Page 109 of Stuck with Doctor Grump

Marge stepped forward and handed us a ceremonial shovel, then immediately dropped her own on her foot with a loud clang.

“Oops!” she cried, hopping on one leg. “Carry on!”

Ruby and I burst into laughter, and the tension finally broke. Hazel handed out tissues. Eleanor tried to give an impromptu toast with a lemonade glass. Someone turned on a portable speaker playing an old bluegrass tune, and Hazel’s nephew started slow dancing with a golden retriever.

And there we were—two fools in hard hats, surrounded by cake, flowers, community, and chaos.

Exactly where we were meant to be.

I looked down at Ruby as we stood side by side, our hands linked again.

“This is real, right?” I whispered.

She leaned into me. “The dirt under our feet, the confetti in my bra, and the woman sobbing because she’s out of deviled eggs? Yeah. Very real.”

We both laughed, and I knew I’d never need a stage or a surgical spotlight again.

Just this. Her. Us.

And as the sun dipped low and golden behind the Cedar Springs hills, the crowd danced, cried, and celebrated around us.

…

I didn’t hear her come in.

The old barn that would serve as our temporary office was quiet except for the scratch of my pencil against blueprint paper and the low hum of a fan lazily spinning overhead. Ruby’s floral apron was tossed over the back of a chair, still dusted with soil and petals. Her scent—jasmine and something citrusy—still lingered in the air.

I leaned over the desk; tongue pressed to the corner of my mouth as I shaded in the new section I’d added: a sensory garden for kids.

Bright colors. Soft moss paths. Lavender for calm. Bamboo chimes for sound. It had come to me after watching Hazel’s youngest spin in the grass earlier today, giggling at the way the wind tickled her face.

I didn’t want this space to just be for adults rediscovering themselves. I wanted it to be for the kids who needed a world that understood them—before life ever taught them to hide.

“You’ve changed,” Ruby said softly.

I turned, startled, finding her in the doorway. Her hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, her sundress streaked with dirt, and her eyes—those wild, warm, chaotic eyes—were fixed on the plans spread in front of me.

“I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” she added with a smile. “But I didn’t want to interrupt the genius at work.”

I gestured to the blueprints. “Hardly genius. Just some scribbles that might pass for thoughtful design.”

She stepped closer, glancing down at the sensory garden section. “You thought of the wind chimes?”

I nodded. “And soft benches. Textured paths. Even shaded corners for quiet moments.”

She rested her hand lightly on the table beside mine.

“That’s not the Damien Cole I met in an alley with a cracked flower pot and a thundercloud scowl.”

I looked at her. Really looked at her.

“That Damien didn’t know what it felt like to build something for someone else,” I said. “That version of me only knew how to fix things with scalpels and silence.”

Her thumb brushed across mine, the contact barely there but grounding all the same.

“So,” she whispered, “what happened?”

“I didn’t change,” I said simply. “I finally became who I wanted to be.”

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