The air in the bookstore the next morning was thick enough to choke on, and only a fraction of it was due to the drywall dust. Liam was already there when I arrived, a taut line of energy and muscle, his back to me as he measured a space for a new support beam. He didn’t turn, but the sudden rigidity in his shoulders told me he knew I was there.
The ghost of his hand, braced on the wall beside my head, still tingled on my skin. The memory of his scent—sawdust, sweat, and something uniquely, infuriatingly Liam—was a phantom I couldn’t shake. We had stood on a precipice yesterday, teetering between a kiss and a kill, and the fall-out was a chasm of silence between us.
“Morning,” I said, my voice deliberately crisp and businesslike.
He grunted in response, a low rumble that was more an acknowledgment of sound than a greeting.
Fine. If that’s how he wanted to play it.
We worked that way for hours, two ghosts haunting the same space. Our communication was reduced to single words, sharp and functional. “Level.” “Drill.” “Three-inch screws.” We moved around each other in a carefully choreographed dance of avoidance, the physical space between us charged with the unspoken energy of yesterday’s confrontation. Every time our arms brushed, a jolt of static electricity seemed to arc between us, a stark reminder of the live wire we were both pretending not to touch.
But beneath the simmering resentment, something else was taking shape. A grudging rhythm. He’d anticipate my need for the nail gun and have it ready. I’d clear his path of debris before he turned with a heavy plank of reclaimed wood. We were a machine, stripped of all pleasantries, functioning with a stark efficiency born from years of knowing each other’s movements. We were building something, and despite ourselves, we were building it together.
The shared goal was a powerful anesthetic, dulling the sharp edges of our personal conflict. As I watched Liam meticulously restore a section of the original tin ceiling, his brow furrowed in concentration, a flicker of something other than anger sparked in my chest. He cared. He cared about this place with a fierce, quiet passion that mirrored my own. He wasn’t just a contractor swinging a hammer; he was a craftsman, a preservationist. He was honoring my father’s legacy in a way my spreadsheets and budget reports never could.
The thought was so unwelcome I nearly dropped the pry bar in my hand.
By nine o’clock that night, my body was a single, comprehensive ache. My hair was matted with a fine white powder, my jeans were stiff with paint, and my shoulders screamed with every movement. The bookstore was a chaotic mess of tools, drop cloths, and half-finished projects, illuminated by the harsh glare of two portable work lights.
Liam finally switched off the bone-rattling buzz of the orbital sander, plunging the space into a sudden, ringing silence. He stood in the center of the room, rolling his shoulders, the muscles in his back bunching and releasing under his dust-covered t-shirt. He looked as wrung-out as I felt.
“I’m starving,” he said, his voice rough with exhaustion. It was the first full sentence he’d directed at me all day.
“Me too,” I admitted, my stomach rumbling in agreement. I started gathering my things, my mind already on a hot shower and the bland comfort of a frozen dinner.
“Stay,” he said. It wasn’t a question or a command, just a simple, tired statement. “I’ll order a pizza.”
I hesitated. Every sensible part of my brain, the part that had built a safe, predictable life with Bennett in the city, screamed at me to leave. To maintain the distance. But another part of me, the weary, lonely part that had spent the day rediscovering a long-lost rhythm, was tempted.
“What kind?” I heard myself ask, the words feeling foreign in my mouth.
A slow smile touched his lips, the first I’d seen all day. It transformed his face, softening the hard lines and reminding me of the boy I once loved. “Is that even a question? Pepperoni and black olive, same as always.”
Of course. Some things, it seemed, never changed.
While he was on the phone, I cleared a space on the floor, pushing aside a stack of two-by-fours and laying down a clean drop cloth. It was a pathetic excuse for a dinner table, a white flag in the middle of our battlefield. When Liam returned, he set two sweating bottles of water down between us. We sat in silence, cross-legged on the floor amidst the debris of our shared project, waiting.
The arrival of the pizza was a welcome intrusion. The smell of hot dough and melted cheese filled the dusty air, a scent so normal it felt almost sacred in our self-imposed war zone. Liam paid the delivery kid and set the box between us.
He opened the lid, and the steam billowed out. “A truce?” he offered, his eyes meeting mine in the stark light. They were clear and direct, stripped of the anger from yesterday. All I saw was a deep, bone-weary exhaustion that matched my own.
I nodded, my throat suddenly tight. “Truce.”
I took a slice, the hot cheese stretching in a perfect, satisfying string. For a few minutes, the only sounds were of us eating, hungry and focused. The animosity that had fueled us all day had burned itself out, leaving a hollow space behind.
“You remember the time,” Liam started, his voice softer now, “when your dad let us ‘help’ him re-shelve the history section?”
I let out a surprised laugh, nearly choking on a bite of crust. “Help him? We built a fort out of encyclopedias and ended up knocking over an entire display of Civil War biographies. He banned us from the store for a week.”
Liam grinned, a real, genuine grin that reached his eyes. “He wasn’t actually mad. I saw him later that day, telling old Mr. Henderson about it. He was trying so hard not to laugh.”
The memory was so vivid, so warm, it felt like it had happened yesterday. I could almost smell the sweet pipe tobacco my father used to smoke, see the kind twinkle in his eyes.
“He loved this place so much,” I said, my voice quiet. “Sometimes I feel like I’m going to break it. Like I’m not honoring him the right way.” The admission slipped out, a vulnerability I hadn’t intended to show anyone, least of all him.
Liam stopped chewing. He looked at me, his gaze serious. “You’re not breaking it, Chloe. You’re saving it. All this,” he gestured around at the mess, the exposed beams, the raw potential, “this is saving it. Your dad would be proud.”
His words landed squarely in the center of my chest, a warm, soothing balm on an ache I hadn’t realized was so raw. Bennett said my father would want me to be practical, to sell. Liam, the man I’d spent the last five years trying to forget, understood my father’s heart better than my own fiancé.
“You’ve gotten good at this,” I said, changing the subject, gesturing vaguely at the quality of his work. “The joinery on those new shelves is… perfect.”
He shrugged, but a faint flush of pride colored his neck. “Learned from the best. My uncle taught me everything after… well, after.”
After. The unspoken word hung between us. After I left for college. After we imploded in a fiery mess of miscommunication and hurt pride. After he’d been left behind to pick up the pieces of his life while I ran toward a new one.
“He’d be proud of you, too,” I said softly.
We fell into an easy silence, the kind we used to share. We ate more pizza, our shoulders occasionally brushing, the contact no longer feeling like a jolt but like a quiet point of connection. I watched his hands, calloused and capable, as he folded a slice of pizza. These were the hands of a man who built things, who fixed what was broken. They were strong, steady hands. He had stayed. He had built a life, an honorable one, right here in the town I couldn’t wait to escape. The boy who’d broken my heart with his restless energy and undefined future was gone. In his place was a man—grounded, skilled, and infuriatingly decent.
The walls I had so carefully constructed around my heart, the ones designed to keep the memory of him out, didn’t just crumble. They felt… porous. As if the mortar had been washed away by the tide of shared memory and mutual respect, leaving me exposed and vulnerable in a way I hadn’t been in years.
When the pizza was gone, we packed the leftovers into the box. The easy camaraderie lingered, a warm, fragile bubble in the cool night air.
“I should go,” I said, finally pushing myself to my feet. My muscles protested, stiff and sore.
“Yeah,” he said, getting up as well. He stood so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body. The scent of him was different now, mellowed by a long day’s work—less raw energy, more warm skin and honest sweat. It was dangerously appealing.
“We got a lot done today,” I said, needing to fill the silence.
“We did,” he agreed, his voice a low murmur. His gaze dropped to my lips for a fraction of a second, a flicker of heat that sent a corresponding flame licking up my spine. The truce was for the trenches of work and memory, but the war of attraction was clearly not over.
“See you tomorrow, Chloe.”
“Tomorrow, Liam.”
I walked out into the cool, dark street, the bell above the door jangling softly behind me. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. Because if I did, I was afraid he would see the truth on my face: that for the first time in five years, I was starting to remember why leaving him had been the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. And that was a truth my carefully planned future couldn’t afford.