Fix It Up

by Jessica Gadziala

Too much.

  So much so that there was a knot in my belly, twisting tighter by the moment at the idea of losing it.

  The rational side of my brain was telling me to take a step back, to be cautious, to remember that this man had easily inspired me to consider homicide. Many times. But I couldn't help but wonder if maybe some of the head-butting was less out of genuine anger, but more repressed attraction.

  I snorted at myself as I threw my makeup back into a bag.

  Because, well, that was ridiculous.

  We fought because we were both stubborn and unbending in our visions. And, if by some miracle, we survived the rest of this year, I think it was pretty safe to say we should never, ever work together again.

  "I grabbed you two breakfast wraps," Warren declared when I emerged, physically ready to get back to work even if mentally and emotionally, I just wanted to stay in this hotel room in this city with this man and pretend that life didn't exist. At least for a few more days. "They're, essentially, breakfast tacos," he added, handing the foil-wrapped food to me. "I have learned your preference for food imitating tacos."

  "It makes life easier," I told him, grabbing one of my bags before he could try to get them all himself. "I eat on the run a lot. I don't have time for knives and forks. So if it can be wrapped up in a tortilla..."

  "Or French toast..."

  "Exactly," I agreed, smiling. "Then I am a happy - and well-fed - camper."

  Three hours later, we were pulling up to a house several blocks away from the others, further from the waterfront, and significantly less damaged-looking. The front porch had been ripped clean from the house, and there was a simple makeshift pile of bricks out front to help you get to the already-raised front door.

  "This might be easier than we thought," Warren said as we pulled up, his keen eyes assessing the foundation, the windows, the roof. While mine were more focused on the little things - the ugly green siding that needed to be ripped off, the shutters in need of an update, the lack of landscaping. In this town, not having - at least - a well-established snowball bush was practically a crime.

  They were easy fixes, though. The kind of projects you could finish over a weekend.

  There was a knock at my window, making me jolt and turn to find Rachel standing there, beaming at us. "Alright, so the crew is ready to film the meeting and the walk-through," she told us. "I know this is a bit different than usual, but they are simply going to talk you through the house, and then you will all get together and talk about their vision for the space."

  "Alright. Sounds good," I said, smiling, watching as she moved away, and the camera crew moved in to film us getting out of the car.

  The couple were Bobby and Jennifer, who had just celebrated their third wedding anniversary two weeks before, admitting with guilty looks that they had done so while fighting over the plans for the kitchen.

  Warren and I had shared a look at that. "We know what that is like," I assured Jennifer.

  "I am going to go with Bobby to see the attic they want to turn into an in-law suite," Warren told me, giving my hip a squeeze.

  A camera crew went with them, but one stayed with us as well. "Okay, now that we're alone, I have one more thing I want done. But Bobby can't know about it," she told me, beaming.

  Wait. No. Glowing.

  I felt my lips already curving up even before she told me about the baby, about how she wanted a nursery to surprise him with the news.

  And all I could think as I caught sight of Rachel as we moved down the hall to the room in question - one that Bobby thought Jennifer wanted to turn into a craft room - was This is going to make great television.

  "She's really not going to tell him?" Warren asked, looking almost a little offended.

  "Well, of course she is going to tell him. She wants to surprise him with it, though. It's sweet."

  "But don't you think he would want to know as soon as she does? So he can prepare?"

  "Prepare for what? They already have a house that we are going to renovate for them. He has a good job. She has a work-from-home job already. Nothing needs to be prepared. You know," I added, watching his profile as he drove us back to the second worksite after we finished the walk through on the first one, Warren wanting to make sure the work was done to his standard while we were away, "you are very... traditional."

  "You're saying that like it is a bad thing."

  "Not bad, no."

  "But?" he prompted. "I know you. There's a but in there somewhere."

  "It's not really a but. Just... what moment do you think you - as a husband - would enjoy more? Your wife telling you over Chinese takeout that she's pregnant the week she found out herself, or spending some time on a surprise, pulling you down the hall, opening the door, and showing you the nursery?"

  "I don't think I'd want her assembling furniture and painting walls if she were pregnant," he told me, considering it.

  "Oh, my God. You're impossible," I declared, shaking my head. "Maybe she hired someone. Or had her brothers in on the furniture assembling. What then?"

  He looked over at me after parking the car, deep eyes penetrating. "Then I guess maybe the nursery would be a nice way to find out," he conceded.

  "Do you want kids?"

  Did I actually just ask that?

  It was weird, right? To ask a man that so soon.

  But it wasn't exactly random. We were talking about babies. Hopefully, he didn't read too much into it.

  "If my wife wants to give them to me," he told me, eyes still not breaking contact, making my belly swirl in a way I couldn't quite describe.

  "You could teach them all about the farm like your grandfather taught you," I told him, unsure what else to say, how to lighten the somewhat heavy air in the car.

  "That would be the plan," he agreed, nodding. "Kids never get to be kids anymore. Always on computers and phones and tablets. I'd want my kids scooping up tadpoles in the ponds, getting excited over cool rocks they found in the stream, climbing trees, eating food they helped grow themselves."

  "That's a nice dream," I told him, feeling something within me tugging. That was the only way to describe it, a pulling sensation I didn't understand, didn't know what it meant or where it came from. But it somehow felt like it was trying to drag me in that direction. Of a simpler life. Of a less superficial way of being.

  "Gonna be a reality," he told me, words laced with conviction.

  "You're meeting the real estate agent this weekend, right?" I asked, knowing he wanted to get his house sold quickly, so he had the cash as a downpayment for the farm. He had spoken to his broker about getting a loan for the remainder. We would be getting paid halfway through the process for the work already done, but that was still three months off. I'd agreed to take my portion from the end payout, giving him a bit more money to pay down the mortgage more quickly. I didn't need the money right away, though I had started doing some fantasy office-shopping. I didn't want to get my hopes too high, but a little daydreaming was never a bad thing.

  "Yeah, you coming up with me?" he asked, making my belly do a flutter thing that was a bit too delicious. "We could finish the bathroom," he added, sending me a smirk. "You can yell at me without the fear of anyone overhearing."

  "I don't yell," I insisted.

  "You snap. And once, you growled."

  "I did not!" I yelped, mouth falling open.

  "Oh, you so did. I think it made it into the final cuts of filming too. It was hilarious."

  "You're not supposed to find my anger amusing."

  "Then don't be so ridiculous," he suggested, but he was smiling.

  It was strange how well the next few days went. We seemed to fall back into our old rhythms, but with less arguing, and more - and now realistic - stolen touches, kisses, looks. We'd once even been caught on lunch break - me sitting off his open truck bed, him between my legs, making out like a couple of teenagers.

  "The weekend away did you two some good," Rachel had told me when I'd seen her next. "You'r
e going away again this weekend, right?"

  "Well, not away. We're going back to W... to our house to work on finishing the bathroom, so Wa... we can put it on the market."

  That was where I fumbled. About the things that were supposed to belong to both of us.

  "Oh, you're moving!" she said, and I could see her wheels working. She could have some kind of special about us doing renovations at our own home.

  "Warren has been wanting to buy his old childhood family farm. The show has given him the opportunity to make that dream a reality."

  Wait for it.

  "That is just... fantastic!" I had to fight to keep the smile in. "Are you two planning a nursery?"

  "For ourselves?" I asked, having to actively fight the stiffening in my body. "No. I mean... not yet. Things are still rather new. We are... enjoying our time together right now."

  "Maybe after season one!" she announced happily.

  I felt a stab of guilt at her enthusiasm, her interest in watching us grow. Meanwhile, we didn't plan to come back. We wouldn't be able to.

  Unless...

  No.

  I couldn't let my mind go there.

  It was too soon for that.

  Especially since I had been the one to insist that we not talk about what was happening, to just go with the flow. I couldn't be the one to suddenly start thinking about the possible long-term, that if we ended up being deeply in love, wanted to make it official... then there would be no lie anymore.

  There was a tapping on the door of the nursery, a distinct tap tap, pause, tap. It was a code of sorts. Just for this room. Because Bobby was on the worksite every day, as was Jennifer, pitching in, having little arguments like the crew had caught us doing many times before, giving them some contrast, some validity. People - even deeply in love people - got into tiffs over home improvement projects. It was inevitable.

  "Coming," I said, reaching for the hook & eye that was installed on the inside to keep Bobby out while we were working on the nursery. Warren and I had actually needed to stop by the house at four one morning to get the furniture inside and the boxes broken down and removed.

  "I brought you a, and I say this with complete disgust," Warren told me as he slid carefully inside, waiting for me to lock the door, then holding out a coffee to me, "açaí and almond coffee."

  "Oh! Different!" I said excitedly as I reached for the large cup, bringing it up to take a long sniff. "When did they start carrying açaí?"

  "This morning, apparently," he told me, eyes on me as I so often found them these days. Unreadable, but I felt I was starting to recognize that look, one that must have been in my eyes when I looked at him too. Affection. Maybe even a bit of joy.

  "It's awesome," I told him after tasting it.

  "You're almost done," he said, leaning back against the door to look at the room. He hadn't seen it since I had the floors refinished. I had kept this room my little secret. We were going to have a reveal for Jennifer while Bobby was on a business trip. Then, hopefully, we'd be done when he returned, and we could show them both the whole house, then do the big baby surprise at the end.

  "Just final touches," I agreed, moving to stand beside him, my side plastered to his, having found comfort in his touch, even after a day that had my feet screaming and my head pounding. He always managed to make it all more tolerable.

  We'd come a long way in a short time, it seemed.

  It was amazing what could happen when you stopped fighting long enough to actually speak to each other.

  "I know gray is the traditional gender neutral color," I said, looking at my walls with ten-inch thick horizontal sand-colored stripes and the off-white between. "And rightfully so. You add a pop of blue or green or pink or purple, or keep the accents white, and it works perfectly. But I wanted something that fit the town better, felt a little warmer too.

  I'd made Warren add thick molding and baseboards, bringing the space up a notch, drawing your eyes up and down, making the small space seem larger. I'd installed white indoor shutters on the window, so Bobby and Jennifer could block out the harsh afternoon sun when the baby was napping. The crib was simple, white, rectangular with all sand-colored bedding and a small assortment of toys. An oversized glider - big enough to fit Bobby and Jennifer if they both wanted to snuggle with the baby - was situated in a corner. Across from that, the dresser/ changing station.

  "I like this better than the gray," Warren told me, leaning over to plant a kiss to the side of my head. "You did good, baby."

  Oh.

  My poor heart.

  It squeezed when he said things like that, when he got sweet, when he called me baby.

  "Thank you," I said, my voice oddly small. "I really like the kitchen," I told him. "And I'm sorry I called you a pain in the ass."

  "You called me a bull-headed, short-sighted pain in the ass," he corrected me, making me chuckle as I rested my head on his arm.

  "In my defense, in the moment, you were totally being all those things."

  "Probably," he agreed.

  The funny thing was, nothing changed. Even though everything had. If that made any sense at all.

  We were still us.

  We still fought.

  He still made fun of my throw pillows.

  I still had to gently remind (read: rag on) him about doing things the way we had agreed on, not the way he wanted to.

  I still ran too hot.

  He still smirked and rolled his eyes when I did.

  We bickered.

  We got frustrated.

  We threw up our hands and stormed off.

  But the difference now was that there was contrast. We fought, but we made up, we laughed it off, we let it go. We didn't stew. We didn't hold grudges.

  If it was a particularly rough day, we went home, and worked through the frustration the good, old-fashioned way.

  We fucked it out of our systems.

  I didn't remember the last time I felt as light as I did when we came back from the city, as un-stressed, as balanced.

  Hell, I hadn't checked my personal work Instagram in two days. I updated the show one because that was part of my job now, but for the first time in years, I wasn't obsessively worried about my job.

  I didn't even realize how weighted I was from it all until it was lifted.

  Warren's house already had an all-cash offer with a fast closing option, making him loosen up as well.

  We had already shot the walkthrough of the next two houses, allowing us to work on our plans in our spare time before we started doing demo. The other two houses were done. This one was dangerously close as well.

  It felt like a whirlwind, the work. While everything else - namely, the time Warren and I got to spend together, seemed to slow down, allowing me to savor every minute of it. Every stolen touch, every whispered word, every fluttering sensation in my belly.

  "Come on," he said once we'd finished for the day, the crew long gone.

  "Come where?" I asked, stepping out into the early evening air that no longer strangled your breath in your lungs.

  "I made you a promise a while back. I never made good on it."

  "How far back?" I asked, not even bothering to hide the smile when I felt his hand close around mine, fingers curling in, easily, like everything had been since we decided to just go with it.

  "The first day we came here."

  "When we moved in?" I clarified.

  "No. When we drove down here for the interview."

  "You've been sitting on this for months?"

  "I don't like not making good on my promises, baby."

  I didn't even remember what promise he could possibly be talking about. And he refused to answer questions as he led me down the block, then into town, weaving me effortlessly down the line of mostly shuttered stores, down into a weird almost-underground area that suddenly felt vaguely familiar.

  The memory tried to surface, buried and dust-covered from time.

  But before it could, he pulled me in front of
a door.

  And I finally understood.

  The promise that had been eating him up for months?

  It was to get me ice cream at the place I used to go as a kid.

  "French vanilla, right?" he asked, looking down at me as I looked in the windows of the shop that had definitely been updated since I had last seen it, but had the same setup as it always had.

  "Yes," I agreed, nodding, feeling a weird scratching sensation in my throat. Like I was choked up. Like I was emotional about something so small.

  But, really, was it that small?

  That he listened to my story?

  That he remembered the details of it?

  That it bothered him that he hadn't gotten me ice cream that night like he told me he would?

  For something arguably little, it certainly felt rather huge to me.

  "You alright?" he asked, brows drawing together.

  And all I could think was - deflect.

  I couldn't let on that this was impacting me so much.

  I couldn't take any chances on ruining what we were both so clearly enjoying.

  "I am glad you were smart enough not to feed me first," I told him with a smile. "Because I want to try a scoop of everything in there."

  "And then make me listen to you bitch the whole way home about how I should never have let you eat a scoop of everything?" he asked with a smirk.

  "Exactly," I agreed, reaching for the door, pulling him inside with me.

  I ate too much.

  I grumbled at him about it.

  But we managed to work off some of the calories before we went to bed.

  It was two weeks later when my phone screamed on the nightstand, making me shoot up, whacking the top of my head into a sleeping Warren's chin.

  He grunted and rubbed his chin as I grabbed the screaming thing, heart slamming hard in my chest.

  One a.m.

  It was never a good call at one a.m.

  I barely registered Brent's name before I swiped the screen and brought it up to my ear.

  "What's wrong?" I asked, voice croaking and dry from sleep.

  "Get your laptop," he told me, making me throw off the blankets, jumping off the bed, stumbling over Warren's shoes on the floor in my path to the bag on the floor where my laptop was situated.