“Wait, your permits enemy helped you build the shelf?” he asked absently as he looked at a particularly detailed carving of a tree. Every leaf was done in detail. Remarkable.
“Oh, we’re friends now,” Eleanor said offhandedly. “Water under the bridge. Anyway, Garrett pretends that he isn’t, but he’s a little jealous that he didn’t get to build the showstopper piece after he built…” She scrunched her nose affectionately. “… basically everything else in this place.”
“It’s wild how much it looks like a business,” Shane said appreciatively. “I mean, I know itisa business. Obviously. But it’s hard to imagine that this was just a regular house, what, six months ago?”
Eleanor fluffed her hair jokingly. “What can I say? I’m a home improvement maven now.”
Shane snorted. “Nice try. I was there when you tried to fix the caulking on your bathtub because Brian was too busy at work.” What Shane didn’t add was that Brian, Eleanor’s ex-husband, hadn’t exactly been the ‘handy’ type either.
“Okay, fine,” Eleanor admitted on a laugh. “Garrett is the maven, and I know how to follow instructions.”
“Youdo?” He feigned shock. She stuck her tongue out at him.
“So,” Shane observed. “You and Garrett seem to make a really good team.”
Eleanor blushed. “Have I been talking about him too much? Sorry, I’m apparently a total schoolgirl these days.”
Shane gave his sister an indulgent smile. “No, it’s sweet. You seem really happy.”
“I am.” She blushed harder.
“And,” he went on, “you two seem like a good team. I don’t want to say bad things about Brian, since I know you guys were good together for a long time before the chaotic ending, but you guys always seemed to have more of a ‘divide-and-conquer’strategy going on. And that totally works for some couples, I know… but this seems to make you a lot happier.”
“Yeah,” she said dreamily. “It really does.Hereally does. I mean, I never thought that I would ever evenconsidergetting married again, but…” She trailed off, a fierce blush crossing her cheeks.
Shane had always felt a little left out as a child, as the only member of his and Eleanor’s immediate family who wasn’t a redhead, but he had to allow, looking at her now, that there were some upsides to having been gifted his comparatively unremarkable, sandy blond locks.Hedidn’t turn the color of a lobster the moment he was embarrassed about something.
Shane didn’t press her this time.
“Right then,” his sister said briskly after she’d taken a moment to compose herself. “Enough about me. What can I do to helpyou?”
“Oh, nothing specific,” Shane said, offering her a vague sort of wave. “I think I just need to… be in another place. Just let me hang around for a little while and soak in a way of life that isn’t all deadlines and coding and fighting for the next promotion. Maybe let me read a few books. You don’t happen to have books, do you?”
Eleanor sighed sadly. “No. Tragically, I do not have access toanybooks.” She held her morose expression for a moment longer, then her smile broke back across her face. “Yes, read anything, obviously. Hang out. See what you want to see. I’d say go to the beach, but it is October, so I don’t think a fragile Californian like you could handle it.”
“I am from Indiana just like you,” he protested.
He obviously wouldn’t be going to the beach, though. It was October in New England. He wasn’t insane.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Another customer came in, stealing Eleanor’s attention away, so Shane settled into the corner after indeed helping himself to a book. He whiled away a few hours like this, feeling undeniably weird about not working, then forcing the thought away, before stealing brief moments of actual peace untouched by that nagging feeling.
Eventually, however, the last customers trickled out the door, and Eleanor flipped the sign on the front of her door fromOpentoClosed.
“Okay,” she said, leaning against the door briefly. “That’s all for today, folks.”
Shane closed his book. “Tell me the truth,” he said. “Do you say that even when I’m not here?”
“Oh, shush,” she chided. “Do you want to see your room or do you want to make fun of me?”
“Can I do both?”
“You cannot,” she said firmly.
“Room, then,” he decided, not without some reluctance.
Eleanor led him through a door at the back of the shop that had a sign that said “Staff Only,” which she had to unlock with the key from her pocket.
