“Dammit,” I hissed, shaking my fingers.
“Let me.” He stepped in behind me, close enough that I could feel heat radiating off him through my sweater. One hand braced on the wall beside my head; the other covered mine on the tape measure, big and warm, calluses catching lightly on my skin.
“Hold it flat with your thumb here.” His breath brushed the side of my neck. “Like this. Then lock it.”
The scent of him—soap, clean sweat, a faint trace of his detergent—wrapped around me, short circuiting my irritation that he thought I didn’t know how to use a tape measure. My brain went white-noise fuzzy.
“Got it?” he asked.
Absolutely not. “Yeah,” I croaked.
He let go, slowly, fingertips skimming along my knuckles before he stepped back.
The space he left behind was colder than it had any right to be.
We worked for a while in silence—real silence, not the sulky variety. I called measurements. He marked them, occasionally adding a quiet, practical bit of advice. Lower here, so you don’t bang your elbow. Higher there, so you’re not reaching behind hot equipment. He knew things I hadn’t realized he knew about how I moved in this tiny space, how I stretched and pivoted and shifted my weight.
It was… disconcerting.
It was also useful.
I hated that the two things could co-exist.
We hit our first real stand-off at the milk fridge.
“I want it here.” I tapped the front corner near the service window. “I can pivot, froth, and pour without moving my feet.”
“And block your only exit if something goes wrong,” he countered. “This is your primary path out.”
“This is how flow works.”
“This is how smoke inhalation works,” he said. “The more obstacles between you and the door, the worse your odds.”
The words landed like a slap. For a second, the barn blurred; the ghost of heat pressed against my face, and the remembered flavor of ash crawled up my throat.
He saw it. His expression shifted immediately. “Hey. Hey. Sorry. That was?—”
“No.” I swallowed hard. “You’re right. I don’t have to like it, but… you’re right.”
He studied my face, worry carving lines between his brows. “We can take a break.”
I shook my head. “If I stop, I might not start again. Let’s just… move the fridge.”
His hand flexed on the pencil, like he wanted to touch me and didn’t dare. “Okay. We’ll put it here.” He pointed to the side wall. “Same reach. Clearer exit.”
I imagined the movement—turn, pivot, pour—and nodded. “Fine. But if I hate it, I’m blaming you for the next ten Christmas rushes.”
One corner of his mouth quirked. “I’ll accept the consequences.”
The music shifted in the background, sliding from whatever Christmas rock album he’d been playing into a familiar, obnoxiously catchy Christmas pop song. Without thinking, I hummed the chorus under my breath as I wrote in my notebook.
“You are a secret pop girl.” He said it in delighted accusation.
“Shut up.”
“I heard you. Full lyrics.”
“I work in retail coffee,” I said. “These songs are imprinted on my DNA. It doesn’t mean I like them.”
