Page 59 of Stealing Home

That shouldn’t have felt like a physical blow, but Dom felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He looked down at the sauce. “Okay.”

“But he didn’t need to.” Evan shrugged one shoulder when Dom looked at him. “He asked if we’d eaten at this place over in Little Italy because he was thinking about trying it. Then he spent five minutes telling me the sauce probably wouldn’t be as good as yours.”

Dom stared at him. “He said that?”

“Pretty much.”

“Pretty much or exactly?” Dom pressed. This was important.

Evan’s smile widened. “There he is.”

“Fuck you,” Dom said, but there was no heat behind the words.

CJ laughed softly, and Dom tried to scowl at them, but warmth had already started spreading through his chest. It was pathetic how little it took. Two weeks of silence and one secondhand compliment had him fighting a smile over a pot of tomatoes. He turned back to the stove before they could see it.

Too late.

“You could text him,” Evan said mildly. He moved to grab plates from the cabinet, then placed them at their usual seats at Dom’s table.

The smile disappeared, and Dom shook his head. “I don’t know what I’d say.”

“Pretty sure that’s why hello was invented.” CJ grabbed silverware and napkins from their respective drawers and followed Evan to the table to set it.

“Helpful.”

“You don’t need some grand declaration,” Evan said, which was slightly more helpful. Dom looked at him. Evan’s expression was serious now. “You don’t have to decide what happens six months from now before you allow yourself to talk to him today.”

That sounded dangerously close to something he’d been trying not to think about, and he looked away. Because every time he considered Gavin, his brain skipped straight past dating or another kiss and landed on all the ways it could eventually go wrong. Like Lucia getting attached or Gavin wanting more than Dom could give. Dom failing them both because baseball took him away too often. A breakup that left another hole in Lucia’s life after she’d already started hers with one parent walking away, even if she wouldn’t remember that. He’d made a promise because Lucia deserved stability. She deserved a father who didn’t let anything pull his attention away when she needed him. He still believed that.

He just wasn’t as certain anymore that wanting Gavin automatically meant breaking that promise.

“Dinner’s ready,” he said.

Evan and CJ exchanged another glance, but neither of them called him on the obvious subject change.

For once.

11

GAVIN

The drill rattled against Gavin’s palm in three hard bursts, whining loudly in the enclosed space, and he released the trigger when the screw was flush in the cedar. He ran his thumb over the joint, checking for any lip between the boards, then reached for the next piece from the wood stacked beside the makeshift workbench he’d erected with sawhorses and a sheet of plywood.

He used to have a workshop, with a real bench and a wall of perfectly organized tools, where he’d built things that he was proud to put his name on. But that was before. Now he had a client’s backyard in Mission Hills, where a simple deck repair had ballooned into a full custom install when the client decided they “might as well do it right while they were at it.” Then they’d found his old Instagram, seen the custom furniture he used to build, and had asked if he still took commissions. Apparently he did, because he said yes before he could think about it, and now he was building a coffee table out of black walnut.

The yard was tight, boxed in by stucco walls and overgrown hedges that made every noise feel louder than it should have. Extension cords snaked across pavers and the smell of cut wood hung in the air, sharp and clean, mixing with dust and the faint metallic tang of tools left out in the sun too long. Somewhere behind him, the compressor kicked on with a low mechanical growl.

Here, everything made sense to Gavin and every noise meant something: the scrape of wood, the snap of a tape measure locking back into place, the intermittent hiss of the compressor cycling, the whine of a drill. Noise meant progress, and progress meant his brain didn’t have time to drift where it shouldn’t.

Gavin flipped the plank of wood over and checked the underside.

He’d forgotten how much he liked it.

Not building furniture specifically, but this part. Taking rough material and carefully turning it into something that made sense. Measuring twice because fixing a bad cut took longer than making the right one. Sanding until a joint disappeared beneath his fingertips and knowing exactly what the finished piece should look like even when it still resembled a pile of expensive lumber scattered across a job site. There was a comfort in knowing at least one thing could be solved with enough patience.

Gavin lined up the square and marked the cut before placing the wood beneath the blade. The saw shrieked to life when he pulled the trigger, and for five blessed seconds, it drowned out his thoughts. He guided the saw through the board, raised the arm, released the trigger, and watched the blade wind down.

In his pocket, his phone buzzed against his leg, but Gavin ignored it. Probably the client checking in or a supplier confirming delivery. Or his mother asking whether he’d remembered his father’s birthday despite the fact that his father’s birthday was eleven days away and Gavin had never once forgotten it.