Cameron felt the yes like something solid settling into his hands.

Not loud.

Not dramatic.

Just one small word in a narrow aisle at Bennett’s Hardware, under flickering fluorescent lights, with old Bennett still muttering near the register like the receipt printer had personally betrayed his bloodline.

And somehow, it hit harder than half the prettier things that had happened between them.

Because she understood.

He could see the exact second she understood.

Not just the hook. Not just the chair. Not just the practical little fix he could make in ten minutes with a drill, a level, and the right anchors.

She understood what he was really offering.

A mark, but not a claim.

A way into her space, but only if she opened the door.

Something useful he could leave behind that would still be there the next morning and the one after that.

Cameron looked at her for a second too long, the brass hook hanging between them on the display, the basket nudging lightly against her leg, her fingers having just left his sleeve but still somehow warm there.

His mouth curved, but slower this time.

Not the bright grin he’d had a minute ago.

Something quieter.

A little stunned, maybe.

Because she’d said yes.

Plainly.

Twice, really.

Yes to the hook.

Yes to him in her apartment with coffee and tools and commentary and the kind of ordinary intimacy that didn’t need candlelight to count.

He swallowed once, his gaze dropping for half a second to where her fingers had rested near his wrist before lifting back to her face.

“I can handle commentary,” he said, voice low, rough-soft at the edges. “Professionally.”

A beat.

Then the corner of his mouth tipped.

“Personally, I may require hazard pay.”

The joke came out because he needed somewhere to put all of it—the warmth in his chest, the ridiculous tenderness of picturing her with a mug in hand while pretending not to inspect his work, the very real possibility that he was going to remember the exact way she said yes for the rest of the day.

Maybe longer.

Probably longer.

He reached for the hook only after she’d given him the answer.

That mattered.

His fingers closed around the brass, lifting it from the display with a kind of care he absolutely did not need for a piece of hardware. But it didn’t feel like just a piece of hardware anymore. Not now. Not when he could already see it under that chipped little moon by her door, catching late-afternoon light when she came home, holding her keys, her bag, some jacket she’d deny abandoning on the chair.

He turned it once in his hand, studying the finish like it deserved a proper inspection.

“Good choice,” he murmured.

Then his eyes flicked to hers again.

“Our choice, technically.”

He let that land lightly, but not carelessly. Not when the word had started meaning something every time he used it.

Cameron dropped the hook into the basket with the bronze house numbers, then immediately reached back toward the display for a second one.

“Two,” he said before she could even accuse him of getting ambitious. “One for keys and one for the bag. Otherwise the bag bullies the keys, the keys scratch the wall, and six weeks from now you’re telling me the hook is failing you emotionally.”

His brows lifted.

“I’m planning ahead.”

He grabbed a small packet of matching screws, then paused and made a face at them.

“Nope.”

Back on the rack.

He reached for another packet lower down, checked the size, and nodded once to himself.

“These.”

It took him half a second to realize he was doing it again—settling into the practical rhythm of work while Lucy stood close enough to turn the whole thing into something more tender than it had any right to be. But when he glanced back at her, he didn’t look sheepish.

Not exactly.

More caught.

More pleased than embarrassed.

“I’m not putting the cheap screws in your wall,” he said, like that should have been obvious. “I have standards.”

A small pause.

“And apparently a reputation to protect from merciless judgment.”

That pulled the grin back into place, but the softness stayed underneath it.

He shifted the basket higher on his wrist, then reached toward the little row of wall anchors beside the hooks. His fingers moved through them automatically, picking the right size, rejecting one pack with a quiet huff because the plastic looked flimsy.

“I’ll check what kind of wall I’m working with when I get there,” he said. “But I’ll bring what I need. Stud finder, level, drill, anchors if there’s no stud where the hook needs to go.”

He looked at her, mouth warming.

“And before you ask, yes, I own a level.”

A beat.

“Several.”

Another beat.

“Equipment. Not a collection.”

The words came with mock gravity, but the image had already started forming so clearly in his head that he almost lost the thread of the joke.

Her apartment in that gold late-day light.

The door open. Her music on. Maybe something older, something warm and a little scratchy from the record player.

Lucy standing close enough to watch, coffee in hand, giving him that very specific look she got when she was pretending not to have an opinion already loaded and ready.

Him measuring the wall under the moon by the door.

Her telling him the hook was a quarter-inch too low.

Him telling her it was not.

Her saying nothing.

Somehow making the silence worse.

His laugh in her entryway.

Her laugh after.

The hook going into the wall exactly where it belonged.

It was such a small thing.

That was what made it feel enormous.

Cameron’s throat tightened just enough that he had to glance down at the basket again, pretending to rearrange the supplies while he got himself back under control.

The bronze numbers shifted against the wood filler. The brass hooks knocked softly against the packet of screws. Ordinary little sounds. A life being built out of things that cost less than twenty dollars and still somehow mattered more than they should.

He let out a slow breath through his nose.

Then he looked back at her.

“I like that you said yes,” he said quietly.

No flourish.

No joke fast enough to cover it.

Just the truth.

His voice dropped a little more, kept private beneath the hum of the lights and the distant scrape of Bennett’s register drawer.

“I mean, I like that you’re letting me fix it. But I like more that you know I was asking.”

That was the part he needed her to hear.

Because he wasn’t eighteen anymore. Wasn’t the guy who assumed proximity meant permission or history meant access. He wanted to be invited into every inch of this thing they were making, even the small ones. Especially the small ones.

His thumb shifted over the basket handle, grounding himself there.

“I don’t want to just walk into your place and start changing things because I noticed them,” he said. “That’s not what this is.”

A beat.

His mouth curved faintly.

“Even if the chair is clearly in crisis.”

There.

A little air back into it.

But his eyes stayed on hers, steady and open.

“I just like being useful to you.”

The sentence came out softer than he expected.

And there it was again—that exposed feeling, only this time he didn’t rush to retreat from it. He let it sit between the hooks and house numbers and the faint smell of cedar in the aisle.

Because it was true.

He liked making things easier for her. Not because she couldn’t do them herself. He knew she could. That was part of what got him about her. Lucy built her own life piece by piece and made it beautiful through sheer force of attention and stubbornness and taste.

But being allowed to help?

Being trusted with one small corner of it?

That felt like something he wanted to earn carefully.

His gaze flicked toward the hook in the basket again, then back up.

“And I’m warning you now,” he said, warmth slipping back into his tone, “that thing is not going up crooked.”

A beat.

“I know you want the right to judge me mercilessly, and I respect that as part of your personal brand.”

His brows lifted.

“But you’re gonna have to find something else to criticize, because that hook is going to be level enough to make your ancestors emotional.”

He paused, considering.

“Maybe not emotional. That feels like a lot for a hook.”

His grin widened.

“Proud, though. Quietly.”

The aisle seemed to soften around them again.

Maybe it was just him.

Maybe it was the way she kept standing there with him like she wasn’t in a hurry to move on, like she understood the strange little weight of what they’d just agreed to and wasn’t trying to turn it into less.

The aisle seemed to soften around them again.

Maybe it was just him.

Maybe it was the way she kept standing there with him like she wasn’t in a hurry to move on, like she understood the strange little weight of what they’d just agreed to and wasn’t trying to turn it into less.

Cameron looked at her for one quiet beat too long.

Not because he meant to.

Because she was standing there under terrible hardware-store lighting, looking at him like she understood exactly what the hook meant, and he couldn’t quite move past that yet.

The basket hung heavy from his hand. The brass hooks clicked softly against the house numbers when he shifted. Somewhere up front, Bennett muttered something sharp and unintelligible at the register, and a cart wheel squealed down another aisle.

None of it mattered much.

Not right then.

Cameron’s mouth curved faintly, softer than before, and he stepped just a little closer.

“Come here,” he murmured.

It wasn’t a command.

Not really.

More like the words had slipped out because the space between them had become too small to keep pretending it didn’t want closing.

He leaned down and kissed her.

Not showy. Not careless. Nothing meant for an audience.

Just a warm, quiet press of his mouth to hers in the middle of Bennett’s Hardware, surrounded by hooks and house numbers and porch hardware, like this was somehow exactly the kind of place a thing like that belonged.

And weirdly—

it did.

Maybe because this had never really been about the store.

It was about her saying yes.

About the hook in the basket.

About coffee and commentary and him being allowed into one small practical corner of her life.

Cameron kissed her like he understood the size of that.

Slow enough to mean it.

Soft enough not to ask for more than the moment had already given.

When he pulled back, he didn’t go far at first. His smile brushed close before he eased away fully, eyes opening on hers with that same warm, lightly wrecked look she kept earning from him without even trying.

“Well,” he said, voice low, “that was extremely professional.”

A beat.

“Probably bad for workplace safety, but good for morale.”

His grin came back then, easy and boyish at the edges, because he could feel the whole thing wanting to go too tender again and he liked them best when the truth had room to breathe.

He glanced down the aisle, then back at her.

“Anything else you want to check out while we’re here?”

The question came casual, but the warmth underneath it stayed.

“Because I need you to know I could spend hours in this place and be perfectly happy.”

His brows lifted slightly.

“Tragic, maybe. But true.”

He adjusted the basket against his hand, the little stack of supplies settling together with a quiet clink.

“But I’m not gonna do that to you,” he added, mouth tipping. “I like you too much to make you watch me compare drill bits for forty-five minutes unless you ask for that kind of emotional journey.”

His gaze moved over her face again—gentle, amused, still caught on her in a way he didn’t bother hiding anymore.

“So if you’re ready to go, I’m ready.”

A small pause.

Then softer, with the smile still there:

“And if you’re not, I’m not in a hurry.”

Lucy felt his stunned quiet before he said a single word.

It was there in the way his smile changed—slower, softer, as if the simple fact of her saying yes had reached somewhere deeper than she’d intended. The brass hook still hung between them, the basket brushing her leg, his gaze fixed on her with that slightly dazed warmth that made her pulse jump.

She hadn’t expected such a small answer to affect him so visibly.

And the realization settled through her with a kind of tender awe.

When he said he could handle commentary professionally and might require hazard pay personally, Lucy laughed softly, the sound slipping out before she could contain it. Her shoulders loosened, and some of the nervousness she’d been carrying dissolved into affection.

Because even when he was clearly moved, he still made space for her to breathe.

Then he reached for the hook.

Only after she had said yes.

Lucy noticed that immediately.

The deliberate sequence of it. The care in his fingers as he lifted the brass from the display. The quiet inspection he gave it, as though her approval had transformed it from an ordinary object into something worthy of consideration.

Good choice.

Our choice.

The words landed in different places.

The first warmed her.

The second went deeper.

Her eyes dropped briefly to his hand as he placed the hook into the basket and reached for another without hesitation. Two hooks. One for keys, one for her bag. His practical explanation about bullied keys and emotionally neglected hardware made her smile widen, but beneath the humor was something increasingly difficult to ignore.

He was already imagining how her life functioned.

Already thinking about how to make it easier.

Already planning ahead.

Lucy stood there beneath the fluorescent lights and felt, with startling clarity, how intimate that was.

He rejected one packet of screws, then another. Cheap screws would not go in her wall. He said it with mock indignation, but she heard the real sentiment beneath it.

If he was going to touch something that belonged to her, he intended to do it properly.

The thought settled in her chest with quiet force.

Then he began listing what he would bring.

Stud finder. Level. Drill. Anchors.

Several levels, apparently.

Equipment, not a collection.

Lucy’s smile turned softer as she listened, watching his hands move automatically through anchors and screws while his mind wandered somewhere ahead of them. She could almost see it happening behind his eyes—the same scene she had already begun picturing herself.

Her apartment.

The late afternoon light.

Music playing.

Cameron standing in her entryway with tools spread across the floor and sleeves pushed up.

That image expanded as he spoke, becoming more concrete with every practical detail. Not fantasy. Not abstraction.

A real afternoon.

One she suddenly wanted very badly.

When he rearranged the basket and looked back at her with that quiet seriousness, Lucy felt her breath catch.

I like that you said yes.

The simplicity of it undid her more effectively than anything else he had said.

And then he clarified that what mattered most was that she knew he had been asking.

Her throat tightened.

Because that was exactly what she had understood.

He wanted to be invited.

He wanted to be chosen.

Not presumed.

Not tolerated.

Wanted.

The scrape of Bennett’s register sounded far away. The hum of the fluorescent lights blurred into the background. Lucy became acutely aware of the heat radiating from him, the solid line of his body only inches from hers, the basket handle flexing beneath his thumb.

Then he told her he liked being useful to her.

No joke.

No deflection.

Just a truth so unguarded that it sent a deep ache through her chest.

Lucy swallowed against the sudden rush of feeling. Her fingers twitched at her side with the impulse to touch him again.

Not because she needed fixing.

Because he was offering care without trying to possess her.

That distinction mattered more than she could easily explain.

When he warned that the hook would not be crooked, she laughed softly through the thickness in her throat. The image of him defending the honor of a wall hook with near-religious conviction made something warm and helpless bloom inside her.

Her ancestors, apparently, would be quietly proud.

The absurdity of it only made him more dear.

And by then, Lucy understood something with unusual certainty.

If he built her things, she would let him.

Gladly.

He stepped closer.

The shift was slight, but Lucy felt it immediately. The narrowing distance. The air between them changing. The way his eyes lingered on hers as though he still hadn’t fully recovered from her yes.

When he asked her to come here, her heart gave one hard, unmistakable beat.

And when he kissed her, Lucy kissed him back without hesitation.

Her hand slid to the back of his neck, fingers threading into the short hair there as she leaned into him. The kiss was warm and steady and profoundly gentle, and all the practical things sitting in the basket—hooks, anchors, screws—seemed to gather meaning while his mouth moved against hers.

This was what he was offering.

Not grand gestures.

Presence.

Care.

Ordinary things done with extraordinary attention.

When he drew back and declared the moment extremely professional, Lucy laughed under her breath, still close enough to feel the warmth of his smile.

“Careful,” she murmured, her nose brushing his lightly. “The town might start thinking we’re serious.”

The words came out teasing, but the truth beneath them was unmistakable.

Before he could answer, she kissed him again.

This one was shorter, but no less certain.

A deliberate press of her mouth to his, as if she wanted to underline what she had just admitted without saying the more dangerous version aloud.

When she eased back, her hand remained at the back of his neck for another second before sliding slowly down to rest against his chest.

Then he asked if she wanted to keep looking.

If there was anything else she wanted to check out.

Lucy listened to every part of it—the confession that he could spend hours here, the absurdly endearing drill-bit warning, the easy offer to leave if she was ready.

And finally, the part that settled most deeply.

He wasn’t in a hurry.

The certainty inside her sharpened.

Her smile softened as she looked up at him.

“I have the entire day,” she said quietly.

Her fingertips spread slightly against his shirt, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing beneath her palm.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

The truth of that settled between them with a calm she hadn’t expected.

Then her mouth curved, a little more mischievous now.

“Actually,” she said, glancing down at the basket where the hooks rested against the bronze numbers, “since we’re apparently talking about all the things you’re going to build for me…”

Her eyes lifted to his again.

The warmth there deepened into something unmistakably fond.

“I could use a few shelves, too.”

The admission felt more intimate than it should have.

Because she wasn’t really talking about lumber and brackets.

But she was also very much talking about lumber and brackets.

She let out a soft breath, smiling.

“For the records,” she said. “And some of the books.”

A tiny shrug lifted one shoulder.

“It might be nice if they lived somewhere other than the floor.”

Her thumb brushed once over his chest.

“And if you keep making my apartment less cluttered and more functional…”

The words trailed for half a second while she held his gaze.

Her smile turned softer, steadier.

“I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say I’ll be yours forever.”

For a second, Cameron forgot what shelves were.

Not in the way a man actually forgot a word.

In the way his brain caught on the last thing she’d said and simply refused to move past it.

His hand was still near the basket. The brass hooks were still tucked against the bronze house numbers. Bennett’s lights still hummed overhead, and somewhere up front, someone had started talking about driveway gravel with the same grave urgency usually reserved for emergency weather alerts.

But Cameron heard none of it clearly.

Because Lucy Corbett had just stood in the middle of Bennett’s Hardware, palm warm against his chest, looking up at him with that soft, steady little smile, and had casually attached the word forever to the idea of him making her apartment function better.

Like she had not just knocked the air clean out of him between shelving displays.

His mouth parted slightly before he had anything useful to say.

Nothing came out.

Which was, frankly, inconvenient.

Cameron Tate had gotten through job-site disasters, high-pressure baseball innings, his father yelling measurements from the other side of a house like volume could bend wood into compliance. He could usually find something. A joke. A line. A steady answer.

But this?

This took him a second.

His gaze moved over her face, slow and searching, like he was trying to figure out whether she knew exactly what she had just done to him.

Judging by the warmth still sitting in her eyes, she did.

Maybe not all the way.

But enough.

His hand lifted almost without permission, settling over hers where it rested against his chest. Not trapping it there. Just holding the contact, covering her fingers with his palm like his body had decided before his mouth could catch up that he needed to keep that moment from slipping away too quickly.

The first sound that left him was a quiet breath of a laugh.

Not because it was funny.

Because he was happy in a way that needed somewhere to go before it turned into something embarrassingly sincere in front of a wall of porch hardware.

“You can’t say things like that to a man in a hardware store,” he murmured at last, voice low and a little uneven around the edges despite the smile trying to save him. “This place is already built to make me overconfident.”

His thumb moved once over her hand.

“And now you’re talkin’ like shelves are legally binding.”

The teasing helped.

Barely.

Because underneath it, his chest was doing something ridiculous. Something full and warm and a little stunned. Not panicked. Not overwhelmed in the bad way.

Just hit.

The good kind.

The kind that made him want to stand there very still and not mess it up by reaching for too much.

He looked down at the basket, then back at her, his grin softening as he let himself really take in what she had asked.

Shelves.

For records. For books. For the life she’d built in that apartment one chosen thing at a time.

It was practical. Ordinary. Maybe even boring to anyone else.

But Cameron was quickly learning that ordinary with Lucy had a way of turning dangerous if he let himself understand it too deeply.

A hook by the door. Shelves on the wall. Coffee while he worked. Her records somewhere other than the floor. Her commentary in the background, sharp and warm and pretending not to be affectionate when it absolutely was.

He could see it too clearly.

Her standing in the middle of her living room barefoot, pointing with a coffee mug toward the wall where she wanted them. Her music playing low, probably something with a little crackle under it. Him marking studs with a pencil while she hovered just close enough to be distracting and just far enough away to claim innocence. The smell of coffee. Wood dust. Her apartment slowly making room for him in ways that didn’t announce themselves, just accumulated.

It got under his skin.

Cameron swallowed once, smile still there but quieter now.

“I can build you shelves,” he said.

Simple.

No joke over the top of it yet.

He wanted her to hear the answer cleanly.

“I’d like to.”

The admission came out softer than he’d planned, but he didn’t take it back. Didn’t dress it up into something less revealing.

Because he would like to.

More than he should, maybe.

He liked the thought of being useful in her space. Of making something she’d touch every day without thinking about it. Of those shelves becoming so naturally part of her apartment that months from now she’d stop seeing them as a project and start seeing them as simply there.

Done. Solid. Holding.

His hand tightened just slightly over hers before easing again.

“And not because I’m trying to clutter your apartment with Tate & Sons branding,” he added, his mouth curving. “Though I do think I could make a strong case for a very subtle engraved plaque.”

A beat.

“Tiny. Tasteful. Horrifying to you personally.”

His grin widened at the mental image.

Then he shook his head, the amusement softening again as he looked at her.

“No. I’d build them right. I’d come over, take measurements, see what the wall’s doing, make sure they can actually hold the records instead of looking cute for three weeks and then committing a structural betrayal.”

There it was.

The work voice slipping back in around the edges because he couldn’t help it. Because the second she asked for something real, his head started solving for weight and spacing and wall type and how to make it last.

He caught himself and gave her a small, sheepish lift of his brows.

“Sorry. You just gave me a project and my brain immediately put on boots.”

His thumb brushed over her fingers again.

“But yeah,” he said, quieter. “I can do that.”

The store carried on around them, fully indifferent to the fact that Cameron felt like something had shifted in aisle seven. A cart wheel squealed again. Someone coughed near plumbing. Bennett called out a price from the register with the weary authority of a man who had been saying the same number since 1982 and resented every repetition.

Cameron heard it all dimly.

Mostly, he heard his own heartbeat under her palm.

He looked down at where her hand still rested against him, then back up to her face.

“You know,” he said, voice dipping into something more playful because the tenderness was starting to pool too deeply between them again, “I should probably be more concerned that your love language might be functional storage.”

A tiny pause.

“Actually, no. That tracks.”

His eyes warmed.

“Hooks. Shelves. Possibly a repaired door one day if I earn the privilege. Very practical. Very intimidating. Deeply you.”

He let the words sit there with a fondness he didn’t bother hiding.

Then his smile tipped into something lower, more flirtatious.

“And I do feel I should clarify the terms here,” he said. “Because if I build one set of shelves and you start throwing around forever, I’m gonna have to be real careful what happens if I ever fix a cabinet.”

A beat.

“Might accidentally end up married over drawer slides.”

He said it lightly.

But the word married sat in the air for half a second before his own brain caught up with it.

Cameron didn’t panic.

That surprised him a little.

He didn’t backpedal either.

He just let the joke breathe, let the warmth in his face say he knew exactly how far he’d let the line wander and wasn’t afraid of it. Not in some reckless, rush-toward-the-cliff way. More in the way of a man realizing that imagining a future with her didn’t feel like a trap.

It felt like the direction his body was already angled.

Still, he wasn’t going to make her stand there holding that alone.

So he softened it with a grin.

“Don’t worry,” he added. “I’ll start with the shelves. Respectable pace. Very mature.”

His hand left hers only because he needed to move, and even then it did so slowly. He turned toward the nearby lumber aisle—not to compare anything, not to start making decisions without her, just to let the shape of the project settle in his head as something real.

His eyes moved toward the stacked boards in the distance, then back to her.

“I’ll need to see the space first,” he said. “Not guess from memory and act like I’m some kind of shelf psychic.”

A small pause.

“Though I do have a pretty good memory of your place.”

That came out more intimate than the words themselves should have been.

He knew it. Let it stand anyway.

“The record corner’s tight,” he continued, voice steadying around the practical details again. “But it could work if we keep it clean. Nothing too bulky. Enough depth for the records. Books either above or off to one side, depending how much wall you want to give up.”

His gaze flicked to her.

“And yes, before you say anything, I know wall space in your apartment is sacred territory.”

He could see her walls even now. Posters. photographs. shelves already holding little collected pieces of her. Every inch had earned its place or was waiting to.

That mattered.

Cameron wasn’t just thinking about putting up boards.

He was thinking about not disturbing the rhythm of a room she loved.

That thought made his voice gentler when he added, “I wouldn’t mess with it.”

A beat.

“I’d make it fit.”

There.

That was the part that mattered.

Not just physically.

He looked at her after he said it, and for a second the aisle went quiet again in that strange, private way it had been doing all afternoon. The terrible lights. The hardware. The dust.

None of it softened.

Somehow, that made the feeling cleaner.

Cameron’s mouth curved again, slower this time.

“And I’m guessing,” he said, “you’d want them to look like they’ve always been there.”

His eyes held hers.

“Not new-new. Not too perfect. Nothing that walks into the room before everything else does.”

He wasn’t comparing products. Wasn’t picking finishes. Just reading her.

Reading the apartment he’d seen, the shop she owned, the way she talked about things that belonged.

“You like when things have a little history to them,” he added. “Even if we have to fake the history responsibly.”

His grin flashed again at that.

“Professionally.”

The word came back between them, warm and familiar now, like a thread they kept picking up and tying into something else.

Then he reached into the basket and adjusted the hooks so they rested more securely beside the house numbers, making sure they wouldn’t scratch. It was a tiny motion. Habit. Care. Probably invisible to anyone else.

But not to Lucy, he suspected.

Lucy noticed everything.

And the thought made him smile down into the basket before he looked back up.

“I’ll come by whenever you want,” he said, simple again. “For the hooks first.”

A beat.

“Then we’ll look at the shelves.”

He let the we sit there.

Not by accident.

Not too heavy either.

Just another small thing placed carefully in the basket between them.

Then, because he could feel himself getting pulled too far into tenderness and because they were still publicly standing in a store where Bennett might ask if they were buying something or planning to pay rent in the aisle, Cameron tipped his head toward her and lowered his voice.

“But I’m warning you now,” he said, “if you make coffee and then stand there looking at me like this while I’m trying to find studs in your wall, I’m not responsible for how long the job takes.”

His mouth curved.

“That’s on you.”

He stepped a half inch closer, not enough to crowd her, just enough that the basket brushed lightly against her leg again and the space between them remembered the kiss from moments ago.

“And before you accuse me of being smug,” he added, “I’m only a little smug.”

A beat.

“You did just imply home improvement gets me long-term loyalty.”

His grin softened around the edges.

“I’m gonna carry that with dignity.”

He would not.

They both knew that.

He was going to carry it like a man handed a secret worth keeping. Like something small and precious tucked beneath the humor.

His eyes moved over her face once more, lingering on the warmth there, the steadiness, the way she wasn’t running from this either.

Then he said, lower and more honest:

“I like the idea of making something for you.”

The words surprised him only because they came out so easily.

He had been thinking it, but saying it made the whole thing settle differently.

“I like that you’d let me.”

A pause.

“And I like that when you walk in later and set your keys down or put a record away, a little part of your day works better because I was there.”

That was as close as he could get to the center of it without making the aisle too quiet to survive.

Even then, his throat felt a little tight.

So he smiled.

Gently this time.

“And if that gets me coffee and only moderate judgment,” he added, “I’m calling it a win.”

The basket hung between them, heavier now with things chosen for two different houses—one belonging to a client, one belonging to her, and somehow one small piece of him already waiting to be invited into both.

Cameron glanced toward the wall of supplies, then back down at her.

“Any other confessions you want to make while we’re still surrounded by hardware?” he asked, voice low and playful again.

A beat.

“Because apparently this aisle is working on both of us.”

Lucy’s breath caught somewhere behind her ribs.

Not because he’d said yes.

She had known, even before she asked, that Cameron Tate would say yes to something like this. Of course he would. He was the kind of man who treated practical things with the same seriousness other people reserved for declarations. If he offered to build something, he meant every inch of it.

No, what stole the air from her was the way he kept answering long after the yes should have been enough.

The way he turned a few shelves into something so much larger without ever sounding like he was trying to.

His hand over hers was warm and steady, the weight of it grounding and intimate in a way that made the fluorescent-lit aisle feel improbably soft around the edges. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest beneath her palm, feel the quiet strength there, and with every word he gave her, something in her loosened and tightened all at once.

Because he wasn’t just talking about wood and brackets and wall studs.

He was talking about paying attention.

About fitting himself carefully into spaces she had built on her own.

About making room without taking over.

That understanding moved through her in a slow, spreading warmth that settled low and deep.

And then he said married.

Lightly. Playfully.

But not carelessly.

The word landed with surprising gentleness.

Lucy felt it pass through her like the clear strike of a bell, resonant and bright, with none of the panic she might once have expected. Instead, her pulse gave a startled flutter, and her thumb shifted unconsciously against his shirt as if her body needed to reassure itself that he was still right here in front of her.

He hadn’t flinched from it.

That mattered more than she could explain.

He had let the idea exist between them for one suspended heartbeat and stayed exactly where he was.

Still smiling.

Still looking at her.

Still open.

By the time he drifted into talk of measurements and wall depth and record weight, Lucy was smiling so hard her cheeks ached. The specifics only made her chest feel fuller. That beautiful, earnest construction-brain focus of his—so immediate, so instinctive—was somehow one of the most attractive things she had ever witnessed.

Her eyes shone with helpless affection as he apologized for it.

“Please don’t apologize,” she said softly. “That was alarmingly hot.”

The confession slipped out before she could polish it, and she didn’t care enough to take it back.

His teasing about her love language sent a quiet laugh spilling from her. She tipped her head, pretending to consider it.

“I mean, if someone installs sturdy storage and respects my wall space, they’re already outperforming most of the dating pool.”

Her voice was light, but her chest felt almost unbearably tender.

Because he understood her apartment.

Not just the layout.

The meaning of it.

Every framed photograph, every stack of records, every chipped ceramic dish and thrifted lamp and book balanced exactly where she wanted it. That space had become a physical version of her life—carefully chosen, stubbornly personal, assembled over years without waiting for anyone else to help.

And Cameron wasn’t trying to rearrange it.

He wanted to learn its rhythm.

He wanted to add to it without disturbing what was already there.

When he said he wouldn’t mess with it, that he’d make it fit, her throat tightened.

The words reached farther than the shelves.

Lucy held his gaze, the noise of the store receding until all she could really register was the softness in his eyes and the sincerity he seemed almost incapable of disguising for long.

“You have absolutely no idea,” she said, quieter now, “how much that means to me.”

Her fingers curled slightly under his hand before he let her go, and she missed the contact immediately, even with only inches between them.

Then he said we.

So casually. So naturally.

As though there was no question that they would stand together in her apartment, deciding where records and books belonged.

The image unfurled in her mind with startling clarity: his tools spread across her floor, coffee growing cold on the table, music drifting from her speakers, his shoulders bent in concentration while she pretended not to stare.

The thought was so achingly domestic that it made her heart feel too large for her chest.

When he leaned closer and warned her that looking at him might slow the job down, warmth rushed into her face. Her smile widened, helpless and genuine.

“That sounds less like a warning and more like an excuse,” she murmured.

Her eyes dropped briefly to his mouth before returning to his.

“And for the record, I fully intend to be distracting.”

She could hear the confidence in her voice, but underneath it was something softer and more vulnerable, still reverberating from his quiet admission that he liked making things for her.

That he liked being allowed.

The honesty of it settled over her like a hand at the small of her back.

Lucy stepped a fraction closer, enough that her shoulder brushed his arm. The contact was slight, but deliberate.

Her gaze searched his face, lingering on the warmth there, on the openness he offered with such disarming steadiness.

“I’d like that too,” she said.

The words came out low and unguarded.

“Coming home to something you made.”

Her breath trembled almost imperceptibly before she continued.

“Not because of the shelves themselves.” A small, affectionate smile touched her mouth. “Though I’m sure they’ll be beautiful and structurally sound and deeply over-engineered.”

Her fingers slipped around the handle of the basket, joining his there.

“But because every time I reached for a record or put a book away, I’d know you were part of this place.”

Her eyes lifted fully to his.

“To my life.”

The truth of it settled between them, quiet and undeniable.

For a moment she said nothing else, simply letting him see the feeling she was no longer trying very hard to hide.

Then the corners of her mouth curved, tenderness giving way to a spark of familiar mischief.

“As for additional confessions,” she said, voice dropping conspiratorially, “I’m pretty sure watching you explain load-bearing capacity may have permanently altered my standards.”

A tiny pause.

“And if you ever do fix a cabinet, I should warn you I’m very susceptible to competence.”

Her thumb brushed once across the basket handle near his hand.

“So if this does end in marriage over drawer slides,” she said, eyes warm and teasing, “you really won’t be able to say I didn’t give you fair notice.”

Cameron stopped breathing for a second.

Not dramatically.

Not in the way people did when they wanted to be noticed.

It just left him—the air, the easy grin, the half-formed joke already waiting at the back of his mouth. All of it paused somewhere between his chest and the basket handle where her fingers had slipped in beside his.

Because she had said it.

Part of this place.

Part of my life.

The words didn’t arrive like a line meant to undo him. That was the problem. Lucy hadn’t thrown them at him for effect. She hadn’t dressed them up in something safer. She had said them quietly, plainly, in the middle of Bennett’s Hardware with brass hooks in the basket and the faint smell of sawdust everywhere, like she was simply telling the truth as it came to her.

And Cameron felt the entire shape of himself soften around it.

His eyes stayed on hers, but his hand tightened slightly on the basket handle before he realized he was doing it. Her thumb was near his. Close enough that the small movement almost touched her. Close enough that everything in him wanted to close that space and hold onto it harder than a hardware aisle probably warranted.

He didn’t.

Not right away.

He just looked at her.

Let himself have one full second of being wrecked by it.

Then his mouth curved, slow and helpless.

“Fair notice,” he said quietly, “has been received.”

His voice was lower than it had been a minute ago, a little rougher at the edges. The kind of voice that gave him away no matter how much humor he tried to lace through it.

“And for the record,” he added, gaze dipping briefly to their hands on the basket before coming back to her face, “you saying things like that while standing next to cabinet hardware is reckless.”

A beat.

“Deeply irresponsible.”

The joke helped him breathe again.

Barely.

Because he could still see it—the life she’d just handed him a glimpse of. Not some big abstract future with a spotlight on it, not something polished enough to scare either of them into pretending they hadn’t thought about it.

Just her apartment.

Records on shelves he’d built. Books no longer stacked on the floor. A hook by the door holding her bag. Coffee on the table. Her walking through the room weeks later and reaching for something, casually, without thinking too hard about the fact that his hands had helped make the space work better.

And knowing.

Knowing he was there.

Part of it.

That was the thing that hit so cleanly he almost didn’t know how to stand under it.

Cameron swallowed once, his expression settling into something softer and more open than he usually let sit this visibly on his face.

“I’d like that,” he said.

Simple.

Not clever. Not teasing.

“I’d like being part of your place like that.”

A small pause.

“Your life.”

He gave the last two words back to her gently, not as a claim. Not as something he was trying to take because she’d offered the phrase first.

More like he was holding it carefully in both hands and showing her he understood its weight.

The store carried on around them, entirely unimpressed. Bennett’s register squealed out another strip of receipt paper. A man somewhere behind them dropped something with a loud metallic clatter, followed immediately by a muttered curse and the kind of silence that suggested he was deciding whether or not to pretend it hadn’t happened.

Cameron didn’t look away from her.

Not until the corner of his mouth tipped again, warmth returning with a little more mischief.

“And I need you to know,” he said, “structurally sound and deeply over-engineered is exactly the kind of praise that can make a man lose perspective.”

His brows lifted slightly.

“You think you’re joking, but that’s basically poetry in my line of work.”

Then his eyes dropped to her hand on the basket handle again.

This time, he did let his thumb shift just enough to brush hers. Not taking her hand. Not making it too much. Just answering the contact where it already existed.

The touch was small.

It still moved through him like something larger.

“You being susceptible to competence, though…” He shook his head slowly, like the information burdened him. “That is dangerous knowledge.”

A beat.

“Especially for me.”

His grin widened, but the look in his eyes stayed warm enough to make the flirt feel honest instead of easy.

“Because now I’m gonna be standing in your apartment trying to behave like a normal professional while knowing the entire time that finding a stud on the first try might emotionally compromise you.”

He leaned in a fraction, voice dipping lower.

“And I am very good at finding studs.”

The line was absurd.

He knew it.

The second it left his mouth, his grin broke fully loose, bright and boyish and a little too pleased with himself.

“I’m sorry,” he said, immediately not sounding sorry. “That was terrible.”

A beat.

“I had to.”

He shifted the basket gently between them, the hooks and house numbers knocking softly together. The sound grounded him again—the small clink of chosen things. Client things. Lucy things. Their strange little collection of afternoon promises.

The thought made his grin soften at the edges.

“But I mean it,” he said, quieter now. “I’ll build them right. Not just so they hold. So they belong.”

That part mattered.

He wanted her to know he understood that this wasn’t about slapping boards on a wall and calling it done. Lucy’s apartment was not just space to improve. It was hers. Every piece in it had either earned its place or was waiting to be chosen properly.

He wanted to fit into that logic, not bulldoze through it.

His eyes stayed on hers as he added, “I know your apartment isn’t a project.”

A pause.

“It’s your home.”

The word felt different in his mouth with her standing this close.

Home.

He let it sit there for half a breath before continuing, because it deserved the quiet.

“So if I put anything in it, I want it to feel like it should’ve been there all along.”

Another beat.

“And if that takes longer because you’re standing behind me looking distracting and making coffee and pretending not to have opinions, then I guess I’ll just have to suffer through that.”

His expression turned solemn.

“Heroically.”

The mischief returned to his face then, easing the tenderness back into motion without undoing it.

He glanced toward the cabinet hardware aisle—not because he intended to drag her over there yet, but because after her drawer-slide comment, that whole section seemed suddenly radioactive.

“I feel like, for public safety, I should keep you away from actual drawer slides today.”

His mouth curved.

“We’re already in a vulnerable state as a couple.”

Couple.

The word slipped out naturally enough that he only registered it a second after.

And for once, he didn’t rush to correct himself.

He felt the weight of it, yes. Felt the little internal stillness that followed.

But it didn’t scare him.

It felt like another hook in the wall. Small. Useful. Holding something that had already been there.

His gaze returned to her, steady now, quietly daring himself not to make less of it.

“Unless you want to risk it,” he added, softer, the tease still there but layered with something more. “In which case I can explain drawer weight ratings with absolutely no regard for the consequences.”

He stayed where he was after that, shoulder nearly brushing hers, their hands still sharing the basket handle. He could have moved. Could have broken the moment by pretending to inspect another package or muttering something about Bennett’s prices.

He didn’t.

Instead he looked at her mouth for half a second.

Then back to her eyes.

The aisle was public enough that he probably should’ve exercised restraint.

He had been exercising restraint all afternoon.

It was getting him nowhere.

So Cameron set the basket carefully on the shelf beside them, keeping one hand on the handle until it was steady, then turned back to her. Slow enough for her to see the intention before he moved. Close enough that the shift in air between them felt like its own kind of answer.

His hand came to rest lightly at her waist, not pulling. Just there.

“You know,” he murmured, “I brought you into a hardware store for screws.”

A small pause.

“Now I’m thinking about shelves, coffee, your record corner, and a legally suspicious drawer-slide future.”

His smile softened.

“That escalated.”

Then he leaned down and kissed her.

Not deep enough to make it careless. Not quick enough to make it nothing.

Just a warm, lingering kiss under the fluorescent lights, surrounded by hooks and drawer pulls and the kind of ordinary things people bought when they were trying to make homes work better.

Cameron kissed her like that was exactly where he wanted to be.

Like if this was the part people built things out of, he was more than willing to start here.

When he pulled back, his forehead nearly brushed hers before he lifted his head enough to look at her properly.

His thumb moved once at her waist.

“I’m very susceptible to you being susceptible to competence,” he said, low and amused.

A beat.

“So we’re probably both in trouble.”

But he didn’t look troubled.

He looked happy.

Openly, hopelessly happy in a way he didn’t bother trying to hide from her anymore.

Then his gaze flicked back toward the basket, the hooks, the hardware, all the small things waiting to be carried out into actual use. Into actual rooms. Actual days.

He let out a soft breath through his nose.

“Okay,” he said, voice gentler now. “Before Bennett starts charging us rent for this aisle…”

His mouth tipped.

“Tell me the truth.”

He nodded slightly toward the basket.

“Hooks first, shelves after?”

A tiny pause, his eyes warming.

“Or are we officially adding cabinet reconnaissance to today’s agenda and tempting fate?”

Lucy’s laugh escaped before she could stop it.

It came out warm and breathless, the kind of laugh that started in surprise and dissolved into something softer because there was simply no defense against Cameron when he looked this pleased with himself.

Her shoulders shook once, and she dipped her head, trying and failing to compose herself while his terrible line echoed in her ears.

“Wow,” she murmured, lifting her eyes back to him. “That was astonishingly bad.”

The words should have sounded accusing.

Instead they came wrapped in so much affection that they barely qualified as criticism.

His apology that wasn’t an apology only made her smile wider. There was something dangerously endearing about the way he let himself be goofy with her now, no longer guarding every earnest feeling behind polished charm. The ease of it settled over her with an intimacy that felt different from flirtation.

More trusting.

More his.

Then his tone shifted.

The humor softened, and the look in his eyes changed with it.

Lucy felt the transition as surely as if he had reached out and touched her again.

When he told her he wanted what he built to belong, the laughter lingering in her chest gave way to a deeper ache. Tender and immediate. The kind that made it hard to keep breathing normally.

And when he spoke about her apartment as her home, her throat tightened.

Because he understood.

Not in the abstract. Not because she had overexplained herself.

He understood instinctively that what mattered was not the shelf itself, but the care taken with what it would become part of.

Lucy’s fingers curled more securely around the basket handle.

Her gaze did not leave his.

The joking about coffee and heroic suffering coaxed a smaller smile to her lips, but by then she was looking at him through a rush of feeling she could no longer pretend was manageable.

Then he said couple.

The word slipped between them with almost disarming simplicity.

No fanfare.

No stumble.

No attempt to retrieve it.

Lucy felt her heartbeat skip so hard it bordered on painful.

For a single suspended second, she was aware of everything at once—the hum of the lights overhead, the scrape of a cart wheel somewhere nearby, the faint scent of wood and metal and dust, the steady nearness of his body beside hers.

And beneath all of it, a startling sense of rightness.

Not because the word solved anything.

Because it fit so naturally she couldn’t imagine objecting to it.

Her lips parted, but before she could say anything, his hand settled at her waist.

The touch was light.

The effect was not.

Heat spread through her in a swift, unmistakable wave, and her breath caught as her body leaned into the contact almost before she was aware of making the choice.

Then he kissed her.

The world narrowed with exquisite precision.

The fluorescent lights, the hardware aisle, the distant sounds of other shoppers—all of it receded until there was only the warmth of his mouth, the secure pressure of his hand, and the quiet certainty threaded through the kiss.

Nothing hurried.

Nothing uncertain.

It was a kiss that felt less like a question and more like an answer she had not realized she’d been waiting for.

Lucy kissed him back with the same steady intention, her free hand lifting instinctively to rest against his chest. She could feel the firm beat of his heart beneath her palm, strong and unmistakably real.

When he drew away, she stayed close.

Her eyes opened slowly, meeting his at a distance so small it made the moment feel almost impossibly private.

His confession about them being in trouble sent a soft, disbelieving smile across her mouth.

“Yeah,” she whispered.

Her thumb moved once over the fabric beneath her hand.

“We really are.”

There was no anxiety in the words.

Only wonder.

Then he asked his question, and the domestic absurdity of it—hooks and shelves and cabinet reconnaissance offered in the same breath as a kiss that had just altered the shape of her evening—filled her with such overwhelming affection that she had to exhale a shaky little laugh.

She tipped her forehead gently against his for a brief, precious second.

“Hooks first,” she said softly.

Her lips brushed the corner of his mouth before she pulled back just enough to look at him.

“Shelves after.”

A pause.

Her eyes held his, bright and unguarded.

“And the cabinet reconnaissance can wait until our relationship is stable enough to survive that kind of commitment.”

The tease lingered, but her expression turned more serious as her fingers tightened around the front of his shirt.

Not enough to pull him closer.

Just enough to keep him here while she said what mattered.

“I like that you said couple.”

The admission came quietly, but without hesitation.

A small breath passed between them.

“I like that it sounded natural.”

Her gaze searched his face, taking in every trace of warmth and openness there.

“And I like this.” Her voice softened further. “Us standing in the middle of Bennett’s like this, talking about shelves and making jokes and somehow meaning much more than either of us is pretending.”

Her hand slid from his chest to his wrist, resting there in a touch that felt both intimate and grounding.

“I don’t need the pace to be dramatic,” she said. “I just need it to be real.”

The truth settled between them, clear and steady.

Then the corners of her mouth curved again, affection overtaking the intensity before it could become too heavy to carry under fluorescent lights.

“So yes,” she said, stepping back just enough to reach for the basket. “Let’s buy the hooks.”

Her eyes sparkled as she laced her fingers briefly through his before reclaiming the handle.

“And then you can come home with me and start making yourself dangerously useful.”

The words left her mouth with a confidence she only half felt.

The second they were spoken, warmth surged up her neck and into her cheeks.

Not regret.

Nothing close to it.

But the unmistakable rush that came from hearing herself say come home with me as plainly as if she were asking him to help carry groceries.

Which, she supposed, in some ways she was.

Only neither of them was confused about what sat underneath it now.

Lucy held onto the basket handle a fraction tighter, the cool metal grounding against her palm while Cameron’s fingers still brushed hers. She watched his face carefully, absorbing the subtle changes that moved through him whenever something reached him more deeply than he expected.

There was always a moment.

A tiny stillness.

As if he took the words seriously before he let himself enjoy them.

That alone made her chest ache with affection.

Her smile softened, losing some of its teasing edge.

“I mean that,” she said, quieter.

The noise of the store seemed to drift outward again—an item scanner chirping near the front, the low murmur of two men debating screws, the squeak of rubber soles across old linoleum—but the space between them remained intact, like they were standing inside a small pocket of time no one else could access.

Lucy shifted closer until her shoulder rested lightly against his arm.

The contact was simple, easy, and somehow more intimate after everything they had just said.

“I want you there,” she admitted.

No dramatic flourish.

No protective joke.

Just the truth, offered as plainly as he had offered so many truths to her.

A soft breath left her as she looked down briefly at the basket—the hooks, the house numbers, the ordinary pieces of an ordinary errand that no longer felt ordinary at all.

The sight of them made her smile.

“I want to show you where I’m thinking they should go,” she continued, her voice warming with the thought. “I want your opinion. And your very serious construction face while you pretend this is all strictly professional.”

Her eyes lifted back to his.

“And I want to make you coffee.”

The statement was almost absurd in its simplicity, but it carried a tenderness that settled low in her chest.

Not because coffee was significant on its own.

Because she wanted the quiet that came with it. Him in her kitchen. The familiar sound of her kettle. Music in the background. His tools set down somewhere in the middle of her life as if they belonged there.

Lucy studied him for another moment, letting herself take in the happiness he was no longer trying to hide.

It did something to her—something expansive and startlingly calm.

Her hand slipped from the basket to his forearm, fingertips tracing lightly over the solid line of muscle beneath his sleeve.

“And,” she added, her mouth curving, “if you continue to weaponize home improvement this effectively, I reserve the right to become embarrassingly attached.”

The flirtation lingered only briefly before her expression softened again.

The next words came out lower, steadier.

“Actually,” she said, “I think I already am.”

There was no tremor in her voice this time.

Only certainty.

Her thumb stroked once over his arm.

Then she drew in a breath and let the intensity ease into something lighter before either of them became completely incapable of functioning in public.

“So.” Her smile brightened, affectionate and unmistakably inviting. “We check out, drive back to my place, install the hooks, and try very hard not to get emotionally compromised by a level and stud finder.”

A tiny pause.

Her eyes sparkled as she tilted her head.

“No promises, though.”

For one second, Cameron didn’t trust himself to answer.

Not because he didn’t know what to say.

Because he knew exactly what he wanted to say, and most of it felt too big for the middle of Bennett’s Hardware with a basket between them and Bennett up front probably one malfunctioning printer jam away from declaring war on technology altogether.

But Lucy’s hand was on his forearm.

Her fingers moved over him lightly, like the touch was both an anchor and an admission, and she was looking at him with that open, steady softness he was beginning to understand as something rarer than flirtation.

She wanted him there.

Not later in some vague, polished, future-tense way.

Now.

Today.

In her apartment. In her kitchen. Under the little moon by the door with coffee and music and the hooks in the basket and the whole ordinary shape of something becoming real one small choice at a time.

And then—

attached.

That word did something to him.

Not in a sharp way. Not in the kind of way that made a man want to run or laugh too loudly or pretend he hadn’t heard it.

It hit him low and warm, almost reverent.

Because she hadn’t thrown it out carelessly. Hadn’t hidden it under enough humor to make it disappear if he got too close. She had said it like something she had already recognized in herself, something she wasn’t going to apologize for just because it made the air between them tremble a little.

Cameron looked down at her hand on his arm, then back at her face, and his smile came slowly.

He knew it probably showed too much.

He didn’t care.

“You know,” he said quietly, voice roughened at the edges, “you keep saying things like that in a hardware store, and I’m gonna start thinking Bennett’s got something in the ventilation.”

A beat.

“Because I came in here for porch supplies, and somehow I’m leaving with hooks, future shelving rights, coffee plans, and a woman telling me she’s attached to me.”

His mouth curved wider, but the warmth in his eyes stayed too soft for the joke to carry all the weight.

“That’s a pretty successful errand.”

He shifted closer, just enough that her hand on his forearm settled more firmly between them. His free hand lifted, not to touch her wrist, not to pin anything down, but to brush the back of his fingers lightly along the side of her hand where it rested against him. A small answer. A quiet acknowledgment.

Then he let his hand fall back to the basket handle, because if he kept touching her right there, under those ugly fluorescent lights, he was going to forget every practical step between this aisle and her apartment.

His gaze held hers.

“And I want to be there,” he said.

No teasing that time.

Just clean.

“I want to see where you’re thinking. I want the coffee. I want the commentary.” His mouth tipped faintly. “I even want the part where you stand there pretending you’re not emotionally invested in whether the bubble in the level sits dead center.”

A small pause.

“And for the record, it will.”

There.

A little air back in.

But only a little.

Because the bigger truth still sat inside him, steady and unignorable now.

He wanted to be invited into her life in exactly this way. Not as some dramatic interruption. Not as a man arriving to take over what she had built without him.

As someone allowed to add one useful thing, then another.

A hook. A shelf. A laugh in her kitchen. A coffee mug set beside his tools.

Small things that became part of the day without needing to announce themselves.

His chest tightened around it in a way that felt dangerously close to happiness.

Cameron let out a soft breath and looked down into the basket, at the ridiculous little collection of objects that suddenly seemed to carry more meaning than hardware had any right to carry. House numbers for a client’s porch. Hooks for Lucy’s apartment. Screws he had rejected and reselected like the honor of her walls depended on it.

Maybe it did.

A little.

His thumb shifted against the basket handle.

“I’m attached too,” he said.

The words came out before he could overthink them.

Once they were there, he didn’t try to soften them.

He looked back at her, steady now, letting her see the full truth of it without making it heavier than it needed to be.

“Pretty sure that ship sailed somewhere between you threatening my futon and offering me forever over storage solutions.”

His smile came back, warmer and easier now.

“But yes. Since we’re being professional.”

He leaned in slightly, voice dipping lower.

“I’m very attached to you, Lucy Corbett.”

There it was.

Not a declaration designed to knock the world off its axis.

Just the truth, said in an aisle full of hooks and house numbers, because apparently that was where the important things kept deciding to happen now.

The corners of his mouth lifted when her face changed—when the words landed and stayed there between them, visible and alive.

He gave her that second.

Gave himself one too.

Then, because he could feel the moment deepening past the point where either of them was going to remain functional if he let it sit untouched too long, he glanced toward the basket and cleared his throat with deliberate seriousness.

“Now,” he said, “before either one of us gets taken out by the emotional power of properly installed hardware, I need to make sure I’ve got everything.”

He looked into the basket like it was a sacred inventory.

“Hooks. Correct screws. Backup anchors. Porch numbers. Wood filler. Pry bar. Stain. Brushes.”

A beat.

“Several opportunities for you to judge me.”

His brows lifted.

“Strong afternoon.”

He shifted the basket in his hand and started walking slowly toward the end of the aisle, not so fast that the moment broke apart, not so slow that it became another reason to stay suspended forever. The floorboards creaked under his boots, and the familiar store sounds came back in layers—the register, the shuffle of someone’s cart, Bennett’s irritated throat-clearing from up front.

Lucy moved with him, still close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm again.

Cameron felt that too.

Of course he did.

He was starting to think there wasn’t a version of her nearness he didn’t feel now.

He glanced down at her, the smile still lingering.

“I do need to warn you,” he said, “once we get to your place, the construction face is real.”

A beat.

“Very serious. Very focused. Extremely difficult to resist.”

His mouth twitched.

“I don’t want you blindsided.”

He guided them around the endcap, past a display of key rings shaped like miniature tools and a stack of discounted work gloves that had probably been there since before either of them graduated high school.

Then something small caught his eye on a side rack beside the hooks aisle exit.

A pack of tiny brass cup hooks.

Not for her entryway. Not for the shelves. Not even something he had any reason to buy.

He stopped for half a second, then reached out and lifted the packet, turning it over in his hand.

“For the record,” he said, glancing at her sideways, “these are not part of today’s work order.”

He held them up.

“But if you ever decide those little string lights by your record shelf need to stop losing their fight with gravity, these would do it.”

He set them back immediately, palm lifting in surrender.

“Not today. I’m exercising restraint.”

His grin warmed.

“Heroically.”

It wasn’t an excuse to stay.

Not really.

Just another thing he noticed.

Another tiny corner of her place his mind had quietly held onto without asking permission.

He looked at her after setting them back, and his expression softened again despite himself.

“Sorry,” he murmured, though the apology barely counted. “Your apartment’s in my head now.”

A pause.

“Not in a creepy way.”

Another beat.

“In a highly respectful, structurally aware way.”

He could hear how absurd that sounded the second he said it, and the quiet laugh that slipped out of him carried more affection than embarrassment.

Then he resumed walking, basket settling against his thigh, the hooks and house numbers clicking softly together with every step.

Up front, Bennett finally looked up as they approached the open space near the counter, squinting over his glasses with the flat expression of a man who had seen every type of local nonsense and been impressed by none of it.

Cameron slowed before they reached him, turning just enough toward Lucy so the last bit of privacy stayed intact for another breath.

“And just so we’re clear,” he said, voice low enough that it belonged only to her, “I am going to come over, install those hooks, drink your coffee, and try very hard not to get emotionally compromised by a stud finder.”

His eyes warmed.

“But I make no promises either.”

He let that sit there with a small smile, then added, softer:

“Especially if you keep looking at me like I belong there already.”

That one came from somewhere deeper.

He hadn’t planned it.

But it was true.

The image of her apartment had shifted for him now. Not because he assumed it was his. Not because a hook in the wall meant he had some right to the room.

Because she had invited him in with her whole voice, her whole face, her whole hand on his arm.

Because she wanted him there.

And Cameron, basket full of ordinary things and chest full of something anything but ordinary, wanted very badly to be worthy of that.

He looked down at her one more time, then let the grin return—gentler now, but still unmistakably his.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go make me dangerously useful.”

Lucy’s lips parted, but for a moment nothing came out.

Not because she didn’t have something to say.

Because the quiet certainty in his voice had reached past all the places she normally kept guarded and landed somewhere so steady that her usual instinct to deflect simply failed to appear.

He was teasing her. Talking about tools and coffee and all the practical details that would get them from this aisle to her apartment.

And beneath every word was the same uncomplicated fact.

He was coming with her.

Her fingers tightened around his hand.

The movement was small, almost involuntary, but she felt his warmth press more fully into her palm, felt the roughness along his knuckles, the reassuring solidity of him standing there beside her as though this had already become the most natural place for him to be.

When he said she looked at him like he belonged there, a sharp pulse of heat spread through her chest.

Because he had noticed.

Of course he had.

And because he was right.

She had been imagining him in her apartment all day in the most ordinary, dangerous ways possible—his jacket slung over a chair, his voice in her kitchen, his boots by the front door while music played low in the background.

Not as a fantasy.

As an expectation.

Lucy drew in a breath that trembled just slightly at the edges.

Her smile was small when it appeared, but there was nothing uncertain in it.

“Well,” she said softly, her thumb brushing once over the back of his hand, “it would be a little weird if I invited you over and then acted surprised when you showed up.”

The words brought a faint lift to one corner of her mouth.

A little of her usual humor.

But her eyes held his without wavering.

“I want you there.”

Simple.

Direct.

The truth stripped down to its cleanest shape.

She let that sit between them for one beat, watching the subtle shift in his expression, the way even now he seemed to receive her honesty with the same care he brought to everything else.

Then her smile deepened, warmer this time.

“And if you start showing off with power tools, I reserve the right to be impressed.”

A soft breath of laughter escaped her.

Not enough to dilute what she had said.

Just enough to keep them both standing under fluorescent lights instead of disappearing entirely into the moment.

Lucy leaned into him briefly, the side of her shoulder fitting against his arm as naturally as if she had been doing it for years.

Then she tipped her head toward the register, where Bennett was waiting with the long-suffering patience of a man who had watched this town pair people off for decades and found the whole process deeply inconvenient.

“Come on,” she murmured, giving his hand a gentle tug. “Let’s buy the hooks.”

Her gaze lifted to his one last time, bright and unguarded.

“I’d like to get you to my apartment before you talk yourself out of how much I want you there.”

Cameron felt that last line go through him like a clean spark.

Not sharp.

Not startling.

Just immediate.

I want you there.

There were easier things he could have done with that. Smiled. Teased. Said something about how he would try not to let the drill go to his head. He almost did, because the shape of the joke was right there, waiting for him.

But for once, he let himself take the hit first.

Let himself feel the way she said it, plain and warm and steady, like she wasn’t setting a trap for either of them. Like she had already opened the door in her mind and was just waiting for the rest of the afternoon to catch up.

His fingers tightened around hers before he could think better of it.

“I’m not talking myself out of anything,” he said, voice low enough that it stayed tucked between them. “Not when you’re making the argument this good.”

His mouth curved then, slow and warm, the flirt finding its way back in because he needed it to breathe through how badly that had gotten him.

“And for the record, if I start showing off with power tools, it’s only because you’ve created an environment where that kind of behavior is being actively rewarded.”

He let her tug him toward the register, basket in one hand, her hand in the other, and the simple act of walking up front with her felt strangely intimate. Not because anyone else would have noticed. Bennett certainly looked like he wanted nothing more than for the entire population of Bedford Falls to take their emotional breakthroughs away from his transaction counter.

But Cameron noticed.

He noticed the swing of her hand in his. The light pressure of her shoulder near his arm. The hooks sitting in the basket alongside porch supplies like they had always belonged there.

Bennett gave the basket one long look when Cameron set it on the counter.

Then he looked at Cameron.

Then Lucy.

Then back at the basket.

“Porch job got fancy,” Bennett said flatly.

Cameron huffed a laugh under his breath, already reaching for his wallet.

“Something like that.”

Bennett began scanning with the air of a man doing the Lord’s least glamorous work. Screws. Anchors. Filler. Stain. Brushes. Bronze house numbers. Hooks.

The hooks got a tiny pause.

Not much.

Just enough for Cameron to feel Lucy beside him and know she had noticed too.

He didn’t look over at her, mostly because if he caught her expression, he was going to smile like an idiot in front of a man who had once sold him his first work gloves and still seemed personally offended that Cameron had grown into a full adult with a social life.

“That all?” Bennett asked.

“For now,” Cameron said.

Bennett grunted like that sounded suspiciously optimistic.

The total appeared on the little screen, and Cameron slid his card forward before Lucy could even shift like she might argue. It wasn’t performative. Wasn’t some big chivalrous display.

It was just his errand.

His hooks too, now, in a way.

He looked down at her then, brows lifting slightly like he could already hear the protest she hadn’t made yet.

“Don’t start,” he murmured, soft enough only she would hear. “I’m buying the hardware I intend to be judged for.”

Bennett tore the receipt with a sharp little rip and handed it over.

“Good luck with that,” he said.

Cameron glanced at him, amused. “With the hooks?”

“With whatever that was.” Bennett nodded vaguely toward both of them, then turned away like he had absolutely no interest in the answer.

Cameron pressed his lips together for half a second, trying not to laugh outright, and gathered the bag before the old man could decide to charge them extra for loitering with intent.

Once they reached the door, Cameron stepped ahead just enough to push it open for her, the old bell above it giving a familiar, uneven jangle. Afternoon light spilled across the threshold, warmer than the fluorescents inside, turning the dust in the air gold for a second before it vanished into the outside heat.

He held the door open and waited for her to pass.

The moment she did, the hardware-store smell gave way to sun-warmed pavement, cut grass somewhere nearby, and the faint sharpness of mulch from the display stacked outside the front window. The world felt wider out here. Brighter.

Cameron followed her out, letting the door swing shut behind them with another soft bell chime.

But he didn’t move toward the truck right away.

He stopped just outside the entrance, bag hanging from one hand, the other still close enough to hers that he could take it again if she let him.

For a second, he just looked at her in the daylight.

No candlelight. No dim restaurant. No warm little booth giving them privacy.

Just Lucy standing outside Bennett’s Hardware with the afternoon sun catching along her hair and that still-open softness on her face, and Cameron felt the quiet force of the day settle around him.

They were going to her apartment.

He was going to install hooks under the moon by her door.

He was going to drink her coffee and listen to her music and stand inside the home she had made for herself while she let him add something to it.

Small thing.

Huge thing.

His smile softened before he could stop it.

“Just so you know,” he said, voice low and easy, “Bennett is absolutely going to tell half the town I bought you hooks.”

A beat.

“By dinner, we’ll be engaged in three versions of the story and renovating a farmhouse in one of them.”

His grin warmed.

“Probably with a very tasteful porch.”

The joke came easily, but he didn’t use it to step away from the rest of what he was feeling. He stayed there with her, close enough that the heat from the pavement rose around them and the bag rustled softly when he shifted it in his hand.

Then his voice dropped a little.

“But before we go…”

He glanced toward the truck, then back at her.

“I need one second.”

He reached for her hand again, threading his fingers through hers slowly this time, like he wanted to feel the choice of it instead of just falling into the habit.

His thumb moved once across her knuckles.

“I liked hearing you say you want me there.”

No joke over it.

No grin big enough to soften the whole thing.

Just him, standing in the sun with a bag full of hardware and his heart sitting embarrassingly close to the surface.

“I know you said it in there,” he added, mouth curving faintly. “But Bennett was staring at us like we were blocking access to plumbing supplies, and I didn’t get to appreciate it properly.”

That brought the warmth back into his face, playful but still honest.

He tugged her just a little closer—not much. Just enough that the space between them felt chosen.

“I want to come home with you,” he said, quieter now.

A tiny pause.

“Install the hooks. Drink the coffee. Try real hard not to get smug when the level says I’m right.”

His eyes stayed on hers.

“And I want the part after that too. The music. The standing around. You telling me the chair looks less tragic. Whatever happens after we make your entryway emotionally stable.”

The corner of his mouth tipped.

“I’m flexible.”

The flirtation sat there, warm and unmistakable, but beneath it was something steadier.

He wasn’t rushing her.

Wasn’t assuming.

Just answering the door she had opened.

Cameron lifted their joined hands and pressed a brief kiss to her knuckles, quick enough for the sidewalk, slow enough to mean something.

Then he lowered them again but didn’t let go.

“Okay,” he said softly, smile tugging at his mouth. “Now we can go.”

A beat.

“Before I start getting attached to the parking lot too.”

Lucy’s laugh slipped out before she could stop it.

Soft at first, then warmer, the sound carrying some of the fullness that had been sitting in her chest since he told her he wanted to come home with her.

The image of Bennett quietly converting a pack of hooks into a town-wide engagement announcement was absurdly believable. By sunset, Mrs. Donnelly would probably be congratulating her over the vintage counter, and by tomorrow there would be at least one embellished version involving custom cabinetry and twins.

But even as she smiled, his words beneath the joke settled over her with a different kind of weight.

I liked hearing you say you want me there.

Her pulse fluttered when he took her hand again.

Not casually this time.

Deliberately.

The slow slide of his fingers between hers, the press of his thumb over her knuckles, the honesty in his voice when he said he wanted all of it—the work, the coffee, the music, the aimless lingering afterward—stripped away the last trace of nervousness she had been carrying.

He wasn’t treating the invitation like a favor.

He was treating it like something precious.

The kiss to her hand left a small, lingering warmth against her skin.

Lucy looked up at him, sunlight catching in the scruff along his jaw, the bag of hardware hanging from his hand, his expression open in a way that made her chest feel almost too full to contain.

This was Cameron.

Standing on the sidewalk outside Bennett’s Hardware.

Looking at her like he meant every word.

Her fingers tightened around his.

“Good,” she said, voice low and steady.

A smile curved slowly across her mouth.

“Because I’d hate to think I spent all that time working up the nerve to ask you over just for you to get emotionally involved with the parking lot instead.”

The teasing lingered for a beat, but her expression softened almost immediately.

She stepped closer until the front of her shoulder brushed his chest, close enough to feel the heat of him in the late-afternoon sun.

When she spoke again, her voice dropped.

“I want all of that too.”

No qualifiers.

No attempt to make it smaller.

Her gaze searched his for one quiet second, letting him see exactly what she meant.

Then she rose onto her toes and kissed him.

Not hurried.

Not tentative.

A warm, certain kiss that carried everything she hadn’t trusted herself to put into words on the sidewalk.

When she drew back, her forehead rested lightly against his for the briefest moment.

A breath shared in the sunlight.

Her smile returned, softer now, touched with something deeply content.

“Come on,” she murmured, brushing her thumb once across the back of his hand. “Let’s go home.”

And this time, when she turned toward his truck, the word felt so natural she didn’t stop to examine it.

She simply kept hold of his hand and walked with him down the sidewalk, the hardware bag rustling at his side, the afternoon stretching open in front of them, and the rest of the town carrying on as though nothing extraordinary had happened.

As though two people hadn’t just stepped, quietly and without ceremony, into something that already felt like it had been waiting for them all along.