The courtyard had become our second full-time job.
Every night after the last customer left and the kitchen was scrubbed down, Leo and I hauled tools, bags of soil, and boxes of string lights out the back door.
The space behind Harbor Flame used to be nothing but cracked concrete and weeds. Now the pergola frame stood tall, planters lined the edges, and the gravel path was starting to look intentional. We worked until our backs ached and the only light came from the bulbs we had already hung.
We fell into an easy rhythm without talking about it. Shared water bottles got passed back and forth. When one of us needed a second pair of hands, the other was already there. Sometimes we laughed at stupid things—like the time I dropped an entire box of screws into the dirt and spent ten minutes
