Cole
Work usually clears my head. Today… it doesn’t.
Frost rims the porta-john, the mountains are a smudge of blue behind a bank of cloud, and my breath comes out in icy puffs.
“Sixteens on the ledger, tens on the joists,” I remind the crew, flipping my pencil behind my ear. “If I find a ten where a sixteen goes, I’m pulling it with your teeth and making you redo the row.”
“Yessir,” Jake mutters, cheeks pink, hoodie up. Kid’s a decent framer with a talent for spacing out. Under normal circumstances I’d be working right alongside the guys. But today, I keep losing my place, staring through the skeletal second floor.
I shake it off and scan the plans on my clipboard. Roof trusses tomorrow. Subfloor inspection this afternoon. The east wall needs a shoring brace before the wind picks up. I know all of this the way I know my own name, but every time I try to lock into it, my brain slides back to Hailey’s eyes going glassy at the airport and the way her chin quivered in the truck.
“Cole?” Travis waves a hand in front of my face. “You want us to snap line here or take it to the post first?”
“Post first,” I reply. “Then line. Keep your spacing tight.” I’m not looking. I’m seeing her on that air mattress with Maddie, giggling in the dark just like they always did when they’d camp out in my parents’ living room and whisper about boys.
I tuck my chin in my collar and walk the perimeter, boots grinding frost on plywood. The wind cuts through the studs and whistles up the stairwell void. I check the heel of a king stud, nudge a cripple an eighth with my hammer face, and tell myself to be a professional for five goddamn minutes.
It’s not like me to get wrapped around an axle. Not anymore. Not after love almost cost me everything.
“Generator’s coughing,” Travis calls.
“Because you flooded it,” I say, heading down. “Stop babying the choke.” I crouch by the unit, flick the switch, and listen to the sputter. She catches on the second try, purring rough. “See? She wants a firm hand.”
“Like my ex.” Jake laughs, nudging me as the guys behind us laugh.
Back in the construction office, I pour shitty coffee into a paper cup and brace a hip against the table covered in plans. I should be comparing the window delivery against the change order where the client swapped to black-clad frames at the last second. Instead, I’m picturing that stupid sweatshirt of hers, hanging off one shoulder, her collarbone peeking out. When I steadied her on the stairs yesterday, her waist felt so delicate against my hand.
I take a gulp of coffee that tastes like it’s been sitting on the burner all morning.
She’s alone here.
That’s the thought I’m wrapped around. I know that feeling. The silence after you drop someone at departures and drive home to a place where no one’s waiting. I remember the first month I moved out here like it’s tattooed under my skin—sleeping in my truck in a Walmart lot off Kipling and showering at a rec center where the water never even got warm.
I rub at my chest like I can smooth the tightness out. She’s not in the same situation I was. She’s got a job that pays actual money and a place with a view and I'm sure a friends list that will adopt her if she lets them. But she’s new. And I watched her try to be brave at the curb with her cheeks pink and her hands tucked in her sleeves. I don’t like the thought of her going home to an echoey, unfurnished apartment.
“Inspection at two,” I say out loud to myself, to the coffee maker, to the walls. I jot it on the whiteboard anyway because my head’s a sieve this morning. I scribble a reminder to call the window rep.
My phone buzzes across the table, skittering over blueprints and invoices like it’s got somewhere to be. I smile when I see Maddie’s name on the screen.
I thumb the screen and lean back against the counter. “Hey, kid.”
Her laugh bursts through the line, warm and bright enough to melt the frost on my boots. “You can’t still call me that. I’m a full-fledged adult woman now. I pay rent and buy my own toilet paper.”
“Wow. Truly living the dream.”
“I even assembled an IKEA bookshelf by myself.”
“I’m impressed.” I whistle. “You still have all ten fingers?”
“Barely.”
“So?” she asks after a beat, too casual. “You check in on Hailey yet?”
I huff out a laugh. “You mean the fully grown woman who’s been in Denver a whole forty-eight hours? No. I’m pretty sure she remembers how to feed herself.”
“You remember what it’s like being new out there? No friends, no clue where the hell you’re going half the time?”
“Different situation.”
