“That sounds terrible.”
“It was.” I held his gaze. “But I'm still here. Still standing. Still holding on with duct tape and spite, to borrow your phrase.”
Michael almost smiled. “We're quite a pair.”
“We are.”
The air between us shifted again. Warmer now. Less charged and more... comfortable. Like we'd crossed some invisible threshold and found ourselves on solid ground.
“The food should be here in twenty minutes,” I said. “In the meantime, show me what needs doing with that trim.”
“You're serious about helping.”
“I don't offer things I don't mean.”
“No.” Michael studied me for a moment. “I don't think you do.”
He pushed himself up from the couch, steadier now that he'd been sitting for a few minutes. I followed him to the far wall where the unfinished trim waited.
“It's supposed to fit here,” Michael said, positioning the piece. “But my hands keep shaking and I can't get the angle right. Every time I think I've got it, the hammer goes sideways and I end up denting the wall instead of the nail.”
“Hold it steady. I'll nail.”
“That really does sound dirty.”
“You're not funny.”
“I'm a little funny.”
He was. More than a little. The realization settled in my chest like something warm.
Michael held the trim in place, hands still trembling but determined. I took the hammer from the windowsill, felt the familiar weight of it in my palm.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Ready.”
I drove the nail in with one clean stroke. Then another. Then a third. Michael watched with something like wonder.
“You didn't even have to aim.”
“Wolf reflexes.”
“Show-off.”
“You asked for help. This is help.”
“This is you making me look bad in my own house.” But he was smiling now. Actually smiling, small and tired but real. “Do the whole wall. I want to see how fast you can do it.”
“That sounds like a challenge.”
“It's absolutely a challenge.”
I finished the wall in under ten minutes. Michael watched the whole time, holding pieces in place when needed, handing me nails, making comments that were equal parts impressed and annoyed.
“That's ridiculous,” he said when I drove the last nail. “That would have taken me three hours. Minimum.”
“Probably.”
