by Fiona Grace
“Fine, I’ll take him,” she said, scooping him into her arms. “If you agree to help me with my subflooring.”
He raised an eyebrow, ready to argue, but then looked back at the fox and his jaw tightened in disgust. “Fine. Good deal.” Mason held the door open for her as she stepped out of his garden. “Thanks for your help, Dr. Doolittle.”
She gave Mason a wave with her middle finger a little higher than the others, and didn’t look back. Her attention was on the fox, who was now curled up warmly, snuggling against her breast. It opened its jaw and yawned, and was that a smile on its face? So stinkin’ cute.
Total dealbreaker.
But at least she’d get a new subfloor out of it.
*
“All right. One … two … three … heave!”
She used all her strength to yank the old, musty roll of carpeting out of the stairwell. With one final yank, it finally slid out into the pseudo-foyer in a big cloud of dust.
Audrey choked and reached for her glass of water. As she did, she nearly tripped over the fox, who’d scampered from its nest in the kitchen to see what she was up to. She had to do a little skip-dance to avoid injuring it worse.
“What does the fox say?” she grumbled at him as she slumped into the only chair in the place, a seventies-style avocado-green plastic thing near the kitchen table. “Well, whatever it does say, I wish you’d say it louder, because I almost flattened you back there. You’re sly, Nick Wilde.”
He looked up at her, tilting his head as if he was trying to understand.
“Forget it. You look better, at least,” she said, pouring some more water into the dish she’d gotten for him. She didn’t have anything but soda crackers that she’d swiped from G’s restaurant, so she gave a couple of those to him, too. “Or were you playing the dude in distress so some hot girl would come to your rescue?”
He sniffed at the crackers and slowly stuck his tongue out to taste them.
Her eyes wandered back to that moldy excuse for a rug. Now, all she had to do was drag it out the door and down the street about a quarter mile, to the dumpster at the end of the road. Her already aching muscles protested at the mere thought. Maybe she could get Luca to come by with his hardware cart and help.
No. She’d come here to do this herself, not rely on a bunch of men to do her dirty work. Besides, there were other things she’d probably need their expertise for, later. Even … gasp. Even the animal-hater.
“Don’t give me that look,” she said to the fox, who seemed to be saying to her, Why waste time with him when you’ve got all this cuteness? “True. But he’s the reason we’ve got light in this house. I have to admit, he did a pretty bang-up job.”
Trying to psych herself up for the haul, she stood up and pulled open the door, only to find a pile of construction waste on her front stoop. She certainly had enough of that on her own … but she was sure this stuff didn’t belong to her site, especially since one of the pieces of waste was a toilet that looked even nicer than the new one she’d just had installed. As she poked her head out to investigate, more of it came flying down in a puff of brown dust, nearly hitting her right between the eyes.
She backed away and spied Biceps through the haze. “Hey! What are you doing?”
He had another cigar crammed between his lips and was sucking on it, ignoring her as he spouted more directives in Italian to workers above. The junk—rotten bits of wood, old plaster, nails, and an assortment of other garbage, kept raining down, right on her stoop. A particularly large hunk of old piping fell like a boulder, inches from her feet. The fox had been peering out from behind her legs, but it yelped when the thing landed, shaking the foundation of the building.
The man—who must’ve been the foreman of the job, considering how much supervising he was doing, and little else—turned toward her, but seemed more interested in the fox than in her.
She waved a hand at him. “Hello? Watch it! You can hurt someone with this stuff! And I hope you’re not just going to leave this here?”
He came up close to her, too close, and pulled the cigar from his mouth with a resounding pop. “That your wild animal?”
Surprised both that he spoke English and by the question, she was momentarily knocked off her game. She looked down. “No. I’m a vet. I just found him. He’s—”
“Not supposed to be in your house, si?”
“What?” She looked up, at the shapes of the workers, who were finally silent, watching their interaction. Down the street, people had begun to poke their heads out of their doors, as if they were getting ready for the daily entertainment. “Well, it’s—”
“You keep harassing my crew and I’ll report you to the city. It’s illegal to keep wild animals around here.”
Audrey stared at him, dumbfounded. So he was going to go there, was he? “Me? Harassing them?” Her jaw dropped in indignation. “You’re the one throwing your junk all over my property and not cleaning it up. You make noise all hours of the day and you don’t seem to have respect for anyone else!”
More shutters were being thrown open, and a couple stopped on the street to watch.
The foreman sucked on his cigar, leaned in close, and blew a smelly cloud of smoke into her face. “You’re not paying me, signorina. So I don’t have to listen to anything you tell me.”
She stood there, face heating, hands shaking, stomach twisting. She willed the volcano inside her not to blow its top off, but even so, it brewed in her, dangerously close to the point of no return. It took all her strength to step back, grab the door, and slam it in his face.
The fox looked at her with a question in his eyes, but she simply trudged back up the stairs. Maybe she’d call it a day and turn in early, if the jerks across the street wouldn’t keep her up all night.
She’d worry about disposing of the damn moldy carpeting tomorrow. Right now, all she wanted to do was dream up revenge schemes. She’d have to do something. She couldn’t just let things drag on like this.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Audrey didn’t get to sleep.
Just as expected, the construction crew across the way continued their racket even into the midnight hour. Audrey sat on her lumpy mattress, yawning and stewing, stewing and yawning. Sure, they’d done this every night since they arrived, but now, Audrey couldn’t stop thinking that they were doing it because of her little outburst. Just to spite her.
And she’d had every right to put her foot down! Was it such a crime to want a little peace and quiet? They were absolutely in the wrong. Absolutely.
As she lay there in the darkened apartment, listening to the power saw cutting its way into her head, plans for sabotaging their renovations filtered through her head. She realized she was grinding her teeth to little nubs and relaxed her jaw. She picked up her phone and called Brina.
Her sister greeted her with, “Wait. Why are you calling me at a normal hour? This is so unlike you.”
Audrey yawned. “What time is it there?”
“Seven in the evening. I just put Byron down to bed. So that means it’s … wait. Why are you up at one in the morning?”
“Because of this.” She held up her phone to the air to give her sister a listen. “Did you hear that?”
“Of course I did. What is that? Are you being attacked by bees?”
“No. The renovation across the street is, apparently, a twenty-four-seven thing. All they do is work. I haven’t slept in days.”
“Oh, god. That’s horrible, sweetie. I’m sorry.”
“Their house wiring is attached to mine. I can reach out my bedroom window and snip it. I’m seriously considering this. So I’m calling to ask you to talk me down from the ledge.”
“No. No no no,” Brina said immediately. “Knowing you, you’d fall out your window or electrocute yourself, and then get thrown in an Italian prison. I hear they don’t feed foreigners in places like that.”
She winced. But as always, Brina dropped the truth bomb.
“Seriously. Get s
ome noise cancelling headphones and call it a day. Otherwise, how are things going there?”
“They’re okay. I have a toilet. And electricity now.”
There was a pause. “Um, Audrey? You sound like you’re living in a third world country. Those are not things to be happy about. Those are things most of the earth’s population happily takes for granted.”
“Well, it’s progress. You know what Dad said. Rome wasn’t built in a day. I’m getting there. And other than the jerky neighbors, it’s really kind of nice. Most of the people are nice. Can you believe that slimeball actually said he’d turn me in for harboring a wild animal?”
“Uh-oh. What poor-and-abandoned did you decided to adopt now?”
Audrey pressed her lips together. Yes, she had a bit of an affinity for taking in strays, ever since the inchworm she named “Lovey” in first grade. She’d cleared out her Barbie Dreamhouse to give him a place to live. So what? “A fox. I call him Nick.”
“Oh, god, you named him already?”
“Yes. After the fox in Zootopia, only the greatest movie about—”
“Aud. I have kids. I know Disney’s entire catalogue these days better than I know Sephora’s newest colors. Unfortunately. The problem is that you named the creature. That’s like saying it belongs to you.”
“I couldn’t just throw him out. He was injured.”
“Bah. You don’t need that extra responsibility when you have a house to get in order. I know what would really make things better for you. A man. Any cute Sicilian guys sweep you off your feet?”
She thought of G. “Well … there’s one. He’s a chef. And then there’s a neighbor, but he’s from America. And he hates animals. Plus he’s ridiculously full of himself.”
“How very American. Tell me more about the chef. That sounds promising.”
“I don’t know. He mentioned taking me out to see the sights, but that’s about it.”
“Guess you don’t have a lot of time for that, huh?”
Audrey sighed. “Right. There are a lot of young foreigners coming here, fixing things up. So far, I think I met more ex-pats than actual Sicilians. It’s not exactly what I pictured … in a way, it’s like frat row. I guess I couldn’t escape America, even if I tried.”
“I am sure it’ll get better when you fix the place up some more and you find your way around town. Maybe with the help of that hot Sicilian chef?”
“Who knows? I’m not holding my breath. In fact, the last thing I’m thinking about is making a love connection.” She sunk down against the pillows and gazed out the open shutters, to the moonlit sky. “I’m just being miserable because I’m so tired.”
“Then get some sleep.”
She realized that the power saw had ceased operations, and finally, the night was quiet, with nothing but the sound of crickets chirping and the wind, whistling through the empty streets. That was nice. Yes, if it weren’t for her neighbors, there’d be a lot to love about this. She just needed to concentrate on that. “All right. Good night.”
Ending the call, Audrey went to set her phone on the floor beside her when she saw a shape moving in the darkness. Before she could let out the scream that had lodged itself in her throat, a large furry mass jumped onto her stomach. She let out a half-”oof!”, half-wail, and nearly flung the thing out the window, until she realized what it was.
“Oh. Nick,” she whispered, settling back down. The fox, as if he’d been her pet for ages, curled on the pillow beside her. She reached over and stroked his fur. “What do you say we get some sleep?”
He didn’t answer, and she didn’t wait. She fell asleep almost instantly.
*
Audrey was in a massive home overlooking the white-capped bay, on a gray, dreary day in January. It was snowing, and there was no heat yet in the house, but her father had brought in a space heater, and so she kept returning there to keep her fingers warmed.
“All right, kid. Just a little more sanding and this wall will be smooth as a baby’s bottom.”
She giggled. Her father may have called her “kid,” but he didn’t treat her like one. He’d given her her own toolbelt and tools, not prissy pink “girl” ones—real, contractor-grade instruments, like his own. And whenever she got back from school and his crew members had to go home to their families, he’d stay later, inspecting their work and teaching Audrey lessons she hadn’t learned in the classroom.
Brina moaned from beside the space heater as she finished her algebra. “It’s almost dark. Isn’t it time to go home yet?”
Miles Smart laughed. “In a bit, Bri.” He turned on a lamp and motioned Audrey to the side of the bench. “Let’s move the workbench over there. Ready?”
She nodded eagerly, and the two of them picked it up. She may have held one side, sort of, but he did all the heavy lifting.
He handed her the sandpaper. “All right. You do that side. Just like I showed you.”
She took the sandpaper and moved it back and forth over the plaster. “Like this?”
“Yep. Good job. Keep it going. Put some muscle into it.”
She smiled at him, and he gazed back at her, such love and admiration in his eyes.
But suddenly, his eyes widened. He seemed to concentrate on something behind her, his face twisting into something like horror and surprise. His mouth opened to the shape of an O and called out her name, but it sounded as though he was underwater, miles away. She reached for him, but he backed away, then, in a blink, shattered into a million little pieces before her eyes.
Audrey sat up in bed, her heart pounding.
Her sudden motion made the fox look up, but he quickly rolled over and went back to sleep. She stared out at the lightening sky, with only a few remaining pinpoint stars, thinking of her father. She’d thought of him a lot in the years since he left without any explanation, but eventually, she’d tucked those painful memories away. They only served to remind her that she’d been abandoned. Now, with the renovation, it seemed like they were all coming to the forefront.
Now, more than ever, she wanted to know where he went, and why.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The following morning, Audrey was up before the sun. Her phantom shower must have been exorcised, because it behaved long enough to give her a thorough washing, and by six o’clock, she was dressed and brewing strong coffee. She took a mug of it outside to inspect the damage from her neighbor’s renovation and was pleasantly surprised that they’d cleaned everything up. And the foreman was obviously a hard worker—his truck was already parked at the corner.
Audrey sipped her coffee and let the bitter heat sting her tongue. She’d been rash. Maybe he was a good guy, after all. It might have been a misunderstanding. A culture gap.
She’d already been planning to try to smooth things over with him, even before she’d gone to sleep last night. She could never let things like this lie and fester. She’d gone to the market yesterday and bought a cask of expensive, artisan olive oil, which had run her twenty-five euros. She’d give it to him. A peace offering.
Holding the tiny, wicker-wrapped glass jar, she took a step for the stoop and tangled herself in Nick’s long, furry tail.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” She wagged a finger at him. “Get back in there. You’re what got me into trouble in the first place.”
The fox turned obediently and went inside, and she felt guilty for scolding him. It wasn’t his fault, either. After what the foreman had said, though, she was extra nervous about letting anyone see him in her house.
As she closed the door behind her, the door across opened. It was the blonde American, Nessa, dressed in butt-hugging running shorts and a bra top, hair in a long, sleek ponytail.
Audrey waved. “Hi, Nessa. Nice morning!”
She glanced Audrey’s way as she tried to fix some earbuds into her ears and sighed. “I guess.”
“So, are you living in the house now?”
“For now. Ernesto and his crew finished most of it last night.”
&n
bsp; Ernesto. So that was big and beefy’s name. “Speaking of Ernesto … I saw his truck. Is he around? I wanted to discuss something with him.”
She frowned. “I’m sure you do. Don’t think you’re going to steal him from me. The last thing I want is every other house on this block looking like mine. That’ll send the resale rates plummeting.”
“No, I wasn’t. I just—”
She sliced her hand through the air. “I have no idea. I don’t pay attention to their comings and goings, as long as they get my work done. He isn’t in my house. If he’s anywhere, he’s probably in the yard. I told him I needed that cleared out.”
So she had a backyard, too. Life wasn’t fair. “Did they do a nice job inside?”
“Passable. Someone will probably want this disaster. As for me, the shorter I stay here, the better. Once I finish giving it my magic touch, I’m out.”
“Oh. Are you an interior designer?”
She patted her chest, clearly offended. “You don’t know who I am? I’m Nessa Goodroe.”
She said the name like it should’ve rung a bell. Audrey just stared blankly.
“Hello? One of the best. I have close to two million Instagram followers. I’m in talks with HGTV to have my own show.”
“Ohhh. Okay. Sorry. I don’t pay much attention to—”
“Got to go!” She jogged off down the street, her ponytail swishing behind her.
Still holding her peace offering at chest level, she went across the street to the little gate between the houses. It creaked open, providing an impossibly narrow passage between the two crumbling walls. She squeezed through it, and out into a little courtyard on the cliffside. Audrey gaped, and again she had the feeling she’d gotten the short end of the stick when it came to picking properties. Yes, her own view from her second floor was scenic, but the view from the overgrown patio was spectacular.