“Your beard scratches when you stand too close.”
“You smell like cedar and coffee.”
“And you stop breathing for half a second every time I touch your chest.”
The Single Dad looked toward the counter.
“That seems unfair.”
“What?”
“You’ve apparently been collecting evidence.”
“Observation.”
He handed her the wineglass.
Their fingers touched.
Neither let go immediately.
The Woman tilted her face toward him.
“How close are you?”
“Too close.”
“That wasn’t a distance.”
“About a foot.”
She smiled.
“Closer than that.”
He stepped forward.
She heard it.
The movement of fabric.
The change in his breathing.
The warmth.
Her free hand found his shirt.
Flat against his chest.
Exactly as it had in the rain.
The Single Dad placed his hand lightly over hers.
“Woman.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want this to happen because you’re staying here.”
“It isn’t.”
“I don’t want you thinking you owe me.”
“I don’t.”
“I don’t want—”
She interrupted softly.
“You talk too much when you’re afraid.”
He became quiet.
Her fingers curled slightly into his shirt.
“May I kiss you?”
The question stunned him.
He smiled.
“Yes.”
She lifted her face.
He met her halfway.
The kiss was gentle.
Slow.
Nothing desperate.
No grabbing.
No confusion.
Just warmth.
Her fingers remained against his chest.
His hand settled at her waist.
The Woman smiled into the kiss.
Then kissed him again.
Longer.
When they finally separated, the Single Dad kept his forehead against hers.
“That was…”
“What?”
He laughed.
“I had something better in mind.”
“Hardware-store vocabulary failing?”
“Completely.”
She smiled.
Then stepped away first.
That mattered.
She could leave the moment.
Choose it.
Not be carried by it.
The Single Dad understood.
They did not go farther that night.
The attraction remained.
If anything, restraint intensified it.
The next morning, the Daughter looked between them at breakfast.
Then announced:
“You’re acting weird.”
The Single Dad choked on coffee.
The Woman smiled.
“Are we?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Dad keeps looking at you.”
The Single Dad became horrified.
The Woman tilted her face toward him.
“Does he?”
“Yes.”
“A lot?”
The Daughter nodded.
The Woman smiled wider.
“Useful information.”
“You are both terrible.”
The Single Dad muttered.
The call came on the sixth day.
He was in the hardware-store office reviewing invoices.
Unknown Pittsburgh number.
He answered.
The Doctor introduced herself.
Wren-Castillo Visual Neurology Institute.
The Single Dad sat down.
The Woman had enrolled eighteen months earlier in an experimental retinal gene-therapy trial.
She had listed the hardware store as an emergency contact.
Not him personally.
The store.
Because she had grown up nearby.
Because she had nobody else.
The Doctor had been trying to reach her for weeks.
The Single Dad gripped the phone tighter.
“Is something wrong?”
“Potentially the opposite.”
He stopped breathing.
The Doctor explained carefully.