Page 18 of Decked By The Grumpy Golem
Somewhere behind me, Cinnamon peeks through the door leading from the house to my workshop. The tiny feline stares right at me with his green eyes and meows like he owns the place before hastily making his retreat inside the house. In the three dayssince I brought him home, he made it clear the entire household revolved around him. A fact which Martha gleefully reinforced.
I don’t remember ever seeing my mother as happy as when I greeted her on the doorstep and pulled out the tiny bundle of fur from inside my coat. Just thinking about it makes me smile. Martha deserves to be happy after all the heartbreak she’s been through.
And I have Lucia to thank for this.
I slam the chisel deeper into the stone, and it splits wrong. Jagged. Useless.
"Fuck," I mutter under my breath, tossing the ruined piece aside. That's the third block I've destroyed this morning, and I've got actual paying work to finish. The Hendersons' fireplace surround won't carve itself, and they're expecting it before New Year's.
But every time I try to focus on the clean lines of the design, all I see is Lucia's face. My phone’s text ringtone pings and I put down my tools before hurrying to retrieve it.
I haven’t texted Lucia since that day at the winter market. I’m not sure where a conversation with her would even begin. There’s a small part of me that fills with hope each time the phone rings or I receive a text. When I glance down at the screen, it’s not her, and I grunt in frustration. Just another client asking about a quote for a custom piece.
I can’t complain. Business is booming and has been steady for years now. Still, this wasn’t what I was looking for, and I can’t help the disappointment in my chest as I answer with my next availability.
The workshop door creaks open, letting in a blast of December air that does nothing to cool the heat radiating from my skin.
“If you’re looking for that ginger devil, he’s in the house,” I say, not looking up from my work. “He’s going to try to convince you that he’s starving, but don’t believe him. He’s a liar and I fed him just an hour ago.”
Martha is going to spoil that cat rotten.
Except the footsteps that cross my workshop floor are too short, too measured to belong to my mother.
I glance up to find Ernesto Reyes standing in my doorway, bundled in a heavy wool coat, his breath forming small clouds in the frigid air. His dark eyes are sharp and assessing as they take in the scattered chunks of ruined granite and the tools I've left around on my usually tidy workspace.
"Mr. Reyes." I wipe my hands on a rag. “What can I do for you?”
"We need to talk." His tone is clipped when he speaks, making my stomach drop. This isn't a social call.
I gesture to a workbench. "Have a seat."
He shakes his head, staying on his feet with his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets. "I'll stand. This won't take long."
The silence stretches between us, heavy with unspoken tension. Ernesto's always been a man of few words, but there's something different about his demeanor today. Something that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
"You're a damn fool, Gideon Flintman. The biggest idiot I've ever met," he says, his voice flat and matter-of-fact. “And you need to leave my daughter alone.”
The words hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest. My hand tightens around the chisel I'm still holding, and I hear the subtle creak of metal bending under pressure.
"Mr. Reyes—" I begin.
He lifts his hand, shutting me down completely.
"Do you have any idea the state she was in that summer when you ghosted her?" He continues with the air of someone who held his tongue for a long time and knows exactly what he wants to say. And won’t stop until he said it. "Do you have any idea of how many nights she cried herself to sleep? She didn’t just lose her boyfriend that summer, she lost her best friend. Worst of all, you didn’t even have the decency to tell her why you discarded her like she meant nothing to you."
I set the chisel down carefully, forcing my movements to stay controlled even though my pulse is hammering in my ears. "It's not what you think."
"Isn't it?" His eyes narrow, and suddenly I can see exactly where Lucia gets her stubborn streak. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you're playing games with my little girl's heart. Again."
The accusation stings because it's not entirely wrong. I did kiss her. I did flirt with her in text format. I did it knowing full well that I had no right to touch her, no business opening wounds that should have healed years ago.
"That wasn't my intention," I say quietly.
"I don't give a damn about your intentions." Ernesto's voice rises, echoing off the stone walls. "You want to know what I care about? The fact that my daughter has never found love. Every time someone gets close, she runs. Every relationship she has ends the same way. With her finding some excuse to push them away before they can hurt her."
Each word lands like a punch to the face, and I have to grip the edge of the workbench to keep myself steady.
"It's because of you," he continues, his voice getting louder with each word. "She's never gotten over you, Gideon. She's spent ten years measuring every man against the ghost of what you two had, and they all come up short. She can't love anyone else because she's still in love with a boy who didn’t even have the courage to break up with her face-to-face."
