Page 16 of This Love is Under Construction

The thing about storms in the Pacific Northwest that no one warns you about is the way they arrive—not with the dramatic flair of a Hollywood special effect, but with a creeping inevitability.

It starts in your chest, in your ears, in the way the air thickens, and before the first cloud appears, something in you already knows to brace.

My phone buzzes while I’m grabbing my coffee and tool bag.

“Perfect,” I mutter, taking in the skeletal frame of my house.

The foundation is finally solid and the walls are up, but the whole thing is still halfway between salvageable and catastrophe.

The windows—three weeks late—aren’t due until Friday, and every opening is sealed with plastic sheeting and prayer.

“Morning,” I call, holding up my phone. “Saw the alert?”

“Checked the radar on the way over.” He doesn’t bother with hellos, just sweeps the site like he’s triangulating danger. “It’s moving faster than expected. We need to get ahead of it.”

“What’s my job?”

He rattles off a list without hesitation: retarp the window openings, move loose materials into the camper, sandbag around the north foundation wall. His voice is calm but quick, and I match his pace, falling into the efficient rhythm we’ve developed—no wasted motion, no explanations needed.

For the next hour we move in lockstep, the sky darkening above us.

There’s something eerily satisfying about how seamlessly we work together now—like our muscles remember things we haven’t said out loud.

He hands me the exact thing I’m about to ask for.

I move before he gestures. We don’t talk much, but we don’t have to.

“The wind’s shifting,” I say, holding down a tarp that’s turned into a sail. “How much time?”

He glances up. The blue’s gone now—replaced by thick slate and a green-gray smear across the horizon. “Not enough. We need to get the roof tarp secure and stash everything else inside.”

I nod and bolt toward his truck. “Grabbing more rope and sandbags.”

There’s the flicker of a nod from him, and I think it might be approval. I’m halfway back with the supplies when my phone buzzes again.

FLASH FLOOD WARNING UPGRADED: Immediate precautions advised. Storm front advancing rapidly. Arrival expected within 45 minutes .

Thunder rolls in just as I finish reading.

“New alert,” I say breathlessly when I return. “We’ve got forty-five minutes. Maybe less.”

“We focus on water prevention,” Owen says, already shifting our plan. “Foundation drainage isn’t connected yet.”

For the next half hour we move with urgency.

The clouds have turned thick and low, swallowing the light.

The wind howls through the trees and snaps the tarps with enough force to make me flinch.

Lightning flashes closer now, and for a few seconds at a time, the entire build glows blue-white before going dark again.

“Last one,” I yell, dragging the final sandbag into place. The first big drops splatter the plywood beside me. “Anything else?”

“Inside,” Owen calls, scooping up the last of the tools. “We need to check for leaks.”

We make it through the door seconds before the sky opens. One moment it’s a few isolated drops, the next it’s a waterfall. The noise on the tarp-covered roof is deafening, like standing under a freight train.

“That was close,” I pant, dropping the toolbox. “Think everything will hold?”

Owen’s already inspecting the seams. “Some leaks. Small ones. We need towels and sheeting—supply closet.”

I head toward the framed-out space that will eventually be a utility closet, just as another lightning flash throws the house into harsh relief. A split second later, thunder cracks so loud it rattles in my teeth.

And then everything goes dark.

The power—rigged up to the main grid through a temporary connection—cuts out, plunging us into gray shadows and stormlight.

“Owen?” I say, disoriented.

“I’m here,” he answers from across the room. “Check your signal.”

I glance at my phone. “Nothing. Must’ve taken out a tower.”

He’s quiet for a second. Then: “We stay. Roads will flood.”

“So we’re stuck here?”

He nods. “Storm should peak in the next hour. Safer to wait it out.”

I force a nod, like that’s not a big deal. Just me and Owen. No power. No service. Half-built house. Raging storm. It’s fine. Completely, totally fine.

“Flashlights are in the closet,” he adds. “Emergency kit’s up top.”

“On it.”

The closet is a mess of tarps, tools, and unopened boxes. I dig around blindly.

“You need help?” Owen’s voice is close—closer than expected—and I jump, knocking my elbow against a shelf.

“Jesus,” I hiss. “Maybe announce yourself next time instead of appearing like a ghost.”

“Sorry,” he says, clearly not sorry.

He steps in beside me, which makes zero sense because the space barely fits me. I can feel him behind me—radiating heat, quiet, solid. The scent of sawdust and coffee clings to him, grounding and dangerously familiar.

“There’s a kit on the top shelf,” he says.

I reach up, feeling blindly.

“This is not a rom-com closet moment,” I blurt. “Just in case there’s any confusion. No kissing. No music swelling. Strictly flashlight retrieval.”

He doesn’t answer.

“In movies, this is the part where the two leads who’ve been denying everything end up trapped in a small space, and there’s this one charged moment?—”

We both reach for the shelf. His hand covers mine.

I go still.

It’s just skin. Just contact. But it crackles.

I should pull back. Crack a joke. Do something to break the tension that’s suddenly pressing in from all sides .

“Penny,” he says. Quiet. Low. And then?—

He kisses me.

Or maybe I kiss him. I don’t know. All I know is suddenly he’s there and I’m not thinking. His mouth finds mine and I’m pressed against the shelving, his hands in my hair, and all the noise in my brain goes silent.

It isn’t tentative. It isn’t safe. It’s two weeks of tension unspooling at once—sharp, hot, unfiltered. I drag my hands under his shirt, and he’s all warmth and muscle and anchored motion. He deepens the kiss and I answer it, instinctively, blindly, letting myself get pulled under.

One of his hands moves to my waist, thumb brushing the sensitive spot just below my ribs, and I gasp against his mouth.

And then—because timing is comedy’s favorite accomplice—my elbow jostles something. There’s a soft thunk, a slow roll, and the next thing I smell is open paint.

We freeze.

Lightning flashes, illuminating his face for a beat—swollen lips, ragged breath, eyes stunned.

I open my mouth to speak. Nothing comes out. So I close it again, heart hammering so hard I swear he can hear it.

Owen clears his throat. “We should check on that paint.”

“Right. The paint. Very important.” I’m babbling again, smoothing down my shirt with hands that refuse to steady. “Wouldn’t want it to stain the... floor. Or shelves. Or something.”

He reaches past me—deliberate, careful not to make contact—and grabs a flashlight from the shelf. The beam cuts through the dark, revealing the can tipped on its side, blue-gray paint puddling on the shelf but mercifully not dripping yet.

“Here.” He hands me the flashlight. “There are rags in the box by your foot.”

We clean the spill in awkward silence, the beam jerking around as my hands continue to betray me. Where the air had been charged only minutes ago, it now feels crowded with everything we’ re not saying.

“We should check the rest of the house,” I say, voice too loud. “For leaks. And, you know, structural integrity. Professional stuff.”

“Right,” Owen says, matching my tone with forced neutrality. “Professional.”

I all but bolt from the closet, flashlight clutched like a lifeline. The storm still howls outside, but the thunder has drifted off a bit—just enough to notice the silence swelling between us.

“We should pretend that didn’t happen,” I blurt, facing the unfinished wall like it might have opinions. “The closet thing. It was just the storm, and the small space, and?—”

“Sure,” Owen says behind me. His voice doesn’t give anything away.

I turn, light wobbling wildly before I manage to point it somewhere safe. “Good. Great. Glad we’re aligned. Super professional of us.”

“Very professional,” he agrees, but his hand rises to his mouth for half a second before he drops it, like he doesn’t realize it’s a tell.

Something catches in my chest. I look away before I can get stuck on the meaning behind that gesture.

“I’ll check the west wall,” I say, already moving. “You take east?”

We split up, flashlights sweeping across tarps and floorboards. The space helps. I can breathe again. Even if my lips still hum with memory.

One minute we were fumbling through a closet. The next, I was pressed against the shelving, kissing a man I definitely wasn’t supposed to be kissing.

I press a hand to my mouth like I can erase the imprint of him. This wasn’t part of the plan. This was a direct violation of Tiny House Rule #4: No catching feelings for the grumpy carpenter.

Too late.

The rain slows. Thunder stretches thin. We keep moving through the house, patching leaks with tarps and towels, avoiding each other by silent agreement.

Twenty minutes later, we meet again in the center of the room. There’s nothing left to fix. Just the two of us and the steady drum of rain on plastic.

“Storm’s shifting east,” Owen says. “Should clear in an hour or so.”

“That’s good,” I say, my voice off-key. “Very meteorologically responsible.”

He doesn’t respond. The quiet stretches again, filled with everything we’re not asking.

I break first. “Why did you give up your design firm?”

It comes out before I know I’m going to say it. Maybe it’s been waiting there, just under the surface, needing to know more about the man who built a life in sacrifice and silence.

Owen looks at me—really looks at me—and something in his expression softens under the flashlight’s edge.

“I told you. My dad had a stroke. The business needed someone.”