no one to draw Damien’s focus away from me. And after yesterday’s kiss, the last thing I need is uninterrupted time with the one man who can make my pulse spike just by looking at me.
He hands me the end of a measuring tape. “Hold this,” he says, already stretching it across the length of the board. His knuckles graze my palm as he adjusts the angle, and it’s ridiculous that my heartbeat reacts to something so small.
“Forty-two and a half,” he mutters, marking the wood with his pencil. Then he takes my hand — literally takes it — and moves it closer to the saw. “Keep it steady when I cut. Don’t let it shift.”
The saw whirs to life, loud enough to make my chest buzz with the vibration. He leans in, bracing one hand beside mine, his arm brushing against my side as he guides the blade through the board.
When the cut’s done, he straightens but doesn’t step back right away. The scent of sawdust and whatever soap he uses lingers in the air between us.
“You’re good at this,” I say, trying to sound casual.
He shrugs. “It’s just work.”
Maybe for him. For me, it’s a test of how long I can stand this close without remembering exactly how his mouth felt yesterday.
The hallway upstairs is barely wide enough for one person, let alone two with paint trays and rollers. The ceiling’s low, the walls closing in like they’re conspiring against me.
Damien sets a fresh tray of paint on the floor and hands me a roller. “You take the left wall. I’ll take the right. Work from top to bottom, steady pressure.”
“Got it,” I say, dipping the roller into the tray.
For the first few minutes, we work in silence, the soft swish of paint on drywall the only sound. But every time I step back toreload the roller, I have to brush past him. Shoulder to shoulder. Hip to hip.
At one point, I turn just as he’s reaching for the top corner of his wall, his arm crossing inches from my face. The faint scent of his soap mixes with the sharp tang of fresh paint, making my pulse stutter.
“Sorry,” he says, low, almost gruff.
“Sure you are,” I murmur, not looking at him.
When I crouch to paint near the baseboard, he’s there beside me, knees almost touching. I can feel the heat of him even through the denim. The roller slips in my hand, smearing an uneven strip of paint.
Damien notices. “You’re leaning too much on your wrist,” he says, and before I can react, he takes my hand and shifts my grip on the handle. His fingers are warm, steady, guiding mine like he did with the sanding block yesterday.
My breath catches — and I’m thankful the hallway’s too narrow for him to see my face straight on.
We keep going, but the space between us feels tighter with every pass of the roller, like the walls are pushing us closer on purpose. And maybe I’m imagining it, but I swear he glances at me in his periphery more than once, like he’s checking to see if I feel it too.
I do.
We’ve nearly finished the first coat when the words slip out. “Aaron would’ve loved this house like this.”
Damien stills, his roller halfway up the wall. He doesn’t look at me.
I press on. “He’d always talk about fixing it up someday. Said you two would work on it together.”
The silence stretches, heavy and tight.
Finally, he says, “Yeah. He talked about a lot of things.” His tone is flat, like he’s aiming to shut the door on the topic entirely.
I set my roller down. “Why did you leave after he died?”
That gets him to look at me — sharp, almost defensive. “You really want to do this here?”
“I’ve wanted to do this for years,” I say, keeping my voice steady even though my chest feels tight. “You were his best friend. One day you were in our lives every day, and then you were gone. No goodbye, nothing.”
