His mouth stays on her hand. Warmth seeps through her skin, spreads up her wrist, and she feels the years between them thinning like morning fog under sun. His lips press once, twice, then still—waiting.
She lifts her gaze to find his hazel eyes fixed on her. No question in them. Just patience. The same patience that built seven pieces of furniture from her abandoned sketches. The same patience that waited three years after learning she was married before reaching out.
The ring bites. She clenches her fist around his fingers, the gold band pressing into her palm, and feels the ghost of a future she chose against the weight of a past she never stopped wanting. The chair in the sketchbook watches them from the table—finished, empty, beautiful. She wonders if she'll ever sit in something that holds her without asking for a piece of her in return.
"Ethan." His name comes out cracked, raw, the syllable she's been holding for a decade.
Something shifts in his face. A softening at the edges she's never seen before.
She doesn't think. She pulls his hand toward her chest, presses his palm flat over her heart. The wood grain of his calluses scrapes against her thin sweater and beneath it, her pulse hammers—wild, bare, impossible to hide. His fingers curl, molding to the shape of her ribcage, and he breathes in sharp through his nose.
"Clara."
Her name in his mouth is different now. Not rough, not careful. Full of something that sounds like hurt.
His thumb traces a slow arc over her collarbone. The pencil rolls off the table and hits the floor, a soft clatter that neither of them moves to acknowledge. The bare bulb hums above them. Sawdust drifts in the yellow light.
Her wedding ring digs deeper as she presses his hand harder against her chest, and she wonders if this is what breaking feels like—or what it feels like to finally stop holding the pieces together.
"I don't know what I'm doing."
The words fall out of her like something she's been carrying too long. No breath behind them. Just the shape of a truth she's been choking on. Her hand is still pressed against her chest, his palm warm through the thin cotton, and she feels the admission land between them like the pencil hitting the floor—small, final, undeniable.
Ethan doesn't move. His thumb stops its slow arc across her collarbone. The calluses on his fingers press harder, just slightly, as if he's steadying himself against her heartbeat.
"I don't know what I'm doing," she says again, and this time her voice cracks on the last word. "I came here for paint. For a goddamn paint swatch, Ethan. And now I'm standing in your workshop with your hand on my heart and a ring on my finger and I have no idea what I'm doing."
His jaw tightens. A muscle jumps near his temple. But his hand stays where she put it, grounded against the wild rhythm she can't hide.
"I've been playing this out," she continues, the words spilling now, unstoppable. "Every night for ten years. What I'd say. What you'd say. How it would feel. And none of it—" She shakes her head, dark hair falling across her cheek. "None of it prepared me for how much it would hurt to want something this badly and still be too afraid to reach for it."
His breath catches. She feels it through his chest, through the air between them, through the way his fingers curl against her ribcage like he's holding on to something that might slip away.
"Clara."
Just her name. Spoken low and rough and full of the same ache she's been carrying. His eyes search hers, not for permission—for understanding.
"I don't need you to know what you're doing." His voice is quiet, barely above the hum of the bulb above them. "I need you to stop trying to figure it out alone."
The ring bites deeper as she clenches her fist. His palm presses harder against her heart. The chair in the sketchbook watches, finished and empty, and she thinks about all the ways she's been sanding herself down to fit a life that never quite held her.
She doesn't answer. But she doesn't let go either.
She looks at him. At the steady patience in his hazel eyes, at the way his jaw holds firm even as his thumb trembles against her pulse. At the man who built seven pieces of furniture from her abandoned dreams and waited three years after learning she belonged to someone else before reaching out.
The ring bites.
She doesn't think. Thinking is what got her here—ten years of thinking, weighing, measuring every choice against the life she was supposed to want. She is so tired of thinking.
She rises on her toes and kisses him.
It's not gentle. It's not careful. It's ten years of wanting slammed into a single point of contact, her mouth finding his like she's been holding her breath underwater and finally broke the surface. Her free hand grips his shirt, twisting the flannel at his ribs, pulling him closer because closer is the only direction that makes sense.
He makes a sound against her lips—half gasp, half groan—and his hand slides from her chest to the curve of her neck, fingers threading into her hair, tilting her head to deepen the kiss. His calluses scrape against her scalp, and she shivers, presses harder, tastes the sawdust and coffee on his tongue.
She doesn't know how long it lasts. Seconds. Years. Both. Time has stopped mattering in this cramped workshop where the only light comes from a bare bulb and the only warmth comes from his mouth on hers.
When they break apart, they're both breathing hard. His forehead rests against hers. His eyes are closed. His thumb traces the line of her jaw, and she feels it everywhere—a thread pulled taut from her throat to her chest to the hollow between her thighs.
"Clara." Her name, whispered. Broken. Like he's been holding it too.
She presses her forehead harder against his, the ring digging into her palm where she still clenches his fingers against her heart. She knows this changes everything. Knows there's no taking it back. But his breath is warm on her lips and his hand is tangled in her hair and for the first time in ten years, she doesn't want to be anywhere else.