And yet… I need this deal. Badly. Without it, the podcast pays the bills, but there’s nothing left over for the kind of in-home care Mom’s going to need sooner rather than later. The thought of her slipping further without the right help is enough to make my throat ache.
So, I’ll give Heather what she wants. I’ll give the whole town what it wants.
I just have to keep Damien from seeing how much of me is starting to believe our own act.
The porch boards are warm from the afternoon sun, the smell of saltwater drifting in from the bay. I sit cross-legged with my laptop balanced on my thighs, the podcast file open in my editing program — a perfect decoy if anyone asks how I’m spending my day.
But I haven’t touched the track in twenty minutes.
Instead, I’m replaying every possible way Colton could react when he hears I’m “dating” Damien. Maybe he’ll laugh it off, figure it’s a joke. Or maybe he’ll see it as a petty swipe, some revenge for how things ended between us.
The truth is messier than either of those options.
Colton was easy to fall for… charming, steady, quick to smooth over conflict. And back then, I’d been starved for warmth after losing Aaron, desperate to hold on to anything that felt like a safe harbor. But Damien… Damien was the storm cloud on the horizon I couldn’t stop looking at.
The thought of them standing in the same room now, with all this between them, twists my stomach into a tight, cold knot.
I shift my focus back to my laptop, scrubbing through a section of audio just to feel productive, but the sound barely registers.
Movement across the street pulls my eyes up.
Damien’s truck eases into the Lawson driveway, sunlight glinting off the windshield. He gets out slowly, tool beltslung over one shoulder, moving with the unhurried ease of someone who doesn’t seem weighed down by small-town gossip, sponsorship deals, or brothers with bad timing.
For a moment, I just watch him. The set of his shoulders, the way he tilts his head like he’s already running through the day’s work in his mind.
And then he glances toward my house, catching me before I can look away.
Even from here, the faint curl of his mouth feels like trouble.
I tell myself not to read into it.
It’s just a look. A glance across the street from a man who probably doesn’t even know the kind of mess he’s made in my head.
But I can still feel the weight of it, even after he turns toward the house and disappears inside.
My fingers hover over my keyboard, the blinking cursor like a dare. Edit the podcast. Check the sponsor email again. Do literally anything except think about the way Damien’s mouth had looked when he smiled just now — or yesterday, pressed against mine in front of the whole damn diner.
I snap my laptop shut.
Through the thin slats of the porch railing, I can see the side of his truck, the gleam of his toolbox. I tell myself it’s good he’s over there and I’m over here. Space. Boundaries.
But the longer I sit, the more it feels like that look was an open door, and I’m already leaning toward it.
Somewhere in the kitchen, Mom calls my name, and I jerk back into myself, sliding my laptop under my arm as I stand.
Control. I need control.
And yet, with Damien just across the street, it feels like the one thing I’m losing fastest.
Chapter Nine
Damien
The bell over the door lets out a tired jingle as Ronnie and I step into Cooper’s Supply.
The place smells like cedar planks and motor oil, same as it did when I was a kid running errands with my dad. Only difference is, back then, I didn’t feel the weight of every damn set of eyes the second I crossed the threshold.
Today, I do.
