“Yeah, I swear there’s a method to my madness.”

“Oh, I wasn’t accusing you of being messy. It’s just a lot more...stuff than I imagined.”

She wasn’t wrong. There were shelves and shelves of slabs of wood that he’d benched for the time being. There were copper pipes lashed together in the corner, and barrels of more copper scraps and fittings that he usually melted down for ornamentation. There were wood scraps and castoffs of all shapes and sizes organized loosely by imagined project. And along one wall were his projects, all in various stages of completeness. In the middle of the garage were his huge, dinosaur-like machines. His band saw and table saw. His router and drill press. The last wall was covered in tools of every shape and size, some of them shiny and new and others looking damn near ancient. A thin layer of sawdust covered everything. But it was just that—thin. He might be a little messy, but he kept a clean shop.

“Well, once I start a project, I usually see it straight through to the end. But I’ve been a little harebrained lately. And my deadlines aren’t so rigid. So I’ve been alternating a few projects, working on whatever strikes my fancy that day. That dining room set is my favorite. With the Shaker chairs and the table with the beveled edge. But I like that coffee table, too. The mirror over there is giving me gray hairs. Everything has to be so exact with it.”

She had wandered over and was examining each item as he listed it. She was very quiet. So quiet he struggled not to clear his throat.

“The mirror isn’t exactly your style, is it? The metalwork is so industrial and the angles of the wood are so exacting. Most of your other stuff has a more organic, freeform style to it.”

She turned to him, a thoughtful look on her face, one hand tucked under her chin and the light catching on one of her small earrings. But as soon as she saw him, her expression morphed. Something in his face had her blushing.

“Or am I just dead wrong?”

He laughed. “No, no. You’re dead right. That piece was contracted by a very particular client. One who I will not be working with again. But I’m not exactly gonna turn away a paying customer. I just don’t like his taste. I agree. It’s too architectural for me. There are no surprises.” He walked over and whisked a hand over the top and side of the mirror, almost dismissively. “It looks exactly like the drawings I made up for him. It’s boring.”

“Surprises?” she asked as she walked over to the table with the beveled edge. “You mean like the way you sanded this beveled edge into the cut of the live edge?”

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. He was surprised she caught that. Most people wouldn’t have noticed the detail, they just would have sensed the overall tamed wildness of the piece.