I swallow a bite of broccoli. “What is it you love about carpentry?”
Logan stretches out against his seat. “A lot of people stick with things because they love them. Me? I hated it at first. It was the hardest thing I had ever done. I was not good at it. Like, really awful. Someone should’ve taken the saw away from me.” He pushes a piece of shrimp around on his plate. “It wasn’t something I was naturally good at, but I got a little better each day. Eventually, I was good at it without fully realizing how I got there. I think I fell in love with it because it challenged me.”
“You had to work for it.”
“I did,” he says, punctuating this with a single nod. “Once I got the hang of it, I started to love the little things about it. The history in it. The smell of the wood. The feeling of a cut board before it’s sanded and smoothed. The feeling afterward.”
“So you could make something out of”—I point down to a tree lining the street—“that.”
“Sure, what would you like?”
“Surprise me. But if you get caught chopping it down, I don’t know you.”
Logan grins. “I’ll have to get my disguise back on before I do it.”
“No way. There’s photographic evidence that ties you to me in that thing,” I say.
“Right, right,” he says, rubbing his chin. “In fact, that version of me was your husband.”
“Maybe that’s better. Spousal immunity.”
“Did we just begin our life of crime together?” Logan asks.
I gesture toward the rooftop. “We’re up here on a bribe. I’d say that’s a good start.”
Logan laughs hard, his whole heart showing.
“That’s really great, though. Sounds like carpentry brings you a lot of joy,” I say. Despite recent events, it really seems to. Logan looks peaceful as he shares all this. It guts me that something he loves so much is challenging him all over again. “I’m sorry things aren’t getting better at work.”
I can’t properly analyze his expression, but based on his long silence, I imagine he’s working through something.
“Our set designer left,” he updates as I bite a string bean in half. “She took a job Off Broadway. We have a new guy, but he wants to move some of the sets around. Which, of course, complicates how everything was meant to be arranged, and we need to make adjustments. So that’s the latest.”
The hourglass from his tea leaf reading comes to mind.Something’s coming up for you, and you’re racing against the clock.
“That’s frustrating,” I say.
The look of concern Logan wears is new to me. But as quickly as it comes, it vanishes. “The show will be better for it,” he says. “New vision, new energy. And I do my best work under pressure.”
It’s a classic Logan move, I’ve noticed. Whenever anything bad, or even mildly annoying happens, he spins it. Makes the situation positive, but in a forced way. It’s like he doesn’t want to talk about—no,feel—the negative.
In perfect universal timing, the distant roar of a plane’s engine draws our attention. Our eyes meet, both of us probably thinking the same thing.
Avoid planes.
“I figured out Phase Two,” I say suddenly to fill the silence that follows as the plane flies farther into the distance.
Logan offers a weak smile. “More charms?”
“We’re past the trinket stage. But remember to keep an eye out for the clover,” I remind him. “If you find one, let me know, and I’ll add it to my tracker.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Your tracker?”
“I’m tracking all the unusual activities that happen in your life. And our efforts. You should probably let me know anything else that’s happened. I’ve made a mental note to add the set design change-up.”
“You’re cataloging the bad things that happen to me?” Logan asks, somewhat amused.
“I’ve got data all the way back to the day we met,” I explain. “I’ll make sense of the numbers and give you a nice visual report. I have a particular data visualization style that I was kind of known for at work. Why are you looking at me like that?”
