"She sounds good," he said, and his voice came out rough.
"She sounds perfect." Hank killed the engine and turned to look at him. "So. You want to help me with the next one?"
It was a simple question. But they both knew it wasn't simple at all.
Brian looked at Tessa. She raised an eyebrow, waiting.
"Yeah," he said finally. "Yeah, I think I do."
Hank's smile was slow and real, the kind that reached his eyes. "About damn time."
Colby whooped and clapped Brian on the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger. "I knew it. I told Hank you'd come around. You owe me twenty bucks, James."
"I don't owe you anything. I said he'd come around eventually. I just didn't put a timeline on it."
"Semantics."
"English."
Sabrina rolled her eyes and handed Tessa a brownie. "Get used to this. They're like this all the time."
"I'm starting to see that." Tessa bit into the brownie and made a sound of appreciation. "Is Lila single? Because I might leave Brian for these brownies."
"She's fifty-three and happily married to a retired fisherman named Walt."
"Damn. All the good ones are taken."
Brian laughed, really laughed, the sound startling even himself. It had been so long since he'd felt this light, this present, this much a part of something bigger than his own grief.
Tessa looked up at him, brownie crumbs on her lip, and smiled.
"There you are," she said softly.
"Here I am," he agreed.
And for the first time in two years, he meant it.
---
They stayed at the shop until the afternoon light slanted golden through the windows. Hank walked them through the restoration queue: a 1965 Triumph Bonneville, a 1971 Honda CB750, and a basket-case 1940 Indian Four that would take years to complete. Colby showed Tessa how to check spark plugs and didn't laugh when she got grease on her nose. Sabrina talked about her retreat cabins, about the guests arriving next week, about the life she was building from the ashes of the one she'd lost.
And Brian listened, and learned, and let himself imagine a future where he was part of this again.
On the drive home, Tessa was quiet, her hand resting on his thigh as the coastal road unwound before them. The bay gleamed copper in the setting sun, and somewhere out there, the cottage waited with its unlocked doors and its deck facing the water.
"Thank you," he said.
She looked over at him. "For what?"
"For pushing. For not letting me hide. For being the kind of person who sees what I need even when I can't see it myself."
"That's what partners do." She said it simply, like it was obvious. Like they'd been doing this for years instead of weeks.
Partners. The word settled into his chest and made a home there.
"Yeah," he said. "I guess it is."
The cottage appeared around the bend, its windows glowing warm in the gathering dusk. Home, Brian thought. Not just a place, but a feeling. A person.
