Page 10 of Hooked on Emerson
“That’s just like her, too,” she murmured.
They brought the bench to the front room, set it near the window where the sun filtered through. Emerson got to work with his sander, while Ava sat beside him on the floor, sorting abox of tangled ribbons. “You ever get tired of fixing things?” she asked over the buzz of the sander.
He paused, turned it off, and dusted off the surface. “Sometimes. But there’s satisfaction in it. Broken things make sense to me.”
Ava looked over. “Because it’s clear what needs to be done?”
“Yeah.” He hesitated. “And because they don’t leave. They don’t wake up one day and decide to be something else.”
She was quiet for a moment. “That sounds like a story.”
“It’s not a new one.”
She nodded, wrapping a piece of navy ribbon around her fingers. “I used to think fixing things was about control. That if I could keep the shop running, if I kept the cooler stocked and the receipts balanced, then everything else would stay still too.”
“And?”
“And life doesn’t care if your cooler’s stocked.”
He smiled faintly. “No. It doesn’t.”
They worked like that for a while—quiet and easy conversation, soft sanding, the occasional thread of warmth running beneath the surface.
By afternoon, the windows were gleaming with their first coat of sage, the bench was restored to a soft honey finish, and the shop smelled like citrus wood polish and iris blooms.
Emerson leaned against the stepladder, sipping water. Ava approached with a rag in one hand, examining a fleck of dried paint on his cheek. “You missed a spot.”
“I thought I had it all.”
She reached up, dabbing gently. “Not quite.” Her fingers lingered.
Their eyes met.
Neither moved.
Then, without warning, she pressed a dab of paint to the tip of his nose.
He blinked in surprise.
“You started it,” she said, stepping back.
“Did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
He reached for his brush and, with exaggerated slowness, dipped it in the tray.
Ava’s eyes widened. “Don’t you dare—”
But he did. A swift, neat streak across her forearm.
She gasped, mock-offended, and lunged toward him. He caught her wrist mid-swipe, and suddenly they were close—close enough that he could see the flecks of green paint on her jaw, the quick rise and fall of her chest.
Her wrist stilled in his grip.
The air around them shifted.
He felt her breath more than heard it.
