Page 68 of Where You're Planted

“Which was when?”

Tansy sorted the pile of screws into a circle and then split it down the middle. “It took him a few years to figure out what he wanted and then it tookmea few years to trust it. I didn’t go easy on him.”

“Good.”

Tansy laughed through her nose and looked back up to see Jack gripping the cabinet, his fingers tight on its edge, his shoulders straining against the seams of his shirt.

“Anyway, we usually meet halfway for visits, and it’s civil and fine. But today, I had to take her the whole way to his house, and it’s beautiful, and he’s stable, and…I’ve never needed fancy things, but her room there is so big and bright. It looks like a Pottery Barn catalog. Hishand towelsalone probably cost twenty bucks apiece.”

Tansy took in her home again, just like she had this afternoon—how far from a real kitchen this room was, how even once the cabinets were installed, she would still need countertops, a sink, and all the major appliances. Thousands of dollars.

Jack followed her gaze, silent and sober, as if he was now calculating the same costs, understanding the weight of it all.

“He asked again today if I needed money,” she said quietly, because this was the part that stung the most. Charlie had insisted she come in before hitting the road again and asked her to stay through lunch, watch a movie, even stay the night in his guest room. And she’d politely declined again and again, until he tried to give her gas money.Three hundred dollars.She’d shoved the discrete handful of cash back at him, pulled Briar into a too-tight hug, and tore out of the house.

“Then, I came back here, where she doesn’t evenhavea room…I saved up foryearsto buy this house after digging myself out of the hole. And here I am,stilldigging.”

“You won’t be digging forever,” Jack said.

Tansy pressed her thumb to the corner of her eye to hold back the tears brimming there.

“You won’t,” he said again. “And it’s admirable as hell, Tansy. Everything you’ve already fought for.”

She didn’t have the energy to tell him she was so fucking tired of fighting.

“So he figured out he wants to be a dad way too fucking late. Does he wantyouback, too?” Jack asked then, point-blank.

She shook her head, not in answer but because that question overwhelmed her. “I honestly don’t know. Sometimes I think he does. But I can’t see myself ever being that serious with anyone again, not just him. It’s been just Briar and me for so long. She’s my first priority. I would never want to feel like I had to choose between her and some man. It’d always be her.”

He nodded slowly, and Tansy’s cheeks burned with the realization that he was here on adatewith her, and she’d just cavalierly shut down any long-term possibility with him. Not that he did long-term anyway. It was probably a relief.

He scratched his eyebrow then expelled a heavy sigh and drummed his fingers on the cabinet. “So you wanna get trashed?”

It surprised a watery laugh from her. “No.”

“You sure? I can hold your hair back later.”

She lifted her hands out to her sides. “This is already abigger mess than I wanted you to see. We definitely don’t need to add me, drunk, to the list.”

He made a face at the “mess” like this was nothing, but true to his nature, he didn’t smother her with positivity. He just pushed up his sleeves and said, “So we’re hanging cabinets?”

She supposed it was pointless to resist his help now and fetched the paper she’d already sketched the layout on. He let out a low whistle at the neat floorplan and the marks she’d already put on the walls over the studs. Despite claiming she didn’t need his approval, she stood a little straighter with it. “I haven’t put up the ledger yet,” she said, “but it’ll go there at that line.”

He found the long, one-by-four wood strip the bottom edge of the cabinets would rest on. Then he retrieved a level, a hammer, and nails from his toolbox and mounted it along her line without another word.

When he began measuring and marking the back of the corner cabinet, she finally made herself useful, bringing over the rest of the supplies—the pile of screws and screwdriver, shims, and clamps. She fetched the stepladder, and he said, “Please tell me you weren’t gonna do this without a drill.”

She crossed to the outlet, where her new small drill was plugged in, fully charged, and waved it at him.

“All right,” he said, raising his palms, “but I’m curious how you were planning to get these up on the wall by yourself.”

She flashed a smile. “Spite.”

“Even with your ankle?”

“Oh, that’s part of my motivation. Because now instead of getting a new water heater, I’ll be paying off the X-rays I didn’t need.”

“Ah, so it’s spite forme?” he clarified. He bent to predrillholes in the cabinet before finally pushing up and tipping his chin at her ankle. “Just because they didn’t show a break doesn’t mean you didn’t need them. It obviously wasn’t nothing. Does it hurt?”

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