“Okay, give me the hammer,” he said, holding out his hand expectantly.
Her eyes were narrow but there was a little half-smile on her lips as she handed him the requested tool. He tested the wobbly stool to see if it would hold up against his weight, since he was a good bit heavier than Cadence, then slowly raised himself up. When it stayed steady, or at least steady-ish, he thought privately, he removed the hook and raised in a few inches higher.
“Here?” he asked.
Cadence wrinkled her nose, then stepped back a few feet to get a better perspective. “Maybe like… two more inches?”
He moved it. “Here?”
She paused, assessing again, then nodded. “Yeah, that’s perfect.”
With his height, it was the work of moments to hammer the nail into the right place. Then, working together, he and Cadence lifted the artwork and hung it on the newly placed hook. When he hopped down from the stool and paced backward to stand behind Cadence, he could see what she saw, even with his far less keen eye. This was where that painting belonged.
There was a single beat where they were in perfect accord, both enjoying the simple pleasure of a job well done. Then the moment passed and Cadence turned to look at him, uncertainty in her gaze.
“Ty,” she said quietly, and he wondered if he was deluding himself to think that he heard hope in her tone. “What are you doing here?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. While working together had felt extremely good, he now felt too foolish to just say, “I thought if I showed you that we get stuff done together you might decide to love me again.” And, sure, it was atouchmore complicated than that, but hadn’t that been the core of his scheme?
“I, uh, brought something for you,” he said. Then, worried that this would get her expectations too high, he added, “A little something. Tiny, really. No big deal.”
She pursed her lips in an expression that suggested she was trying not to laugh. He’d mostly seen this directed to a toddler-aged Izzy when she was doing something hilarious but that they didn’t want to encourage by laughing about.
“So I should expect a super huge surprise?” she asked. “Like,superhuge?” She let out a theatrical gasp. “Did you get me a pony?”
He decided to play into her attitude. “Oh, way better than a pony.” Joking around with her was nicer than the waves of nervousness that kept striking him.
When Cadence saw his offerings on the desk, however, she looked as though she couldn’t have been any happier if hehadshown up with a pony.
“No way,” she said, grinning. “You got me…” She took a quick sip through the straw. “Oh, itisthe lavender latte and—” She cut herself off with an excited squeal of pleasure. “Andthe Bavarian croissant? I can’t believe you did this.” She took another sip of her drink, then chased it with a bite of the croissant. Her happy little dance was all the thanks Tyler needed.
“Oh, man, Ican’tbelieve you did this,” she repeated when her mouth was empty. “You always said it was wasted effort, going to two places just to have them together.”
And, just like that, Tyler’s good mood died. Not because Cadence sounded displeased or angry about his past comments. In fact, the offhand way that she mentioned it made things all the worse.
Because he had said that, and other things like it, for far too long. He’d treated Cadence and the things that she wanted as though they were not worth the effort. And for what? Juniper Café and Honey Bee Bakery were maybe three minutes away from one another? What was the cost of three minutes when it came to doing something kind that made his wife happy?
He ran his hands roughly through his hair.
“I… I owe you an apology, Cadence,” he said.
She blinked up at him, pausing mid-bite, then lowered her pastry.
“What do you mean?” she asked, sounding guarded. He deserved that, he supposed, given that he’d shown up out of the blue and started being cryptic.
“No, no, nothing’s wrong,” he said hurriedly, before Cadence’s mind could jump to worrying about Isabelle. He knew how she thought. They were both parents, and their daughter would never be far from their minds. “I just meant… I didn’t really realize howselfishI’d let myself get, toward…”
He stopped before he could saythe end of our marriage. That felt like putting bad energy out into the world. He didn’t want their marriage to be over. He wanted whatever was currently happening between them to be a blip, something they’d discuss ten, twenty, thirty years from now asthat rough patchbefore they would smile and reminisce about all the wonderful memories they’d made after they’d worked things out.
But dreaming about that was getting ahead of himself.
“In the months before I moved out,” he concluded.
Cadence was looking at him with more sympathy than he likely deserved.
“Ty,” she said. “It wasn’t just you. It was both of us.”
He grimaced. “I don’t know. I mean, yeah, I get that a marriage is made up of two people. I get that we were both there. But… I feel like I was the one who started letting the little things slip. Like, who cares if you to two places to get the things you like? Why was I such a jerk about that?”
