Page 79 of What Remains of Grace

His throat went tight. “Good,” he said quietly, “that’s what we were aiming for.”

They stood there for a moment, the late-summer heat pressing close, weighted with everything neither of them said.

“Casey sends love and demands we name a muffin after her,” Emmie announced.

Jenna arched a brow. “She has delusions of grandeur.”

By the time they made it back to the front, the list was done. The walkthrough completed. Jenna signed the final acknowledgment sheet with a firm stroke of the pen.

“So,” she said, closing the clipboard and handing it back. “As far as I can tell, we’re ready for him tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Cole said. “You’re ready.”

They looked at each other then. Not long, not the way they sometimes did when the room went silent. Just enough for him to see the faint shadows under her eyes and for her to see the way he’d bitten his lower lip raw sometime between Friday and now.

He should have said, “Congratulations,” and left it at that. He should have shaken her hand and walked out the door, gone back to his truck, and let this be the clean end it was supposed to be.

Instead, he heard himself say, “There’s a dive bar near my place.”

She blinked. “That’s . . . a bold transition.”

He cleared his throat. “They, uh, do cheap champagne on Sundays. Twenty bucks a bottle. Real fancy operation.” His mouth tugged sideways. “I usually go after big sign-offs. To celebrate.”

“Ah,” she said, “tradition.”

“Something like that.” His pulse picked up. “You could . . . if you wanted . . . join me. For a drink. To mark the end of this thing. No construction talk required.”

He expected her to hesitate. To say she had work, or laundry, or a teenager to wrangle. To remind him of all the reasons this was a bad idea. He wasn’t blind to the whiplash of it. Two nights ago, he’d pulled away from her like a man terrified of his own impulses, and now he was the one asking her out at night. But the truth was simple and relentless, and he had spent every hour since beating himself up for walking away on Friday. The project was almost done. His time with her was almost over. If he didn’t take a risk now, he might never get another chance to tell her how he felt.

“Okay,” she said immediately.

He almost dropped the clipboard. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said. “We survived a roof, through monsoon season, I might add, and all seventeen of Emmie’s menu drafts. I think we’ve earned twenty-dollar champagne.”

Emmie, who had been pretending not to listen and doing a terrible job of it, perked up. “You’re going out?”

“Briefly,” Jenna said. “After we get everything ready for tomorrow.”

“Good,” Emmie said. “You should. You look like your brain is melting.”

Cole couldn’t decide if that statement applied to one of them or both. “Six?” he asked Jenna.

“Six,” she agreed. “Text me the address.”

For the first time all day, real anticipation flickered through his chest. He wasn’t sure if it was the smartest decision he’d ever made.

He was painfully sure it was the one he wanted.

* * *

The bar did not look like the kind of place that served champagne.

It sat wedged between a bait shop and a laundromat, its faded sign boasting cold beer, live music on Wednesdays, and air conditioning “most days.” The parking lot was more shell than pavement, and the building itself looked like it had grown there by accident.

She didn’t even know why she’d said yes to this.

Or maybe she did, maybe it was the same reason her stomach dipped when he smiled like that.