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“And I can’t do the floors myself, no matter how many how-to videos I watch. Now, tiling…I think I might be able to manage that.” I shake my head and point at myself. He adds, “Well, we can manage it together, anyway. My problem is picking out things, to be honest. I decided on some subway tile for the bathroom, and then now I’m looking atyourbathroom and going…actually, maybe I’ll change it.”

He grins at me when I snort a laugh, popping another forkful of spaetzle into my mouth. This might be the best thing he’s ever cooked, and that is truly saying something. I wonder if he’d be willing to share the recipe; my sister might be able to make it for my niece.

“So, I don’t know. I’m in limbo a little bit. Also, I called about the heater. Yes, I know, finally.” He glances at me, playfully rolling his eyes. “And they can’t get anyone out until next week. I told them what had been going on, and they quoted me an estimate, and it is…not good. So, might have to hold off on everything else right now. Other than the stuff I already have materials for, obviously.”

I nod, still working my way slowly through the second helping of dinner. Livable is the goal with his house right now, with comfort coming in at a very close second. A roof leak isn’t great. Slightly functioning but mostly faulty heat in winter also isn’t great.Live here, with me, I want to offer, and for one of the first times in my life, I’m glad for the stutter in helping stay my tongue.

Oliver sits somewhat quietly as I finish eating, hands resting on his belly and eyes on the fire. Every now and then, he’ll hum a little bit, eyelashes fluttering like he’s having a hard time keeping his eyes open. When I finish, he blinks, rousing enough to push halfway up from the couch and reach for my plate as though to take it. I intercept his hand, shaking my head. If you cooked, you don’t also clean.

He trails me into the kitchen anyway, arms lifting over hishead and back arching into a stretch that bares a pale strip of skin above his waistband. As I rinse the plates at the sink, he stands behind me, chin hooked onto my shoulder and hands very lightly resting on my hips—both of us testing the waters of this thing, pressing gently against the barriers of our friendship to see what shifts with us.

I’m starting to learn how things have changed between us, but the differences are so small it doesn’t hurt to accommodate them. We do so much of the same stuff we used to, and he hasn’t altered the way he speaks or acts around me. The difference is more at a cellular level—a current of awareness that makes my body thrum when he’s near, the sensitive hair on the back of my neck seemingly always standing at attention, straining for him. And now this—the length of him pressed closely enough I can feel the heat of his body through my shirt, a line of warmth down my spine and ten points of contact where the pads of his fingers are resting. If I were to turn around, we’d be face-to-face, and I could try something else I never thought I’d have the chance to experience.

“Very clean. Solid work,” he murmurs, mouth so close to my ear I shiver. Huffing a soft laugh, I turn my face. My lips brush his cheek, so I press a little closer, kissing him opposite of where I did earlier. This time, there’s a pleased smile instead of a blush.

He backs away then, helping me wipe down the rest of the kitchen and pack up the leftovers. It makes it easier to do the dishes, but also makes it less enjoyable. He’s no longer touching me, but I’d swear I can still feel his hands on my hips and the sharp point of his chin pressing into my shoulder. I can’t smell spaetzle any longer, just flowers.

The fifteen minutes it takes us to put the kitchen in ordergives me just long enough to dream up a scenario where Oliver is touching me again, and I’m touching him back, searching for anything that might be hidden beneath blue jeans and fear. I’ve had fifteen minutes to mentally practice a few things I’d like to say, starting with a reiteration of how much I liked what he was wearing the other night and how much I’d enjoy seeing more.

I’m well practiced in shame, in hating parts of myself that are “other.” I know precisely how it feels to be painted as wrong in a room full of people who are considered right.

Oliver might be able to read me well, but I’m starting to become just as adept with him. He hadn’t been fully convinced after our conversation following the drunken evening, and the lack of him bringing it up again is glaring. Oliver doesn’t shy away from conversations. He might talk around things and scatter into side tangents, but he does talk. The absence of this one means he’s avoiding it on purpose, and the only reason he’d do that is because he’s frightened. Because he’s been taught that wearing pretty underwear and perfume is something dirty, something he needs to hide.

He doesn’t have to hide it from me, and stutter or not, it’s my job to make sure he knows that. Words are something I have to work up to, though, so the fifteen-minute kitchen clean isn’t quite enough time for me to fully practice the sentences. Fifteen minutes was enough time for Oliver to grow weary of silence, though, if the way he is currently monologuing on different types of wood flooring is any indication. I make us mugs of tea and nudge him back toward the living room. Talking is easier in lighting that isn’t so harsh, and I’m really starting to appreciate the things fire does for Oliver.

Chapter Twelve

OLIVER

When Nils has something to say, he squares his shoulders and scowls. Not a hard scowl like someone would use to dissuade people from talking to them, but a thinking scowl. His brows pull together in a straight line, and his jaw moves very slightly like he’s silently practicing the words before trying to speak them out loud. He’s doing it now, as we sit facing one another on the couch, the room pleasantly warm from the fire and the windows covered to keep out the night.

When I first met Nils and Shiloh, I’d thought maybe the pair of them were just shy. Big, gruff lobstermen who wanted to go out on the boat and get the job done, not waste time chatting. I was partly right, as Shiloh is certainly prone to silence and not just because he’s a hard worker. Heisshy. Nils, though, isn’t. Nils is silent, not because he wants to be but because he feels like he has to be. His brown eyes follow the threads of conversation like he’s tracking a tennis ball during a match—lashes flickering, jawclenching, and cheek compressing. All are minor tells that he’s both listening and has something to say. But he never did back when I first met him, and rarely does now.

I sometimes worry if the reason he’s so quiet around me is because of the way I reacted the first time I heard him speak. My facial expressions often say things my words don’t, and I know I probably looked shocked that day. Except it wasn’t the stutter that surprised me, but the sound of his voice. I’d been working on theDrifterfor weeks, and he’d not said a single word. He’d shown me how to do things and patiently helped me, all in unbroken silence. I hadn’t thought hecouldtalk.

Now, I reach out and cup each conversation in my hands, tenderly cultivating a little garden of words from Nils. I’ve got an entire encyclopedia of things he says without saying anything at all. I’m a body language expert in one person, and that person is currently warming himself up to say something. Buying him some time, I tell him random and mostly useless facts I’ve learned about wood in my various internet deep dives while on my floor journey.

He listens intently, brown eyes nearly black in the low light of the room, lashes framed dramatically around his almond eyes. A few shorter strands of hair have fallen from where the bulk is tied at the back of his head, framing his face. He’s got a striking face with a lovely mix of features that probably catch the eye of more men than just me. He’s beautiful.

Clearing my throat, I reach for my mug of tea. I’ve run out of wood-related things to talk about, which means it’s time to introduce another of my recenthyperfixations—entomology. Throat wetted, I think about where to begin, only for Nils to put a stop to it with a hand on my leg.

I’m not a stranger to being touched. A largely loveless childhood resulted in a mad rush to feel things as an adult. I didn’t leave a stone unturned or a dark corner unexplored when I arrived in NYC, looking for company without a thought for standards. But as someone older and wiser than me could probably have predicted, I got what I deserved from those interactions. I got human touch in exchange for ridicule and shame and—on several occasions—robbery.

I did not get this—candlelight and a thumb rubbing back and forth on my thigh, meaningful conversations with someone who chooses not to talk, and subtle, affectionate caretaking. I would have been happy being Nils’ friend and coworker for the rest of my life, but I don’t think I could handle going back to only that. Not when dating has been soft and soothing and safe.

“So, yeah, those are the choices,” I finish awkwardly, forgetting as soon as I stop what I’d even been saying. My eyes are on his face, but ninety percent of my attention is focused on the hand resting atop my leg.

“Are you still nervous?” he asks.

Ah. I should have known this was the topic he’d want to use his words on. And honestly, I can’t blame him. I waved lingerie in his face, admitted I had a thing for him, told him a sob story about my family, and then spent the past couple of weeks dating him the way two middle schoolers would—slowly. It’s a fair question to ask, and an emotionally intelligent one, at that. I can’t control what worries me, any more than I can control theweather. Do I feel likeNilsis someone I need to be wary of? No. Am I brave enough to show him my collection of thongs? Also no. He told me he’s never dated before, so I feel pretty confident in knowing he’s also never seen a man wearing a jock. At least not a man standing in the same room with him.

So, yeah, nervous doesn’t really begin to cover it. But it doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to try.

“Well, yeah, a little bit,” I admit, scratching a nail against the soft suede of the couch cushion. “But not because I think you’ll do anything bad, more just because I don’t want to overwhelm you.”

Nils cocks his head a degree to the left, eyes on mine, the fire reflecting just slightly in the right. It’s wild to me that a man like this has been walking around Siren’s Point for years and nobody snapped him up for a date. I worry for the collective intelligence of this town.

Nils shrugs as though to sayplease, I don’t get overwhelmed. Which is probably true. But there’s a difference between staying calm when we’re out on the water and a storm rolls in, and staying calm when the guy you’re with sleeps in a hot-pink nightie. Nils’ hand squeezes my thigh.