Page 16 of Come in with the Rain
“I’m Adam,” I say in Abby’s general direction, but I’ve already stepped into the kitchen. “We can move your microwave to the living room so you can eat,” I tell Stella, opening drawers and cabinets to examine their holds. Maybe I’m moving a little too quickly, but if I let myself be scrutinized right now, it’s going to become very clear very quickly how excited I am to be in Stella’s home, and I need to dial it back if I want to be completely professional, like I swore I would be.
“Where will you start?” Stella has followed me into the kitchen, Abby watching us from the living room. I can smell a protective best friend from a mile away, and I feel relief uncoiling in my chest. Stella still has someone looking out for her. And if Abby is here, I won’t be tempted to do anything stupid, like tell Stella that I haven’t stopped thinking about her for a single second in the three weeks since we met.
“I’ll pull the cabinets and the countertops. I can do the cabinets alone, but I’ll have to bring someone in to help with the countertops.”
Stella makes a clicking noise with her tongue. “I can help.”
I turn to her and reach for one of her wrists, pulling her arm away from where it’s crossed at her chest, the contact making my skin buzz like a beehive. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Abby shift on the couch. I hold up Stella’s puny arm. There’s a little bit of muscle definition there, but I’m guessing she’s probably spent more time focusing on keeping her stomach flat than her muscles strong.
Stella jerks her hand from my grasp with a scowl. I get a shot of thrill in my stomach when her eyes go to my biceps, and she swallows audibly. Abby is now leaning against the counter that separates the kitchen from the living room, watching me like a hawk.
Stella steps back. “I boxed up everything in the drawers and cabinets. Just keep me updated when you’re moving rooms.” She takes another ginger step back. “We’ll try to stay out of your way.”
“You’re not—” I start, ready to tell her that there’s no way she could be in my way. In fact, Iwanther to be in my way. I want her to brush up against me when she comes to the kitchen for something. I want her to bump into me when I’m walking through the living room. I want her to distract me when she walks through the condo in her pajamas. But then I catch sight of Abby, and I bite back my words.
Keep it professional.
“I’ll just get to work.”
I’m aware of Stella and Abby the whole time. They talk about a job interview that Stella has tomorrow and Stella’s brother, who apparently once shared the condo with her and is now traveling the world, being some kind of famous photographer. But they spend very little time talking about Stella before they move to Abby. She complains about her job and gives Stella a very detailed debrief on a date she went on two days ago where the guy insisted on going down on her but refused return service.
During this conversation, my eye catches Stella’s. I see the pink of her cheeks, crawling all the way down to where her skin disappears behind the collar of her shirt, and almost drop the cabinet I’m hauling out to my truck. I rush out and take a deep breath of fresh air before going back in.
When I get back inside, Stella is leaning against her sink, her arms crossed and her head bowed. I hear the toilet flush in the bathroom.
“I’m sorry about her,” Stella says quietly.
I shrug and reach for my hammer. One quick whack and one of her tiles cracks in half. Beside me, Stella jumps, and I catch the movement out of the corner of my eye.
“No need to apologize. She shouldn’t have to act any different on my account.” I crouch and start to yank up tiles with my bare fingers, most of them crumbling from age and misuse, and beside me, Stella’s feet don’t move. Even as the bathroom door opens and Abby comes out, Stella stays rooted to her spot.
After a moment, I look up at her. She stands there, her arms crossed and her face blank. “Thank you,” she says, and then she walks away.
CHAPTER18
STELLA
Somehow, when I talked myself into letting Adam do this whole thing, I imagined it would be like it was when he was working on Mickey’s place. I would only see him in passing, occasionally stopping to chat with him when he was taking a break. Always in another room, always with a wall between us.
But it’s not like that. When he’s here, there’s nowhere to go that isn’t within a few feet of him, nowhere to hide away except my bedroom, which starts to feel like a prison after about an hour, seeing as how it’s the size of a large dog kennel.
All day Monday, I’m aware of him, like trying to read a book when the sun keeps shining in through the blinds and right into your eyes. Adam has this way about him, like if he hunches his shoulders and puts his hands in his pockets, he can keep every eye in the room from going straight to him, but he has shoulders like mountains and a chest that strains at his work shirts and the kind of sculpted face that always makes it hard for me to concentrate when he’s in the same room as me. The whole package makes me uneasy, but not necessarily in a bad way. Just in anawareway.
Abby stays until Adam is gone, promising to come back the next day, and then they both leave and the condo is silent. I walk into the kitchen, where nothing but faded paint takes up the space where my top cabinets were and my floor is half gone, a slab of concrete peeking out, hard globs of glue here and there.
And I feel it, low in my belly.
A new beginning.
The next morning, I’m dressed for a job interview, all the way down to my tights, when Adam knocks on the door. Only, when I open the door, it’s not Adam. It’s a man who is somehow bigger than Adam, with blond hair hanging to his shoulders, a goatee, and biceps the size of watermelons. Across his left eye is a pink scar.
“G’morning,” he says in an English accent, holding out one massive hand. “I’m Ford.” I take his hand as Adam steps up behind him.
“He’s going to help me get the counters taken up.”
I think about the way he scoffed at my muscles the day before. I mean, sure, I haven’t been to the gym in a while, but I’m far from helpless. When I see the size of Ford’s arms, however, I get why Adam thought he’d be more useful. I step back to let them in and don’t miss the way Adam’s eyes brush down me, taking in my outfit, and I swear I see heat there, something that makes everything in me go tight. I ignore it. This weird pull I have toward Adam is simply pheromones and cavewoman instincts. That’s all. It’s making me hallucinate, clearly.
“Abby is on her way.” I trail them into the kitchen, putting in my earrings. “She’s just going to hang out while you’re here.” Adam’s eyes turn to me, those eyes that already have this inherently sad quality to them, now filled with noticeable hurt. “It was Abby’s idea,” I whisper.
