He stilled. “I forgot you took care of your dad.”

“Yeah, well, you forget a lot of things,” I snapped at the wall.

But he didn’t notice. He’d already started scrubbing again. “It’s true. I have the memory of a goldfish—by the time I swim around the bowl, I forget everything I saw, heard, or tasted.”

Flake. Unreliable. Undependable. Unaware flake with too many muscles for his own good.

“How long do you think it’ll take us to finish painting?” I asked, annoyed at my annoyance and desperate to change the subject. Luke inspired that in me—the irrational urge to fight. I hated that urge.

Worse—I was beginning to realize that it was me who was the problem, not him.

“We should finish tomorrow, if we play it right. Man, I can’t wait for Mom to see this. Oh, and? I found a bunch of stuff in storage. I’ll show you when we finish for the day. Maybe you can use something for the installation.” He paused, and the sound of music and brushes on brick filled the space between us. “Have any ideas?”

“I was thinking something with succulents,” I said. “It’s so hot and sunny, I thought maybe passersby would find it fitting.”

“I like it.” The genuine enthusiasm in his voice disarmed me.

“We’ll see. Maybe there’s something in storage we can use. I’ve got some sketches, but I want to see what we find back there before committing.”

“Tess? With a plan at the ready? Never.”

I huffed a laugh.

“I have a good feeling about this,” he started. “I’ve been thinking … you know how Mom always talks about the old magazine feature Home and Garden did on my grandma?”

“I’ve stared at that framed magazine cover in the shop for ten years. It’s one of her proudest memories of her mother, I think.”

“I know. And I was thinking that maybe once we get things on track with the shop and find a groove with the window installations, we could approach some magazines.”

A smile spread as I imagined it. “Oh my God. She’d die. Like, you might actually give her a heart attack.”

He laughed. “Laney thinks it’s possible to land a feature, depending on how the window displays go.”

“No pressure,” I joked.

“If anyone can do it, it’s you,” he said, stripping me of the last of my armor. “Just say the word, and we can do whatever you want. Your wish is my command.”

I wish I hated you. I wish you’d be an ass. I wish you remembered kissing me.

I rolled my eyes at myself. I’d had a dozen boyfriends and a thousand kisses in the last ten years, but I couldn’t seem to remember a single one, except the one he didn’t.

Maybe the torch still burned because my wound had festered for so long, buried in my heart. Maybe it was because it had happened in a moment when I was vulnerable and lost. Or because I’d trusted him with words too raw and real to utter aloud. Or because he’d promised me something he never acknowledged again, leaving me feeling nothing but betrayal and pain in a time when I was already shattered.