Jonah
Summer wandered among the various projects I had in progress. The block of black walnut was for a gamer’s epoxy table. I’d sent several designs and he’d finally decided on one with a few changes.
She ran her fingers along the elm that had arrived before the storm had begun. I had ordered the wood, knowing it’d make a beautiful table I could sell online. Then she wandered to the various end tables I was almost done with. I took smaller projects to fill in the larger orders, and the end tables were easy enough to sell for a better profit margin. People could justify spending four figures on a useful piece of art better than some of my bigger tables that ran close to five figures.
I couldn’t do massive dining room tables, or even meeting room tables. I was only one person, and while I was strong and used leverage to my advantage, moving giant slabs of wood and epoxy wasn’t possible without help. I was a one-man show.
“Wow,” she breathed as she inspected the charcoal-filled wells in the holes left behind by the knots in the wood.
She had been quiet last night. My rusty senses said she wanted to talk, but I didn’t prod her. She might bring up topics I wasn’t ready for.
Like, should we tell people we were a thing? Were we a thing, or did she just want to keep fucking? If she wanted more than sex, then what? I’d rarely moved beyond sex in my earlier dating. My relationships hadn’t been mature or healthy, or Jackie wouldn’t have left with some guy she’d just met to move to a place she’d never been before.
If that wasn’t a spotlight on how little I offered, I didn’t know what was.
What did being a couple entail? What would Summer want out of me?
Dating, for one.
How could I date her? She would return to Bozeman for work. Would I have to travel?
A date in Bozeman would be easier and less intrusive than going out in Bourbon Canyon, where we’d ignite the gossip tree. The rumors would flame through town. People would bring up memories of Eli dating her. Their words would make it seem like she and Eli had been a couple last year instead of over fifteen years ago.
What did people do for dates these days?
“Do you have work to catch up on?” She turned, her fingers stroking over another plank of walnut my supplier had claimed was unusable due to cracks and holes. Those were my favorite challenges.
“What you’re touching, actually.”
She snatched her hand away.
I chuckled. “Don’t worry. I haven’t started. It’ll be one of the in-between pieces that I do before I start on a table order. Here.”
I went to the slab, bark still on its edges. I took it from where it leaned against the wall and went to an empty shop table. I had a few. With drying times for sealant and epoxy, I had wanted a shop with enough space for me to use my time efficiently. I didn’t like having nothing to do.
I laid the slab on one side and traced the long edge. “I’ll have to take all this off so the epoxy doesn’t only bond to the bark.”
“Because then if the bark peels, the table falls apart?”
I nodded and outlined the knots. “Then I’m going to fill these, but can you see the pattern they make?”
She frowned and tilted her head one way and then the other. “Oh my god, it looks like a Labrador’s face.”
Grinning, I nodded. “Exactly. Can you imagine how much a custom bar-height table will go for when it looks like it has the image of a dog branded into it?”
“How much?” Her wide amber eyes were on me and so damn curious. She used to roll her eyes when Teller and I would nerd out over camping gear and hunting equipment. But this she was into. I had her attention and I liked it. “I’ll fill in the cracks and holes and it’ll really bring the picture to life. Usually. Sometimes a project goes sideways.”
“That’s art, I suppose.”
No one had ever called my work “art” before. I was a self-taught woodworker. If the YouTube guys I followed ever learned about how much I’d gotten from them, they’d charge me tuition. “If the image doesn’t turn out, I’ll charge nine hundred.” Her eyes flared and my pulse pumped. I hadn’t gotten to the good part. “If there’s a dog face at the end of all this, then I’ll charge twenty-six hundred.”
“How many days of work?”
I lifted a shoulder. “Another week. Carving the leg out of a scrap of four-by-four will take a while, but like I said, I’ll be working on other projects during that week.”
“Jonah. That’s over five hundred dollars a day.”
My chest threatened to puff out at her awe. “I work seven days a week, not five, and it might not turn out,” I warned.
