Like Charles said, it is full from top to bottom, apart from one clear corner. The workbench Dair shows me has seen a whole lot of use. Generations of it. So have the woodworking tools he tells me he spent the afternoon sorting. He made that his number one priority, which only makes me hoarser. “Nice setup. Professional.”
“It needs to be.” Dair’s hand finds mine. “Because someone smart told me that there could be real money in furniture rental for events like weddings. I think I can fit that in around mycare work if I had someone to help with the practical aspect.” He points at the armchair. “I could sit there and do the admin while”—he swallows—“while you worked your magic on everything in there.” He points back the way we came, and I take a wild guess why he couldn’t bring anything back here from London.
“You got a few chairs and tables in there needing some TLC?”
He laughs again. “More than a few.” Dair holds out his phone. “Was about to send you a wee video. I know your real work is with your cousin, but I wondered if I could tempt you down to Cornwall sometime.”
His fingers thread tighter with mine, like he thinks I’ll back off from that suggestion.
He even adds a sweetener.
“We could split any profits fifty-fifty.”
I’d work for him for free, no problem, but I got a proposal of my own to make, don’t I?
Not the kind that means getting down on one knee.
Not yet, although I can’t help thinking that my one-and-done days are well and truly over. What I do want to propose means sitting in an armchair that wheezes when I pull Dair down to join me.
I start by telling him, “Flynn kept his promise.”
That takes a long moment for him to compute, and I’m never gonna get tired of watching the way Dair processes. It means I get to see the same kind of confusion I’ve felt so often but kept hidden. He also lets me see the moment the penny drops—he’s delighted.
“He came through with your share of the auction money?” He beams, then he beams even wider, so happy for me. Right away, he’s sweetly worried. “Enough for you to take that restoration course?”
“Yeah.” I tell him what else Harry and I pieced together on the way to the airport. “He didn’t return my first calls or messages because the wreck he’s diving is really remote, but he always meant for me to get my share. Tried to tell me so once he found out the house got cleared too early.” It was me who sat in Dair’s bathroom and blocked Flynn after leaving him a blistering voice note telling him if he had anything to say, he could do it in a group chat he wasn’t ever part of.
I’ll tell Dair all about that later. For now, this feels more important.
“I’ll need to work on a lot of practice pieces to pass that course. That will take more tools than I’ve got at home already.” I tilt my head at Dair’s workbench. “Wondered if I could do that practising here. It would mean I’d need to make regular visits.”
Dair’s eyes brightening suggests that won’t be a problem.
It also makes me honest. “Would have gone all the way to the Isle of Harris to ask you. Almost did.”
He looks about to ask why, then changes his mind to kiss me, but that’s okay.
I can’t help thinking I’ll have all the time in the world to tell him.
EPILOGUE
SUMMERTIME IN CORNWALL
DAIR
Adey was right about it never being too late to go back to school. Vincent comes in top of his class with his first practical assignments, which is no surprise. My mudlark has his eyes on the same prize as me—him coming home permanently.
That’s what we both want after six months of him fitting visits around his work with Kev and his master craftsman studies. The cousins have talked it through. Their plan is for Vincent to drop helping with removals but keep restoring the furniture that Kev will deliver to Cornwall and then collect in a van painted with both of their names. They’ll continue splitting the profit on those pieces while we work on a side hustle of our own.
Kev hiring an apprentice to replace Vincent’s labour has been a game-changer, especially as his new hire understands that some house moves can’t wait until morning. Deshaun is exactly as handy as Vincent once told his drug-dealing uncle. He’s all over those midnight rescue missions.
That helping pair of hands just leaves one roadblock to Vincent’s relocation: He has to pass an in-person assessment. Ifhe does, he can finish the rest of his accreditation from the far end of a train line.
But that in-person assessment?
It’s today, and it’s a doozy.
Vincent won’t only have to give an educational presentation about a restoration project; he’ll have to do it in front of an audience. That’s a whole bus full of struggles for him. I heard so during the video call when he invited me to come watch it. Saw it too in the way he scratched his chest while I was too far away to kiss him better with aloe vera. I’m nervous on his behalf, which my ride to the station notices when he arrives bright and early.
