And because we didn’t leave people behind. Not ever.
The new deck was starting to look like an actual structure instead of a fever dream. Bones and Lunchbox were knee-deep in lumber, tools, and a debate about torque angles that had devolved into insults about each other’s math skills.
Bones hammered something with way too much force. “Lunchbox, I swear to God, if you tell me one more time that Ishould ‘eyeball the measurement,’ I’m gonna eyeball you off this deck.”
“Youcan’teyeball structural integrity, Bones.” Lunchbox held up a level with saintly calm. “We’ve discussed this.”
“You’ve discussed this,” Bones growled.
I smothered a laugh. Then the crunch of tires on gravel had all three of us glancing up. We set aside the tools to circle around to meet them. Voodoo hopped out of the truck first, sunglasses on, smirk firmly in place.
Grace slid out of the passenger seat—jeans, sweatshirt, hair up, cheeks pink from the sun and wind. She looked… good. Better. Lighter.
“Got the doors,” Voodoo called, tapping the side of the truck. “And snacks. Firecracker stole half my trail mix but I let it slide.”
“It was mostly raisins.” Grace held up the bag.
“Blasphemy,” Lunchbox muttered. Then louder, “Grab an end?”
Grace headed over to climb up in the truck bed, but Voodoo lifted her off and Bones set her to the side where she burst out laughing at them. Not for the first time I marveled at how seamlessly she fit into our world—even the rough, sawdust-filled parts.
Between the four of us, we unloaded the doors. They were beautiful, heavy as hell, framed in rich walnut to match the suite upstairs. Grace brushed her fingers along the glass like she was imagining the view already.
She would have that view. She’d dreamed of it. Maybe she deserved more than that view. One by one, we carried them around to store in the temp shed, we’d set up under the deck. Now that they were here, we could cut through the wall, but we would need to do some more work to set up for that.
Once they were secured, she stepped back, rubbing her palms on her jeans, her eyes flicked from me to Bones to Lunchbox, and then over to Voodoo.
“So,” she said, casual—too casual. “I told Voodoo something today.”
Bones straightened, expression shifting into that heavy unreadable wall he used when preparing for something unpleasant.
Voodoo leaned a hip against one of the posts, arms crossed, waiting.
“Shoot,” Lunchbox said gently.
“I’m… thinking about going back to work.”
Grip going white-knuckled on the hammer he’d just picked back up, Bones went absolutely still. His jaw locked so hard I heard the grind from ten feet away.
“No,” he said flatly. “Absolutely not.”
Grace blinked. “Bones?—”
“No.” He stabbed the hammer toward the ground like he was punctuating it. “You’ve been off the radar for a year. The second your face hits a billboard, we’ll have people up our asses.”
Lunchbox winced. “He’s not wrong. It would put you in the spotlight again. Cameras. Reporters. Schedules. Travel. Less control.”
Grace’s shoulders nipped inward, barely, the way they sometimes did when she was absorbing impact. But she didn’t back down.
“I miss it,” she said quietly. “I missme.Or that part of me.”
Scrubbing a hand through his hair, Lunchbox shot me a look. The “are you going to say something?” look.
I didn’t. Not yet. Because every scenario was already firing behind my eyes?—
Grace doing shoots in controlled environments?
Possible. High monitoring.
