Page 13

“After practice, usually. Sometimes early mornings on off days.” Jake grinned and shrugged. “After games I come out here sometimes too.”

“We’ll make it work.” I moved back toward my bench, where I had the decorative boxes laid out. “My immediate plan is to get these assembled so I can deliver on Monday.”

I looked back at Jake, but his eyes moved past me to the corner. I followed his gaze. The sleeping bag had stayed put behind the lumber, but the pillow had slumped into view.

“Nico.” His voice shifted. “Have you been sleeping out here?”

There was no point lying. “My apartment was above the workshop.” I kept my eyes on the pillow. “I’m sorry. I should’ve⁠—”

“And your things?”

“What I grabbed is in my truck. Clothes, mostly.” I shrugged, as if it was nothing, like I hadn’t spent two nights on a concrete floor telling myself it was temporary. “There’s heat here. It’s fine.”

“It’s December.” His jaw tightened. “You’ve been sleeping on a concrete floor in December, and you let me think you were going home.”

“You’d already given me the workshop.” The words came out stiff. “I wasn’t going to stand on the sidewalk and ask for a bed, too.”

Jake was quiet, and I braced for pity. It didn’t come.

“There’s a guest room in the house. First door at the top of the stairs. It has its own bathroom.” He said it in the same way he might tell me where I’d set down a chisel. “It’s yours for as long as you need it. You’ve already got the key.”

“Jake—”

“Same as the workshop. You’re not taking anything from me. It’s a room that sits empty, and you’re freezing in my backyard. Let me do this one too.”

I thought about the cold at three in the morning, and about this man who kept handing me pieces of his life. My pride wanted to argue. The rest of me wanted a bed.

“I’ll pay you something,” I said. “Rent, utilities, something.”

“We’ll figure it out. Same as everything else.” Jake left no room for discussion as he changed topics. “Mind if I work on this while you do that?” He indicated the jewelry box. “I’d like to finish it before Christmas.”

“It’s a present?”

“For my mother. She’s been asking for a jewelry box, and I decided this was something I could probably make instead of getting one at a store.”

It was the same instinct that had led him to my workshop, choosing what’s handcrafted over something off a shelf.

“She’s going to love it. Not just because it’s well crafted, but because you made it for her. Because it carries your hands, your time, your care.”

Jake flushed slightly. “I hope so.”

I started arranging my tools while Jake retrieved an old radio from a cabinet. It had probably been his grandmother’s, based on the vintage styling. He plugged it in and found a station playing Christmas music that was classical, peaceful, and like I usually played.

“Hope you don’t mind music while we work,” Jake said.

“I prefer it. Helps me think.”

Jake settled at his workbench and picked up a piece of sandpaper to smooth the box’s surfaces for final assembly. I went to work on the boxes I was finishing.

For the first time since the fire, I was where I was supposed to be.

We worked in comfortable silence for the next hour. The workshop filled with the sounds of sandpaper on wood and the gentle melodies of festive tunes. Outside, the first real snow of the season had started to come down.

More than once I lost the thread of my work to his hands. The same hands that handled a hockey stick moved over the maple, patient, unhurried. I’d sketched them the morning after we met, and wondered what else they could do besides trace the edge of a table. I was thinking too much about this man, in ways I shouldn’t be.

“Nico?” Jake asked eventually.

“Yeah?”