I’d done my push-ups. I’d done my sit-ups. I’d even done extra time on the rower like some overachieving masochist.
Didn’t matter.
By the time I finished cool-down stretches on the bay floor, lungs burning, sweat cooling on the back of my neck, my brain still wasn’t on my form or my breathing or anything remotely useful.
It was back in that barn. More specifically, on Jess in that barn, with grease streaked up her forearm like war paint. Hair twisted back and already working itself free, curls frizzing at the edges.
Her mouth softened around the word “We.”
We did.
We got a lot done.
We.
My arms shook more than they should’ve as I pushed up from the mat. Yeah, I’d done more reps than usual, but not that many. My body wasn’t tired, but the rest of me felt like it had been through a structure fire.
“You gonna move, or are we painting around you?”
Moose’s voice echoed through the bay. I blinked and found him standing over me with a towel slung around his neck and a protein bar half-eaten in one hand. He wore gym shorts and a T-shirt that saidHose Me Downin big faded letters. Subtlety had never once darkened his door.
“I’m stretching,” I said.
“No, you were communing with the afterlife. Looked like you were about two seconds from astral projecting.”
I rolled to my feet, joints popping in protest I refused to acknowledge. “Just thinking.”
“Uh-huh. About floor plans or about Jess’s ass in those jeans?”
I glared at him. “You are not cleared to say those words in that order.”
He grinned, unrepentant. “So that’s a yes.”
I grabbed my towel from the step of the engine and wiped my face off, focusing on the distant whir of the industrial fan in the corner, the faint scent of diesel and strong coffee that lived permanently in the air. Normal, safe things. Things that were not the way Jess had leaned back against my chest for half a second before she jerked away like she’d touched a live wire.
Except I was the one who’d felt electrocuted.
Meatball ambled out of the kitchen, his hair still damp from the shower and sticking up at weird angles. He held a shaker cup of something the color of pond scum. “Somebody say Jess?”
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Moose said at the same time.
Meatball took one long look at my face and nodded. “That’s a Jess face.”
“I don’t have a Jess face.”
“You one hundred percent have a Jess face,” he said. “You had it when you came back from the barn last night, and you’ve had it every time your phone’s buzzed since.”
“I was checking the weather.” The protest would’ve sounded more convincing if this wasn’t climate-controlled building with three different digital displays telling us the exact humidity, wind speed, and chance of precipitation.
“Sure,” Moose said. “Checking the weather. Not checking if she texted to say, ‘Hey, Donkey, thanks for rewiring my entire future.’”
“She did say thank you.” The words escaped before my brain could tackle my mouth.
Both of them perked up, like bloodhounds scenting a trail.
Meatball’s eyebrows climbed. “She said thank you.”
