Ash got his toolbox off one of the many shelves, a folding stepladder, and some extra nails in case Mrs. Rivera hadn’t bought all the types they’d need for the fence. He grabbed a couplesodas from the garage mini fridge, too: a Mountain Dew for himself and a Cherry Coke for Cassidy.
Even weighed down with all the tools and things, Ash still moved near silently. Cassidy had her back to him, and she startled when she realized he was right there.
“You’re as quiet as a ghost!” she said, hand over her heart.
Ash laughed. “That’s what Onny says, too.”
Cassidy’s expression shifted, almost imperceptibly, like when a single wisp of a gray cloud touches the puffed edges of white cumulus and blue sky. Most people wouldn’t have seen it. But as a painter and an amateurmascarer,Ash spent a large portion of his time studying faces, and he noticed. Did Cassidy have something against Onny? Onnywasa little strange, but it was a quirky, innocuous kind of strange that usually didn’t bother anyone, other than the uptight types like Byron Frost.
But then Cassidy saw the sodas in Ash’s arms and smiled like blue skies again. “Cherry Coke is my favorite!”
I know,he thought.
They began by prying the bent nails off the two-by-fours that were on the broken part of the fence. Ash stood on the grass while Cassidy climbed onto the stepladder; she could have reached the top two-by-four from the ground, but being slightly elevated gave her better purchase on the nails.
“So why don’t you play basketball or volleyball?” she asked. Even on the second step, Cassidy was still about eye level with Ash.
He shrugged. “All of my muscle coordination seemed to end up in my fingers. I’m a lot better at painting than shooting a basketball. Been like that ever since I was little.”
“I don’t know, you seem pretty coordinated right now.” She glanced at the pile of nails he’d already extracted, compared to the one embedded in the wood that she was still working on.
Cassidy was at full-scale war with the nail. The process was supposed to be straightforward—you hook the curved back side of the hammer around the nailhead, yank, and it pulls free. But she’d somehow managed to wiggle the nail into the shape of an iron worm, without it budging from the two-by-four.
“Need some help over there?”
She laughed. “Am I that pathetic?”
“Not pathetic. Just… creative in your approach.”
“Then, please, Michelangelo of fence building, show me how it’s done.” She passed her hammer to him with flourish and hopped off the stepladder.
With a smile, Ash wedged the back of the hammer around the nailhead, gave it a slight, rocking nudge, and—pop!—the nail came out, and he caught it with his other hand.
“Show-off,” Cassidy teased. But her gaze hovered on his biceps for a moment.
Was she flirting?
Don’t be ridiculous,Ash thought to himself.
Then again, itwasthe quadricentennial anniversary.…
He moved her stepladder back into place, and they returned to work. Cassidy got the hang of it after the second nail.
“Now that you know why I don’t play basketball, it’s your turn to tell me something about you,” Ash said.
“What do you want to know?”
Everything,he thought. But he went for something more basic. “Why do you like running?”
Cassidy paused in her work. Like her little brother, she chewed on her lip as she thought.
“I’ve always run,” she said. “I started when I was five, because Mom’s a coach, but it’s also kind of a family pride thing. My grandpa actually went to the Olympics with the Chilean team. For the marathon.”
“Oh yeah, I sort of remember reading something about that.”
Of course, Ash had more than read about it. He had thatMoon Ridge Gazettearticle about Cassidy memorized.
He pried out the last nail on the top two-by-four and pulled the beam away from the planks. Cassidy held the other side of the two-by-four, and for a brief moment, Ash and Cassidy were connected—even if it was by a piece of lumber. They set it onto the grass, though, and returned to their separate sides of the fence to work on the two-by-four that ran across the bottom of the fence.
