Olivia Greene's Arc

Chapter 2 of 8

Olivia stared at the collapsed roof and the black mold on her grandmother's table. She needed this greenhouse fixed. It was the whole reason she came back. Ryan stepped through the doorway behind her and looked up at the ruined beams. "This is real work," he said. He walked the length of the room, testing a shelf with his boot. It cracked and fell. "New roof. New frame. You'll want the rot cut out before it spreads to the good glass." He named a price. The number knocked the breath out of her. It was more than she had. It was more than she'd make in months. "I can't pay that," she said. Ryan shrugged and hooked his thumbs in his belt, the same lazy way he used to stand over her in the schoolyard. "Then I can't help you. I've got paying jobs waiting." He turned toward his truck. Her face went hot. She almost let him go. But she thought of her grandmother's shears in her bag, and the vow she'd promised herself she'd say in this room. "Wait," she said. "What if I trade you?" He stopped. "Trade what?" She had no money, but she had skills. "I paint. Signs, lettering, murals. I did it for shops back home." She'd seen the tavern in town on her way in, its wooden sign faded and peeling. "That old tavern needs a new sign. I bet half the storefronts here do. I could work those jobs and pay you as I earn." Ryan crossed his arms. "That's slow money." "Then I'll work here too," she said. "I clear the rot, I haul the debris, I hand you tools. You don't pay a laborer. That's half your cost gone." She held his stare. "I'm not the kid who cried at your jokes anymore." Something shifted in his face. The grin dropped. He looked at the ruined beams again, doing the math. "You'd have to actually show up. Every day. Filthy, splinters, heavy lifting." "I know how to work." He was quiet a long moment. Then he pulled a stub of pencil from his flannel pocket and scratched numbers on the back of an old receipt. "Labor trade plus what you earn painting. It'll take you months." He handed her the paper. "But it covers it." Olivia took the receipt. Her hand shook a little. "Deal." Ryan wiped his palm on his jeans and held it out. She shook it. His grip was warm and rough. "First thing," he said, already looking at the fallen shelf. "We haul this out before the mold spreads. Grab gloves." She had a builder now, but she'd traded away her freedom to get him. Months of labor beside the boy who once made her cry. And her first task waited across town, on a faded tavern sign she hadn't been asked to fix yet.