Page 44 of Never Landing

“You like it?”

I didn’t know how he could even ask, but there was no reason to play coy about it. This was Peter, and we were adults, not flirting teens afraid of being rebuffed by our crushes. “I love it, Peter. It’s amazing. You’re amazing. And now we don’t have to worry about where we’re going to live, because the house is...everything is fixed. Everything I was trying to find someone to do repairs for, it’s just...done.”

And that stopped me short.

The bulletin board at the grocery store popped into my head. One paper layered atop another looking for someone, anyone, to fix things, from broken appliances to sagging rooftops to weathered porches.

I grabbed Peter’s hand and dragged him downstairs again to the kitchen, where the refrigerator was humming contentedly, like it wasn’t about to take off and go flying through the window with its painfully loud jet engine.

Fixed. Fixed. Everything fixed.

And just a few days earlier, Peter had been worrying that he’d never be able to be a real adult, because unlike me, he hadn’t spent years in school and didn’t know about marketing and such. He was literate, but he didn’t have my vocabulary. So what could he ever do to contribute to society?

I’d spent hours assuring him that he was a valid person and deserved to exist even if he never contributed a damned thing, but here it was. His ability to contribute in a way that he, and everyone else, found meaningful.

Maybe he didn’t need to work to deserve to live comfortably and have food in the fridge, but he wanted to work. He wanted to accomplish things. And here, he had.

He’d performed easily a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of repairs on my grandmother’s house in under five minutes.

I spun to face him, grinning. “How would you like to have a job?”

He cocked his head, then looked around. “Did I leave something unfinished? I’m sorry, I?—”

I grabbed his chin and turned him to face me, then pulled him in for a kiss.

That got his attention off any perceived failure, as he fell into me, kissing me for all he was worth, till both of us were breathless. He was panting when I broke away, eyes closed and a tiny smile on his lips.

“You didn’t leave a single thing unfinished. It’s perfect. You’re perfect.” I leaned my forehead against his, just breathing for a moment before continuing. “But there’s no handyman in town. No one to do this stuff for anyone. You were worried about being able to get a job, remember? Well I’m pretty sure fixing things for other people in town constitutes a job. If you—if you can do it, and it doesn’t hurt you. Doesn’t use up all your, um, magic. Half the people in town need house repairs.”

His eyes rounded and he stared at me a moment, his breath catching. “R—Really? I could...people would call that a job?”

I almost wanted to cry. No, I did want to cry. Screw my parents and their “men don’t cry” nonsense. This sweet, perfect, kind man, questioning such an incredible gift was a goddamned tragedy, and I was going to see it made right, no matter what I had to do.

28

Peter

Ihad ajob.

An actual, bona fide, whole adult job.

Sure, it wasn’t like Everett’s, with his computer and stuff, but that was fine. I didn’t mind using his laptop, but it felt weird to me, constrained in a way that I didn’t fully understand.

But working with my hands? That was fucking great.

Okay, my hands and magic.

We’d gone down to the store and took a look at the bulletin board, where people were asking for help with everything that’d broken in their homes, and Everett had looked at me sidelong.

“Are you sure you’re up for this? Maybe we start with something small.”

But looking over the board, there was nothing that I thought was impossible. I didn’t flatter myself to think I was good at everything, only that things knew the shape they wanted to be and I could give them a push.

It was the same kind of magic that’d kept me young for almost two centuries, and the same kind that’d let me grow beside Everett. It’d been simple, and while one day I might get bogged down in the complexities of why things were the way they were, in that moment, it felt right.

“We can, but it’s going to be fine,” I promised, slipping my hand into Everett’s.

He took pictures of the board with his phone so we could call everyone, and I was letting him handle that part.

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