Page 50

He had me, and he knew it.

“Okay,” I said. “But the drawer comes right after.”

“Deal.” He grabbed my hand and led me out of the house and across the yard. I worked to steady myself as the excitement and touch of nerves about what I was about to reveal overtook me. I’d managed to keep it at bay all day, but this was the moment.

At the shop door, which held the panel with our joint mark, I stopped him. I threw the doors open with a flourish and turned on the lights.

I’d put a bow on the workbench. Red, and crooked, because I’m not someone who is good with bows. It stood under the windows where the morning light comes in. Six feet of hard maple.

Nico stopped in the doorway.

“Oh my God, Jake.”

He approached it slowly, taking it in. I hung back at the door to give him space.

He didn’t push on it or lean on it or ask if it was solid. He laid his palm flat on the top and ran it the entire length, slow. Then he stood square to it and looked down at where the front edge met his hip. Doing the math on the height. Coming up with his own answer.

“It’s my bench,” he said.

“It is.”

He crouched and set two fingers in the first dog hole, then the next, counting down the row. He opened the leg vise and closed it. Left his hand on the screw a moment. The way you do with a thing that’s going to be yours for decades.

“How?” He furrowed his brow and ran a hand through his dark hair. “When?”

“It took me two tries to get this right in Tommy’s garage.” I wanted him to have the story of this piece. “The first top was glued up in April, and I rushed it. I thought I knew better than Nana did about shortcuts. By the next morning there was a twist in it you couldn’t miss.”

He looked up, and I moved to him, no longer able to keep my distance.

“I spent three weeks trying to save it. Then I cut it apart. Tommy took it to the dump so I wouldn’t have to look at it. Bought more maple. Took my time and did it right that time. I laid a straightedge across the second top in June. Nobody there to tell me whether it was good. Just me, Tommy’s dog, and sometimes Henry.”

“And?”

“And I decided it was.” That was the part I’d never done before. Not once, in a life where somebody else always passed judgement. A coach. A general manager. A bank.

“It’s beautiful. And it’s mine.” He looked at the bench and then back to me. “I mean, it’s like you moved my bench here. Except this doesn’t have all the wear the one at my shop has.”

His gaze drifted down the bench. His eyes widened just a bit as he found the other small face vise. This one, though, was set at my height, and faced my corner of the shop.

“I love that you made a place for yourself to work here too.” He stepped in and kissed me.

“And it means no more makeshift rolling-table workbench for you.”

He grinned and gave me a quick peck on the nose. “I know you’ve worried about that far more than I have. And I couldn’t⁠—”

He found it then. Low on the apron, an inch under the working edge. Nana Mary’s mark burned into the face of the bench. Right where anyone standing at it would see it. He ran his fingers over it.

Suddenly he wrapped me in the tightest hug I’d ever gotten from him. This wasn’t the first time I’d used Nana’s mark on something in the past year, but he knew this was the largest thing I’d ever built by myself.

“I’m honored to have another gift that you’ve made me, and that carries her mark. I can’t wait to use it.”

We’d worked in this space for a year. The bed we’d finished in February, the one whose offcuts I kept telling him to stop hoarding. The bookshelf that went to my office in the spring. The joined mark we’d burned into the shop door, the serving pieces, the kitchen cabinets. And now our shop was upgraded, ready for even more projects.

“You don’t have to move it all now,” I said, after Nico had moved some of his tools from the rolling table to the bench. “Besides, we still have drawer twenty-five waiting.” I was eager to see what was in the drawer. We’d each filled 12 drawers so far with mostly chocolate or other sweet treats. But we fit in other small things too, like a tin whistle and a pair of shop pencils. He has the odd drawers, so the last was his to fill, just like the first.

He nodded but seemed anxious. I hoped he wasn’t second guessing whatever he put in that drawer. It was going to be wonderful no matter what because he was giving it to me.

“You’re right.” He took in a deep breath.