Page 11 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Guy Next Door

Today. I have to tell her, before she works it out on her own. And the words need to come from me. I have to make her understand it was never a joke at her expense, and that I'd sooner put a chisel through my other hand than let her feel that way.

Megan turns up mid-morning while I'm sweeping. She knocks tentatively.

“Is it okay if I?…”

“Come in.”

She steps into the light. Denim cutoffs, a yellow shirt knotted at the waist, showing her beautiful curves, with her glossy dark hair falling out of its knot. My whole body comes alive as soon as she walks in.

“I brought you something.” She holds something out. “It's a thank-you for helping me look at nature in a different light. Delphine's been insufferable about them, by the way. She's telling the committee she commissioned an artisan.”

It's a sheet of heavy paper with a drawing of a fox on it.

He’s low to the ground, shoulders dropped; head turned back over one shoulder, caught mid-decision. He’s completely alive on that page.

He has one eye. It’s Kit.

“You did this last night?”

She's watching my face far too closely. “This morning. Is it right?”

“It's perfect.”

She laughs, low and surprised, and comes further in without being invited. She trails a fingertip through the sawdust on the bench and picks up a spokeshave, then puts it down again. Looks at the jars of screws and examines the little stove in the corner with its pipe going up through the roof.

Then she stops at the door at the back.

“What's in there?”

“Storage.”

“This has a better lock than your front door.”

I lean on the broom. “Are you always this nosy?”

“Comes with the job. It's called observation, and I’d like you to know that it’s a professional skill.” She grins at me and her face is so beautiful it makes my stomach clench.

She hops up and sits on the end of my bench with her bare legs swinging, and starts asking me about the stands, and thefestival. She’s so happy and carefree that I hate to spoil it, but my phone is sitting in my back pocket like a stone. She’s looking down at a carving I’ve made so I take out my phone.

I type carefully, watching her face.

You look cute with sawdust in your hair.

Megan stops swinging her legs and takes the phone out. She reads it. Then she looks up at me, and back down at the screen, and up again.

I try not to smile at the shock on her face, but fail.

“You?” she says.

I nod.

“You.”

“Yes.”

Color climbs her neck and floods into her face, and she slides off that bench with her mouth hanging open.

“Oh my God…”