It goes poorly.
I miscount hex bolts twice. The first time, I make it to seventeen before Jordan’s laugh from the back room short-circuits every thought in my head. The second time, I get to twenty-three before the image of Jordan’s hands on my hips flashes, and I drop the box, bolts spraying across the tile.
Then I topple the caulk tube display. The whole thing. Plastic tubes rattle and careen, a disaster so loud both Jordan and Melvin appear in the doorway, identical looks of concern on their faces.
I wave a hand. “Fine. Everything’s fine. Apparently the caulk staged a rebellion. Happens.”
Jordan’s mouth curves with a barely-contained smile, the one that wracks my insides and dares me to call them on it. They say nothing, just vanish again, and I hear the pipe cutter’s whine and Melvin’s grumbling about amateurs and emotional stability echo down the hall.
By nine-thirty, the flood’s abated, the duck towels are howling in the dryer, and the store is inexplicably busy.
Not regular busy. Holiday busy. Summer-rush busy. Ruthann from the garden club comes for potting soil and lingers with her husband Rudy in tow, parsing the subtle differences between three shades of garden-stake green. Mr. Okafor wants a very specific hinge and, before I know it, is telling me about his granddaughter’s college essays. The farmers-market teen—the one with the crop top and bathroom-tile ambition—is back, phone crammed with Pinterest screenshots and surprisingly smart questions.
People stay. They browse. They talk. The register tape grows, curling on the counter, and I catch myself smiling, the real kind, over and over and over.
A silver-haired woman I recognize—but could not for the life of me name—pauses at the counter, sandpaper and a paint stirrer in the bag. She reaches across, squeezes my hand, and says, “It’s good to see you smiling again.” Then she’s gone, no pause, no hint of subtext, just warmth.
Melvin doesn’t comment. He moves slow and steady, restocking plumbing, alphabetizing paint swatches, helping a customer find a specialty drill bit and never once mentioning theway Jordan keeps orbiting me, six inches away, reorganizing the drill bit display like the fate of the world depends on it.
Jordan is being Useful, capital U. Fixed the pipe, restocked copper flashing (properly, this time), helped three customers in a row, and generally moves with authority through the aisles like they own the place. They don’t, but watching them work, so confident and right at home, does something to me I absolutely refuse to name.
It’s three o’clock before the store slows. I’m at the counter, updating inventory, and Jordan is beside me, six inches left, hands idly fussing with drill bits, cedar and coffee on the air.
Melvin straightens, sets down his clipboard, and calmly, with zero affect, looks at Jordan and asks, “You plan on mooning over Maddie near the power tools all day, or you intend to make yourself useful?”
Silence. Glacial. My ears burn. I flush, neck to temples, mortified and rooted to the spot, fingers glued to the keyboard. Melvin has just jackhammered straight through my last line of composure.
Jordan’s face splits open with a real grin. Not a smirk, not a tug at the corner, but a genuine, delighted smile that shows teeth and crinkles their eyes, bright and reckless and unrestrained. They glance at Melvin, at me, back to Melvin, and laugh a full-body, bright, uncaring laugh.
“Working on it,” Jordan answers, reaching for more masonry bits, not missing a beat.
Melvin picks up his clipboard and heads for the stockroom, pausing at the threshold. “See that you do,” tossed over his shoulder.
He’s gone, and the store hums with the fans and my heartbeat, which is probably audible in Rutland.
Jordan doesn’t say anything. They don’t need to. The smile lingers, gentler now, eyes catching mine across the counter, andsomething shifts; a secret, a promise, the start of something unnamed but electric.
I look away, face still on fire, hands shaking, and for the first time in years, the weight of being seen doesn’t crush me.
It feels like finally breathing.
*
The last customer leaves at 6:47, thirteen minutes past close, and I lock up, relief flooding me. Melvin disappeared with a grunt half an hour ago, which I interpret as “see you tomorrow” but could well be indigestion.
Weekdays don’t do this. They don’t triple foot traffic, unwind yards of register tape, or strip half the peg hooks in aisle 4.
Jordan’s in the back, loading returns onto a cart, whistling a folk tune, unfamiliar, but not unwelcome. I find them by the shelves, cornering them with my question. “The foot traffic.”
They don’t even look up. “Yep.”
“Suspicious.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Abnormally high for a weekday.”
Jordan finally meets my eyes, arms crossed, expression carefully blank. “You saying I had something to do with it?”
