Page 13 of Come in with the Rain
“Well, I’m glad you told me. About Mickey, I mean.”
I should leave it alone. I should fix her sink and move on with my life and never speak to her again. But I can’t. Why can’t I leave this woman alone? “Why would you be glad?”
When she’s quiet for a long time, I lean my head out of the cabinet and glance at her. She has her head bowed, picking at her cuticles. Her eyes flicker to mine, and I go back to the sink.
“Mickey and I weren’t right for each other,” she finally says. “But I needed a reason to leave. You did me a favor.”
I fumble the supple line tube and have to grip it again.
If she notices that my hands are trembling, she doesn’t mention it. “Shawn said he thought you might not have minded losing your job all that much. Is that true?”
I fasten everything down as tight as I can and straighten up to face her, and that’s when I see that her hands are trembling, too. I have no idea what’s going on in her head, why she’s nervous, but it’s nice to know it’s not just me, even if the knowledge that she’s nervous makes my blood run hot. Is it because we’re standing so close? Is it because we’re alone? Is it because there was no guarantee we would ever see each other again, and now we’re here, mere feet from each other?
I clear my throat, pulling my thoughts away from her perfect fingers. “I’ve been wanting to work for myself for as long as I can remember, but I really needed a push.” I think about what she said about Mickey. She needed a reason. I guess I did, too.
“A handyman business?”
“Home repair. A little more involved than handyman. Bigger stuff.”
I feel strange with my wrench hanging at my side. I motion toward the sink with it, like a strange extension of my limb. My body has stopped making sense to me since I realized she’s as nervous as me. “Sorry about the flood, but that thing really needed to be replaced.”
She sighs, a heavy thing that drags her shoulders down. “Everything needs to be replaced, but it would appear that sort of thing costs money.”
I glance around her kitchen. The tile is dingy and grey, the countertops outdated by a couple of decades, a few of the drawers hanging lopsided and partially off their tracks. It needs some real work. The idea comes to me as I’m staring down at her sink, so old it doesn’t even have a garbage disposal. My head comes up, and my nerves about being in her home vanish like a wisp of smoke.
“Hey, do you own this place?”
She has a momentary look on her face, like maybe the answer isn’t a simpleyesorno, but she nods anyway.
“Would you be open to a full-body reno? Floors, paint, fixtures, the whole nine?”
“What, are you about to suggest I audition for some sort of home makeover show?” I’m not sure what it is, but something about her wry humor, the sarcastic sincerity in her eyes, makes me like her even more.
“No, I was thinking I could do it.”
Her face shifts then, her eyes widening and her skin going pale. “Look, I’m not going to sleep with you just so—”
“No!” I put my hands up, the one holding the wrench swaying ominously. Her eyes shoot to it, and I set it on the counter quickly. “Nothing like that.”
Her jaw tightens under her skin, drawing my eye. “I’m not an idiot. People don’t do anything for free. What do you want?”
My eyes scan the rest of the condo, the faded paint on the walls, the cracked molding, the worn fixtures. “I need a project. Something I can work on for before and after photos. I need some things to advertise, to show to prospective clients. I’m doing some work on my place, and some here and there stuff for a buddy of mine, but I need a big job. I need a place that needs a lot of work, like this.”
She seems to be considering it. Her eyes follow the same path mine did, from the floor to the counters to the ceiling. She takes a deep breath and looks at the supply line I fixed. I reach down and turn the shut-off valve until I hear water sputter through the line. Her eyes finally meet mine, and I set both hands on the counter.
“Maybe just think on it. I’d be here day and night for at least a month, maybe longer, but the quicker it gets done, the better. I’ll have to send someone in for pictures, maybe even walk a few clients through at the beginning. And of course, I’ll expect you to leave me glowing reviews.” I smile as invitingly as I can, and her eyes seem to get stuck on my mouth. I can’t hold my smile in place after that.
“But I would have a completely updated home.”
When her eyes meet mine, they’re full of hunger, and even though I know it’s hunger for a nicer home, maybe hunger for a small piece of what she lost, the heat in her eyes makes something fizzle under my skin. I want her to look at me with that kind of hunger in her eyes and know that it’s for me. An urgency settles in me. I want her to sayyes.
We stand there for a moment, quiet but for the sound of one of Stella’s neighbors coughing harshly through the wall. I pick up my wrench and the few other tools I brought in case the job was bigger than just the hose. “Let me know what you decide. You know where to find me.”
CHAPTER15
STELLA
“Idon’t see what the problem is,” Abby says in my ear.
