Ha! I TOLD you I'd finish this blasted story! Hooray for sudden bursts of inspiration!
Disclaimer: As ever, don't own.
Two weeks later
He is alone in the furniture shop – his boss won't arrive until the afternoon. He really should be minding the counter in case a customer arrives, but no one ever comes so early in the day. So instead, he secludes himself in the back room – his workshop. His sanctuary.
As he shuts down the lathe after turning a table leg, he glances over his shoulder at the chessboards set up in a neat row on the table nearby. Right now he has three games-by-mail going at once, and he is winning two.
But there's only one person he really wants to play against right now.
"Do you believe in fate?" she had once asked him, as they sat by the common-room window and looked out at the stars. "I mean, do you believe that, if things are meant to happen, they'll find a way to happen, no matter what we do or don't do?"
He had no answer then, and he still doesn't have one now.
With a sigh, he turns back to his work. Again and again he slides the plane over the wooden beam, crafting what will be the armrest of a rocking chair. Shavings of pine fall at his feet, noiselessly, like snow.
People who don't know him well are often surprised that someone so cerebral would work at a job like this. But he loves it – using his hands, transforming raw wood into beautiful furniture. It's a perfect fit.
So why does it no longer content him the way it once did?
The bell over the front door tinkles. Of course. The one day I have time to myself, a customer has to show up. He groans, brushes the dust from his hands, and opens the door into the shop.
"Hey, I'm so sorry to bother you, but my car broke down outside, and I…"
They both stand as still as stone.
"Oh my God," she breathes.
"Hello, Trina," he whispers. Immediately the thousand voices of anxiety begin their cacophony in his mind. What if she hates you for what you did? What if she turns on her heel and runs off? What if she curses the day you were born?
For a long – agonizingly long – second, there is no readable expression on her face. Then, she breaks into a broad smile. She runs to him, embraces him tightly, ignoring his dirty apron pressing against her thousand-dollar outfit.
Do you believe in fate?
For Adam Winter, at this moment in time, the answer is yes.