For a second, I thought she might—grab her laptop, make some comment about “teamwork” being optional, and head out. But she stayed where she was, leaning against the doorframe, eyes scanning over me like she was cataloguing all the ways I didn’t belong in her tidy little world.
Her gaze dropped to my arm. “You missed a spot,” she said finally.
I glanced down. A smear of blue paint streaked across my wrist, another on my sleeve where it had already torn. “If you’re going to critique,” I said, holding out the brush, “grab a brush.”
She hesitated. Just long enough for me to think she’d roll her eyes and walk off.
Then she stepped forward, took the brush from my hand, and crouched beside me. “Fine,” she said, voice clipped but not unkind. “But if you glue this to the table, I’m not helping you explain it to Cam.”
“Deal.”
We worked in silence at first. Not the tense, ready-to-snap kind we’d been wrapped in all week—just… quiet. The kind that let you hear the little things: the scratch of tape peeling from the roll, the faint patter of rain outside, the steady rhythm of her breath beside mine.
I tried not to watch her too obviously, but it was impossible not to notice how focused she got when she worked. Every motion precise, measured. The same intensity she probably brought to everything.
“So this gala thing,” I said finally, just to break the quiet. “It’s a big deal, huh?”
She nodded without looking up. “Biggest of the year. It’s what keeps the lights on, funds the programs, pays for gear. No pressure or anything.”
I smirked. “Sounds like you could use a drink.”
“After the gala,” she said, dipping her brush again. “When I can afford to stop caring for five minutes.”
“That a habit of yours? Not caring?”
She shot me a look, more amused than annoyed. “You’re confusing me with you.”
I huffed a laugh, shaking my head. “You’ve got jokes.”
“I have experience,” she countered, smoothing a strip of tape over the corner I’d mangled earlier. “Especially with people who think charm excuses chaos.”
I glanced at her, arching a brow. “You calling me charming?”
“Don’t push it.”
We both laughed then—small, surprised, like neither of us expected to actually find it funny. The kind of laugh that made something loosen in my chest I didn’t know had been wound tight.
We went back to work. Piece by piece, the board started to look whole again. The edges lined up; the cracks hidden under fresh tape.
She stepped back first, brushing her hands off. “There,” she said, a hint of pride in her voice. “Almost good as new.”
“Almost?” I asked, standing beside her.
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
Our shoulders brushed, just barely, and for a second, neither of us moved. The rain outside softened, and the hum of the lights filled the space where words didn’t fit.
I looked down at the board, at the photos of the kids and the bright, impossible lettering across the top—Building Futures Through Sports.
“You really think this stuff works?” I asked quietly.
She glanced up at me, her expression unreadable but softer than before. “I have to.”
Something about the way she said it stuck in my chest.
She stepped away then, cleaning the brush, pretending not to notice I was still watching her.
For once, I didn’t have anything smart to say. I just picked up the roll of tape and started sealing the edges again, side by side in the glow of the gym lights—two people who’d spent all week at war, finally finding a truce in the wreckage.
