Page 121 of What We Brave
My whole body still aches from it. I'll still see that husband's face when I close my eyes tonight. Tomorrow I'll pull on the scrubs and walk back in and do it all again, because that's what you do. You just do it again.
But right now, Reid's heartbeat is steady under my ear. And somewhere across town, Blake is probably in his workshop, sanding something beautiful out of something broken.
And both of them are mine.
I don't know what to do with that yet. But I'm starting to think I don't have to figure it out tonight.
25
BLAKE
The workshop smells like lemon oil and sawdust. Clean. Ready.
I wipe down my workbench for the third time, not because it needs it, but because my hands want something to do. The Charleston fireplace shipped out yesterday. The armoire went back to Seattle last week. Even the emergency repair job — some developer's kid who put a baseball through a hundred-year-old stained glass window — wrapped up Monday.
For the first time in months, I've got nothing on the bench.
Should feel wrong. Empty bench, empty hands — that's usually when the bad shit creeps in. When my brain decides it's a great time to replay every terrible thing I've ever said or done, in high definition, with commentary.
But right now I'm just... good.
Which is almost worse, in a way. Because I don't trust it. Good doesn't last. Good is the setup before the fall. I've lived long enough to know that.
Stop it.Just — be here. Be in the clean workshop with the empty bench and the lemon oil smell and stop waiting for the roof to cave in.
My phone buzzes. Then again. Then three more times in rapid succession.
The group chat. I pick it up, and there it is — that stupid grin spreading across my face before I've even read the words. Like a damn reflex.
Laine
okay but WHY would you put sriracha on CEREAL
Reid
it was ONE TIME
Laine
ONE TIME IS ONE TIME TOO MANY
Reid
I was half asleep!
Laine
that's not an excuse that's a cry for help
Reid
Blake back me up here
I snort. Not a chance in hell.
sriracha. on cereal.
Reid
