“The thing to remember about a dark wood floor is that it shows everything, including every speck of dust.”
Her nose wrinkles. “I’m not a fan of dusting everyday.”
I point to her next choice. “This flooring is sturdy and will hold up well over time.”
“I like the sound of that.” She nods, still looking at the screen.
Then I point to her last choice. “This one is my favorite of the three. I have it installed in my house if you’d like to check it out in person.”
She gulps. “Go to your house?”
I shrug, taking a step back. “I did say you could stay in my spare room if you’d like.”
She’s shaking her head before I even finish speaking. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
Unable to stop myself, I ask, “Why not?”
“I don’t know what to think of you. This all seems crazy, everything that you’ve done already and are still doing for me.”
“I don’t mind.”
She doesn’t seem convinced. “Have you ever done this before? Is rescuing damsels in renovation distress your thing?”
“My thing? No, I’ve never done anything like this.”
She pushes away from her computer. “What am I supposed to think? I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth—”
I cut her off. “So what if it isn’t normal. Is moving cross country to a place you’ve never even visited before normal?”
She frowns.
Deciding to stop before I push too far, I shift the conversation back to the floors. “If you like the flooring on the website I can order whichever one you want.”
“Fine,” she says, not looking at me. “I like the last one the best. It’s exactly what I pictured in my head.”
“I’ll find out tomorrow if they have all you need in stock. Do you want the same flooring in the front rooms?”
She nods, standing. Since I already have her measurements, it’ll be easy to put the order in.
“I want it to all match.” Her head turns as her gaze moves across the room.
“What is your vision?” I ask, kicking myself for not asking her sooner.
“What?” She breathes.
I gesture to the room around us. “The other day you said you could picture this place all done. Walk me through it. What’s your dream?”
She smiles shyly, her gaze again moving across the room. “Simple, clean, and comfortable. I want the walls and floors to be neutral so I can change out colors with rugs and throw pillows whenever I want.”
“What about your kitchen?” I ask, my head tilting toward the doorway.
She walks to the kitchen and I follow her as she points to each spot as she explains her vision. “I want a deep farmhouse sink, and an over-sized refrigerator.” She moves around the small area and stands with her hands out next to her. “The gas stove will go here and I want this area for prep with the dishwasher under it.”
As she describes her perfect kitchen, her entire face lights up with excitement. All I can do is stare.
“Do you like to cook?”
She smiles outright. “I love to cook.”
“What color cabinets do you want?” I ask, positive that she not only knows but probably has a picture of her dream kitchen either in her mind or saved on her computer.
“White shaker style lower cabinets and glass front upper cabinets.”
Knew it.
“Backsplash?”
“White subway tiles,” she replies without waiting a beat.
“A classic,” I agree. “It’ll look great once we put it all in.”
Her face softens. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
I decide against giving her a list of my failings and instead tell her, “If I think of something I’ll let you know.”
She stares at me, long enough for me to worry if I have something on my face.
“I told my mother about you,” she says, surprising me.
I swallow hard. “And what did you say?”
“I told her you were helping me with the house.”
Somehow, I know she’s not telling me everything.
“What was her reaction?”
She shrugs. “She was happy I had help but was concerned about your motives.”
“My motives,” I repeat.
She nods.
Truth is, she should be worried about my motives. She wants to relax in front of her fire in her fixed up house and I want her in my bed.
She waits for me to say something more, maybe even to come clean about why I’m really doing this.
I’m smarter than that. “Did you tell her all the progress you’ve made?”
She blinks at my subject change and then nods her head. “I did and I told her I’d never have managed it without you.”
“I disagree. You could and would have done this. It would have taken longer, but that isn’t a surprise if you were working alone. Many hands make light work.”
“You give me too much credit.”
My praise is making her uncomfortable so to change the subject, I say the first thing that I think of. “Tell me about your ex-husband.”
Her mouth falls open and she walks away.
“Fin!” I call, following her.
“We’ve been doing too much talking when we should have been working.”
It’s clearly too soon to ask about her husband.
“I’m sorry I pried.”
She waves me off and straps on her kneepads. “It’s fine. Should I grab a new sheet of plywood while you saw this part?”
Seems the conversation portion of our evening has ended and the manual labor part has begun.
“Sounds good.”
Any communication between us for the next two hours is limited to me giving directions and her accepting them. Each and every attempt I make to steer our conversation back toward anything else, she shuts down.
Her ex must have done a number on her for her to be this tight lipped on the subject. That, or she was the one in the wrong and is dealing with guilt. Could this house and all the work she plans to do to it be some kind of self-imposed penance?
“Can you press down right here?” I ask, pointing to one corner of the subfloor.
She moves, kneeling where I asked and pressing down to help hold the wood in place. My gaze travels over her and I freeze. The way she’s bent, I can see right down her shirt. My eyes drink her in until I manage to tear them away. This may be the most painful renovation of my life.
7
Finley
“Thank you. Have a nice day, sir.” I press end on the call and quickly change my call status from available to offline. My shift is officially over for the day, and now the real work begins. Leaning forward, I pull my headphones off and set them next to my computer then I reach down to turn off my heating pad.
Over the past two weeks, Noah has been over almost every night after work and on the weekends. My new subfloors are done and we’ve pulled off all the drywall on the first floor, including the ceiling. There were a few places where we needed, and by we, I mean Noah, to repair some wood rot in the walls.
Then we used this machine to blow foam insulation into the spaces between the studs. Tonight we start putting up new drywall. Noah says the walls need to be up and primed before we install my new wood floors.
This whole time I’ve also been back to work during the day. I’m currently in a near constant state of sore.
Working on this house, I’ve discovered muscles I was not aware existed. All of my aches and pains have the happy side effect of keeping my thoughts squarely on the physical. If by some chance they drift to Allen, all I have to do is try and lift my hand above my head to focus on the pain instead.
More than once, Noah has offered me his spare bedroom. Each and every time I’ve declined. I can’t spend the night at his house. That would be bonkers, or at least crazier than my current level of insane.
Last week I bought another queen-size air ma
ttress that I stacked on top of the one I already had. As long as I keep them both full of air it’s almost like I’m sleeping on a regular bed. At least that’s what I keep telling myself each time I wake up after toppling off of one in the middle of the night to stop daydreaming about any of the beds in his house.
The one daydream that I’ve been unable to stop, though, is the one where I throw myself at Noah.
Yesterday he took off his shirt.
He’s so broad and solid and I could not stop staring at his chest hair.
What is wrong with me?
I had a plan. My plan didn’t include a hot contractor helping me, but since I’m weeks ahead of schedule and under budget I’m not complaining.
I’m still a mess. This morning, my social media account showed me a memory that on this day seven years ago Allen and I went to Las Vegas. It was the last time I remembered being happy in my marriage. Not just that, it was the last time I felt any sort of hope for our future.
Looking at myself in that picture, the weight of the last seven years came crashing down on me. I cried through my lunch break and sniffled off and on through my afternoon calls.
Noah will be here any minute and I’m sure he’ll know I’ve been crying. Why am I even crying over Allen? He was a mediocre boyfriend who became an awful husband. I should be jumping up and down and singing freedom at the top of my lungs. He doesn’t deserve my tears and it’s seriously pissing me off that he got them.
“Finley, you here?”
I plaster on a fake smile. “I sure am.”
He sets a toolbox down. “I have a surprise for you.”
That gets my attention. I stand, groaning as I do.
“Your back hurting?” He asks, his expression not masking his concern.
“Just stiff. I’ll be fine once I’m moving around so no changing the subject. What’s the surprise?”
His eyes move over me, examining me with his gaze as I close the distance between us. “Your eyes are puffy and your nose is red. Have you been crying?”
I frown, glaring at him. “It’s from the construction dust. It’s been making my eyes water and me sneeze all day.”
His eyes narrow as he considers my words. Can he tell I’m lying?
My answer is completely plausible. We’ve been kicking up tons of dust, not that any of it has made me sneeze. It might sound crazy but I don’t mind the mess. It’s proof of all the progress we’ve made and luck that we’ve been able to do the work at all.
“Surprise?” I remind him.
He frowns but does it holding open the door for me. “Check out what’s in the trailer.”
The trailer? He only hitches it to his truck when whatever he’s hauling won’t fit in the bed. There’s only one thing I’ve ordered recently that wouldn’t fit.
I grab his arm, my chest pounding when I feel how firm it is. “Is it?”
He nods and I give him a grin before racing out the door. Since we raked up all the carcasses of the jungle that once made up my front walkway impassable, it’s easier to maneuver around and makes it actually usable. Not to mention it looks like less of a dump. I skid to a stop at the back of Noah’s trailer and open the doors.
“My floors!” I exclaim, turning to grin up at Noah who followed me out to his truck. “Does this mean we get to start them tonight?”
They did not have the wood floors I wanted in stock. I had assumed Noah said we needed to do the walls first to keep me distracted until they came.
He shakes his head. “We still need to drywall first.”
“But why?” I interrupt, gesturing to the trailer full of hardwood.
“We need to unload the flooring and let it acclimate to the climate of your house,” he explains.
I gape at him and can’t help but argue. “That sounds made up.”
He reaches past me to pull a box out, motioning with his head for me to grab the other end. “It’s not.”
“Bummer,” I say, my lower lip pushing out.
He takes one hand from the box to give my hand a gentle squeeze. “No pouting. You get new walls today.”
The shock of his callused fingers on my skin makes me shiver. To hide my reaction, and since I can’t argue with his logic, I pull away to grab the other end of the box.
My voice sounds funny when I ask. “How was your day?”
His head tilts to the side. If he heard the strain in my voice he doesn’t mention it. “Annoying but better now.”
Better now?
I avoid that and focus on the first thing he said. “Annoying how?”
“Eli,” he grunts.
He doesn’t mention his older brother often, but when he does it’s clear they clash. “What happened?”
“He was there when I picked up the floors.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He blinks at me. “You’re apologizing for my brother being an ass?”
I shrug.
He reaches out and tugs on my ponytail. “Thanks.”
Unloading a million boxes of wood flooring sucks. The first one we carried didn’t feel that heavy. The fortieth one on the other hand, weighs a friggin’ ton. What doesn’t suck is the way his biceps look each time he lifts one.
We split them up across the four main rooms because Noah claims that the climate from one room can differ to another. We break for water before getting started on the walls.
We’ve got all the drywall up in the kitchen when I ask, “Time for dinner?”
Noah uses his forearm to wipe sweat from his forehead. “I could eat.”
“What sounds good? I can go grab it.”
His face softens. “Only if you let me pay.”
This has become our nightly dance. I offer to get food, and Noah accepts as long as he gets to pay. I would argue that he had already paid and that he was doing all this free labor on top of that. He would then counter that once we put in my kitchen he’d be willing to let me cook for him.
My love for cooking and excitement over designing a kitchen had come out last week. I’m not sure if he believes that I’m an excellent cook or not.
“Fine,” I grumble, holding out my hand.
Before he can pull out his wallet, we hear a giant crash from the back of the house.
With wide eyes I gasp, “What was that?”
He turns, charging toward the hall. What he doesn’t do is answer me. I chase after him, trying to overtake him but a muscled arm holds me back.
When we reach the opening to the den and kitchen, my lips part in shock. The arm holding me back becomes the anchor I cling to so I don’t collapse to the floor. I’m not sure where to look first, to the gaping hole in my ceiling or at the shattered toilet in front of us.
“Is that my toilet?” I stupidly ask.
“Yep.”
My eyes move back to the ceiling. “There’s a giant hole in my ceiling.”
“Yep.”
I huff out a breath. “Can you say anything other than yep?”
His head turns so he can grin down at me. Growling, I smack his arm before he can say yep again.
“What am I going to do?” I ask, my voice rising with my panic.
He moves, so fast that if I had blinked I would have missed it. Standing so close, his head dips, his lips inches from mine. A toilet just fell through my ceiling and I think Noah is about to kiss me. I so cannot handle that right now. Ducking his embrace I dash around him, the porcelain wreckage on the floor my excuse.
“I’m in over my head,” I admit, for multiple reasons.
He exhales and I cringe, cringe right down to my bones. What is my problem, apart from the obvious?
“I’m guessing you don’t want to add a bathroom right here?” His voice is full of humor.
Some of my embarrassment floats away on the wings of the unexpected laughter that bubbles up inside of me.
Pointing at the mess I continue the laugh. “There’s a toilet in my den.”
He stands next to me and I follow his gaze to the cei
ling. “Another couple of holes and you could have a skylight.”
We both laugh and I’m grateful there isn’t any uncomfortable tension still lingering between us.
Because of that I feel safe enough to repeat my earlier question. “What am I going to do?”
“First, you’re going to take a deep breath. Then, you’re going to remember that either of us could have been standing under it when it fell. Last, we’re going to go upstairs to see how bad the floors are rotted.”
Turning, I blink up into his ocean blue eyes and reply, “I wanted to reuse that toilet in my new bathroom.”
His warm gaze travels over my face. “You’re gonna need a new one.”
I glumly nod in agreement.
I follow him up the stairs to see the rest of the damage. “Does stuff like this happen a lot in renovations?”
He glances over his shoulder. “Yep.”
I frown at his back but keep my mouth shut. I’m not sure how much wiggle room my budget has for another disaster. He makes me stay at the top of the stairs, the only part of the second floor he’s certain isn’t rotted, while he looks at the floors.
“What do I do if you fall through too?” I ask, only half joking.
“Call 911.”
Such a smart ass, that one.
His response makes my heart start wildly thumping in my chest. “Maybe we should have someone else look at the floors.”
His head pops out of the guest bath. “Worried about me?”
I shrug, avoiding his eyes.
Carefully stepping out of the bathroom, he says, “Gutting that room just turned into a priority. Wait there while I check the master.”
Holding myself still, I focus all my attention on listening to his steps, cringing each time the floor groans or squeaks beneath them.
When he makes his way back to me I almost sag with relief. “How bad is it?”
Gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb he explains, “there’s water damage but not as bad as the guest bath.” He’s standing right next to me, so close his breath tickles my cheek when he adds, “your other toilet is safe to reuse.”
“Hooray,” I manage to squeak out and then want to kick myself.
Who celebrates saving a toilet? Apparently I do.
Fix Her Up (The Fix Book 1) Page 7