By midday, the Texas sun had already settled into its ruthless rhythm, bleaching the sky and baking the dry earth until it cracked.

Cicadas droned against the silence, and the smell of cedar and cut grass clung to the air.

Joel Miller stood shirtless in his backyard, a hammer in one hand and a half-finished shed in front of him.

Sweat rolled down from his temples, tracing the lines of a man who’d worked too many long days. His skin was browned and freckled from years beneath the sun, his muscles tight—the kind built from real work, not a gym.

“Damn Texas heat,” he muttered, brushing his veiny arm across his forehead. “Could cook an egg right off the damn fence.”

He’d been up since sunrise.

The construction job hadn’t left him much time during the week, but this shed was supposed to be done before the late-summer storms hit.

Sarah had teased him that morning, saying he’d never finish it at this pace. She wasn’t wrong.

From inside the house, her laughter bubbled through the open window: the sweet, familiar sound that kept him grounded.

“You burnin’ up out there, Dad?” she called.

“'m fine,” he shouted back, gruff voice carrying over the yard. “Ain’t the first time I’ve been in th' sun. Just keep that lemonade cold f'me, alright?”

“Ya got it!” she replied sweetly. He could hear the smile in her voice.

Joel chuckled quietly, shaking his head before turning back to the frame. He had the kind of life he understood: the work, the noise, the routine.

Ever since Sarah’s mom left, that’s all he could afford to understand.

But when a few familiar voices floated over from next door, his rhythm faltered. The neighbors.

He didn’t look right away, but he didn’t have to. The tone of laughter, the low hum of conversation, and that particular lilt told him exactly who was there.

You were there.

You and your friends sat under the shade of the porch awning, sunglasses on, cold drinks sweating in your hands. The cicadas might’ve been loud, but not enough to drown out your laughter, or the subtle hush that fell when Joel straightened up to stretch his back.

He tried not to notice. Tried to stay focused on the shed, on the nails, on the job.

But the weight of those glances was impossible to ignore.

Finally, he lifted a calloused hand in a lazy wave, flashing that familiar, easy smile of his.

“Hey there, ladies,” he called out, voice rough from years of smoke and early mornings. “Y’all picked a good day t' sit around drinkin’. Wish I was smart enough to do th' same.”

You ladies giggled, whispering behind your glasses, but Joel turned back to his work before his grin could spread too wide.

He lifted the hammer again, the steady rhythm of each strike echoing through the garden.

Still, every so often, his eyes flickered toward the porch. Once, when you shifted your legs and leaned forward in your chair, he caught himself staring, just for a heartbeat too long.

He cleared his throat, forcing himself to focus on the nails again.

“Eyes on th' job, Miller,” he murmured under his breath.

The shed wasn’t the only thing being built in that heat.

Some quiet understanding hung between you, an unspoken awareness neither of you dared to name.

He wasn’t the kind of man to chase that sort of thing anymore. Not with a daughter inside and bills stacked on the kitchen counter.

But when you laughed again, soft and close enough to reach him through the hum of the summer, he couldn’t help it. The corner of his mouth curved just slightly—a ghost of something younger, something he hadn’t felt in years.

Then he went back to work, the hammer rising and falling in time with his heartbeat, while the sun burned over Texas like it might never set.