window that stuck in the guest room needed replacing or just sanding.
I fixed that too.
Then I helped her drag a warped patio chair to the curb.
Then I found myself timing my evenings around whether I might see her on the porch.
What got me wasn’t just that she was beautiful, though she was.
Auburn hair, sharp green eyes, a face that looked softer when she laughed and stronger when she didn’t.
It was the way she paid attention.
The way she listened all the way through an answer.
The way she never rushed to fill silence if it was doing useful work.
A couple weeks after the basement leak, she handed me a mug of coffee over the fence while I was tightening a loose board on my gate.
We ended up talking for almost an hour.
About Austin changing too fast.
About how every contractor on YouTube acted like replacing a faucet cartridge was a personality trait.
About music.
About nothing and too much.
That Saturday Brett came by and thanked me for helping his mom the other night.
He said it casually, but I heard the extra beat under it.
He cared about her.
He watched things.
He wasn’t suspicious yet, but he wasn’t careless either.
That should have cooled me off.
It didn’t.
A few days later Kora texted me that her furnace was making a clicking sound before it kicked on.
I told her to shut it down until I looked at it.
When I got there, she was standing in the hallway barefoot, hair pinned up, trying very hard to act like this was just another house question.
It wasn’t.
The furnace issue turned out to be minor.
A loose panel and a dirty sensor.
I was putting the cover back on when she stepped closer to look.
Her shoulder brushed my arm.
Neither of us moved right away.
Then she took one step back and laughed under her breath, but it sounded strained.
‘This is exactly why I shouldn’t have asked you over.’
I turned toward her.
‘Why?’
She looked at me for a long second and said, ‘Because I like it when you show up.’
There are sentences that sound small until they hit you.
That was one of them.
I didn’t kiss her.
I wanted to, but I didn’t.
I went home with my pulse climbing into my throat and spent the rest of the night staring at my ceiling like it had answers.
Two days later Brett showed up midweek instead of the usual weekend.
I was leaving Kora’s side door after replacing a loose bathroom latch when his truck rolled into the driveway.
He got out, looked from me to the house, and something in his expression shut down a notch.
He wasn’t rude.
That would’ve been easier.
He just said, ‘Jake.
What are you doing here this late?’
I held up my screwdriver and said his mom had a sticky latch.
He nodded, but the look he gave me said he was filing the moment away.
After that, Kora pulled back.
Her texts got shorter.
Her porch time disappeared.
When I waved, she waved back, but the warmth had gone tight around the edges.
I told myself it was smart.
I told myself I could handle
