"I didn't know it was car wash day, honey. I would have tried to get home sooner so we could wash them together." Nola stepped close to my side, placing a hand on my bare chest. Her slender hand wrapped around the back of my neck as she tugged me closer to plant a lingering kiss on my cheek. She whispered, "Carol is ogling you from her living room window. I want to make sure she knows you're mine."
Her warm breath fanned over my wet skin. With a swallow, I laced a hand through her hair, tugging her close so I could kiss the top of her head.
Harold coughed loudly. "No public indecency allowed—even for the president of the HOA."
Nola's hand lingered on my chest as she turned to answer him, "Don't worry, Harold. Mr. HOA is the perfect rule follower. You can count on him."
She accentuated the last of her words with extra pats to my chest. She was trying to kill me. I was sure of it.
"Well, I'd better go lock up the pool, but let me know, Bane. I stand by what I said. Fingerprinting is exactly what we need here."
Harold adjusted his belt as he walked to the car parked in the middle of the street.
"Bye, Harold!" I called a little too cheerily as he climbed into the driver's seat of his small pickup.
I started to pull away from Nola, but she stopped me with a hand on my waist. "Carol's still watching."
I didn't bother pointing out her lie. No one stood in Carol’s window, and Nola hadn't bothered to look over her shoulder to check.
I studied the face in front of me. Her fake smile had been replaced with a soft look as she gazed back into my eyes.
"Okay," I said with a smile. I wrapped an arm around her waist, tugging her closer, our hips brushing against each other.
"How was the little wife's day at work?"
Nola arched a smooth brow. "Little wife? Hmm, I think you're going to have to pick something different."
"How about Mrs. HOA?"
She scrunched her face up as she thought about it. "No, I don't think so. I think I prefer 'Your Highness.'"
She screeched when I ran my fingers up the side of her ribs. She leapt back, smacking at my reaching hand, laughing loudly. "Stop that!"
I made one more half-hearted grab for her. She glared at me. "If you tickle me, I won't share my pizza!"
I held both hands in the air in surrender. "When you say pizza, you mean..."
She narrowed her eyes at me as she opened the minivan door. "I mean pepperoni and cheese."
I shrugged. "Can't blame a guy for trying."
She passed the pizza to me, shut the car door, then smacked my butt as she jogged by.
I really wished our relationship was real. Maybe it could be.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Homeowners Association Rule #37:
Cleaning companies must be from the approved HOA list.
The next morning was Saturday. No work. So I lay in bed, appreciating all the finer things in life like a soft bed, cozy blankets, and a roommate who was vacuuming right outside my door.
I grabbed the spare pillow and smashed it onto my other ear.
Maybe he'd leave with his vacuuming.
Vroom.
Crunch.
Wheeeeee.
Vroom.
Bump.
It was useless. Sleeping in was a lost cause.
With a sigh, I sat up, stretched, then headed out of my room to go shower. When I stepped into the hall, I tripped over a vacuum cord and slammed into the wall.
I grunted as I caught my balance. Bane shut off the vacuum and turned around.
"I'm sorry, did I wake you up?"
He didn't look sorry—he looked like he was fighting a smile.
I stomped past him and headed into the bathroom. I shut the door with more force than necessary. Bane's chuckle bounced off the hall walls.
The little...
I turned on the sink faucet, grabbed my face soap off the shelf beside the toilet, and began lathering up. Leaning over the sink, I closed my eyes and carefully swirled circles around my eyes.
Something hit me in the forehead.
Screaming as I stood up, whatever was hitting me in the face was now hitting my chest.
Water. Water spraying everywhere, and I couldn't see a darn thing thanks to my exfoliating scrub.
The bathroom door slammed open, and I blindly grabbed for Bane. "Help me!" I shrieked as the water now hit my back.
"Hold on!" He unhooked my hands from where they grasped his arm—I knew it was his arm because I could feel those biceps pretty clearly.
I reached out, feeling for the wall, trying to find my way to the towel shelf—scared to open my eyes and let the soap in.
"Okay, I got it shut off." He groaned. "Hang on, let me help you."
A moment later a large hand grasped my chin as he gently cleaned the soap off my face with a towel or rag, I wasn't sure which.
I didn't open my eyes as he continued cleaning the soap away from the rest of my face. His fingers, covered with the rag, swept away the remnants of soap.
"There. All better," he said quietly.
I opened my eyes and stared into his hazel eyes. He wasn't smiling, though his lips were slightly parted. His eyes searched my face until he reached up to swipe away something from my right eyebrow.
"I—" I whispered. I'd been this close to him last night in the driveway. But it felt different this morning. More real. I couldn't claim that we were playing it up for Carol. Anything that happened in this bathroom would be real. It would be between only him and me.
He swayed forward but caught himself on the wall behind me. He cleared his throat. "I think it's all off your face now."
"Thank you," I replied hoarsely.
"Anytime." He straightened and nodded as if he had simply held a door open for me rather than massaged exfoliating cleanser off my face while we stood in a soaking wet bathroom.
"I don't know what happened. I turned the water on, and everything was fine, but then when I was soaping my face, the water started spraying me."
I turned around to look at the sink. "Oh."
"Yeah." We stood shoulder to shoulder, staring at the broken sink. The faucet head had fallen off completely. I hadn't even known that was possible.
Bane lifted a socked foot off the ground, water dripping from it. His wet hair hung over his forehead. Apparently he hadn't escaped the spray when he shut the water off.
"Okay, well, it's not a big deal. Don't worry about it," Bane told me as he dried off his face with a towel from the cupboard. He knelt down on the ground and began mopping up the excess water. "We'll get everything dried up, and then I can call a guy to come replace this faucet."
"Isn't he going to ask questions?"
Bane stopped mopping up the water and stared at me. "That would be unfortunate. I work with that plumber all the time. It'd be hard to explain why I'm here or why I'll be moving in such a short time."
"Yes, a quick turnaround might be a little suspicious."
He stood up. "Oh, no."
"Why 'oh no?'" I asked as I grabbed a second towel off of the shelf and tried to dry the front of my shirt where it was plastered to me.
"We're going to have to figure out how to do it ourselves."
"So?"
"So, I have no idea how to do that type of stuff! You're not exactly a journeyman plumber either." He gestured to my wet shirt.
"No, I'm not, but—"
"I'm sorry I snapped," he interrupted.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. "You didn't snap..."
"It felt like I snapped. Anyway, obviously you didn't break the sink. That looks like a cheaply made faucet. We'll get it fixed."
"Well...thanks—for apologizing." It hadn't even crossed my mind that it was an issue that he was raising his voice. It had seemed fitting for the amount of water spraying everywhere. But now that he'd apologized, it seemed incredibly sweet that he was worried about having yelled at me.
"You working today?" I asked.
"Later this afternoon. I
've got a couple of showings today."
"Do you ever have weekends off?"
"Unfortunately, most people who are looking to buy a house, work during the week and can't get away to see anything until late evenings or weekends. I'd rather work Saturdays than late evenings."
"Makes sense to me. So are we going to go shopping for a faucet this morning?"
"I guess so. I bet we can find an easy tutorial online that will help us fix it."
I waved a hand through the air. "Don't worry about that. Directions make everything so boring. Let's put on some dry clothes and go faucet shopping. Want me to drive?"
"No, thanks. I don’t need any crumbs stuck to my pants."
A wise guy. I glared at him and frowned exaggeratedly before I headed back down the hall to get dressed.
Five minutes later, we were sitting in his large SUV and were both wearing ball caps. It was my best shot at hiding my makeup-less face.
"Wal-Mart?"
I snorted. "You don't buy faucets from Wal-Mart."
"You could probably find one at Costco," he said with a grin.
"All right. I agree with you there. You can find just about anything you need at Costco. Besides, we’ll have to go somewhere civilized to buy it."
"Hey, I take offense that you don't think Riverly is civilization."
"Riverly is charming. It's centrally located, and I love it. But we need a faucet and I can't think of anywhere in town where we could get one."
He smiled. "Okay, I guess I forgive you for knocking Riverly. But there is a hardware store in town. Let’s check there before we drive to Burnside."
"Well, I didn't apologize for knocking Riverly."
"How many times can we say Riverly in a conversation?"
"At least once more. Riverly."
We chuckled and fell into a companionable silence as we drove the rest of the way into town to find the hardware store.
It didn't take long to buy a faucet. We drove home singing along to today's hits.
"That's not fair."
"What's not fair?" Bane asked as he pulled into the garage.
"You look good, and you have a great voice. It's disgustingly unfair."
"I have no idea what you’re talking about. Didn't you hear yourself? You've got yourself some lungs, woman. I could listen to you sing all day long." He smiled and shut the car off as I sat there feeling as though I could float on air. He liked my voice. Obviously he hadn't meant anything overly deep by giving me that compliment, but maybe that's why it meant more. It was genuine, not something motivated by a desire to impress me.
"You coming in?" Bane asked as he grabbed the faucet box out of the back of the car.
"Yup, I'll be right there." I hurried and unbuckled before following him through the garage and into the house.
Bane set the box down on top of the closed toilet lid in the bathroom. He groaned. "We forgot any tools we might need!"
Knowing what I did about my dad, I had a pretty good guess he would have everything we needed.
"Have you checked the room in the garage yet?" I asked.
"No, I assumed it was locked."
"I'll be right back." I dashed back through the house and into the garage. The door to the room was locked. But the key was resting on the top of the door frame, which I found after I climbed on top of a five-gallon bucket.
Unlocking the door, I stepped inside, feeling along the wall for the light switch. When I flicked it on, yellow light illuminated the room. Shining tools of every kind filled the shelves. All of it looked unused. It didn't take me long to find what I was looking for. I juggled everything in my arms and struggled to close the door after me. It took me longer to get back to the bathroom than it did to run to the garage.
"Wow. I take it you found out how to get into the room," Bane said as he looked up from where he was kneeling on the floor emptying the box of faucets.
"Found what I needed!"
"Okay. I found the model number, and I'm searching for a YouTube tutorial. I'm sure there's one out there." He held up his smartphone for me to see.
Fighting a laugh, I knelt down next to him and laid down my tools. "We don't need a tutorial."
"Nola, I appreciate your sense of adventure, but replacing a faucet isn't the time to wing it," Bane told me in a patronizing tone.
I snorted. "Bane. I've replaced a faucet before."
"What?"
I grabbed the screwdriver and leaned over the sink, undoing the heat controls. "It's not rocket science. You don't have to worry."
Bane rocked back on his heels and watched me get to work. I had the old faucet removed in less than five minutes. It felt good to get back to working with my hands.
"Where did you learn to do this?" Bane asked.
"My dad taught me." I sighed. It was one of the things I missed most about working with my dad. His love of projects must have been genetic. Nothing beat being able to actually see your progress too.
While my work in the group home was soul satisfying (most of the time), there wasn't an immediate satisfaction or sense of accomplishment that could be obtained by completing a do-it-yourself project.
Bane sat on the closed toilet lid. "All right. You're a fixer. This is great."
He began passing me whichever tool I needed at the time.
"Was your dad handy?" I asked him.
He shook his head. "No, not the word I would have used."
"That's okay. I'll teach you."
He smiled. "Somehow it feels like a threat when you say it."
I grinned.
Thirty minutes later, we had a new—working—faucet in my bathroom.
"You know, now I feel kind of guilty about using the master suite when you’ve been on this end of the house by yourself with a leaky faucet."
"No leaky faucets anymore!" I waved the wrench. "Besides, now you know I can fix it if there's an issue, and now I know I need to teach you some basic plumbing skills."
"It's a date." He winked, my stomach fluttered, and I promptly dropped the wrench on my foot.
I lay on the couch with a pack of ice on top of my foot.
Bane refused to let me move. He threatened to drag me to the emergency room to get an x-ray of my foot. He was convinced I’d broken it. After telling him I would scream ‘kidnapper’ at the top of my lungs if he took me there, he picked me up and carried me to the couch where he ordered me to stay put.
Bane brought me ice for the foot, lemonade to drink, and the entire pantry of snacks. Oh, and he sliced a grapefruit for me. Now he was in my bathroom cleaning up all the tools and any puddles of water we might have missed.
My phone chimed.
Nate: You need to talk to Dad.
Nola: What? What’s going on?
Terminal diagnosis. It had to be. Nate understood my feelings towards dad. He’d been upset when Riley disappeared, and dad didn’t do anything to help. He didn’t even use his connection in the police force to help.
Despite all of that, if something serious was going on, I would go see him immediately. I wanted no regrets in my life. If he was sick, I was going to say goodbye. As a matter of fact, I didn’t want to say goodbye. If he weren’t here, I couldn’t be mad at him anymore. And if I couldn’t be mad at him, then I would have to address my own failing of Riley.
I couldn’t help her. She was gone.
But I could help my relationship with my dad.
Nate: You need to ask dad about Riley.
Nola: Dad’s not dying?
Nate: NO! Why would you think that???
Nola: Nvm. Why should I talk to him about Riley?
Nate: Everything isn’t like it seems, and you and I have been jerks.
My heart dropped to my stomach, and my foot started thumping in pain. Maybe I should go to the hospital after all. They could pump my stomach.
I texted him back.
Nola: What did you find out?
Nate: You need to hear it from him.
Trying to decide what to do w
asn’t easy. Would it be better to call Nate and demand the truth? Or did I call my dad? How would I ever bridge that chasm? I probably couldn’t. Besides, there was too much evidence against him. He really had turned into the ruthless, unreachable man I thought him as.
A pounding on the door halted my decision making.
Tossing the ice to the side, I leaned up on my elbows, getting ready to hobble to the door.
A large hand landed gently but firmly against the top of my head, pushing me back down.
"I’ll answer the door," Bane said as he hurried past me.
He opened the door and I could see a flash of purple past his shoulder.
"Hi Bane, sorry to stop by like this, but I swear I don’t know what else to do. I keep going in my backyard and finding Tinker there. Tinker is sweet, don’t get me wrong, but man he can be a pain in the butt. Carol drops him off anytime she’s gone for the day! She never asks, she just leaves him and expects me to take care of him. I retired as dog walker! I don’t have time for any of that anymore. Now can you please tell her to take care of her own dog?"
I had to cover my mouth with my hand to keep from laughing. I could practically see Bane’s overwhelmed expression by looking at the back of his head.
"Huh. Well, I guess I could have a talk with her."
Bane did not want to have a talk with scary Carol, and I didn’t blame him, so I saved him. I called, "Tori! Come in here!"
"Nola’s home!" Tori exclaimed happily. She charged past Bane and sat down on the end of the couch next to my swollen foot. "What happened to you?"
"I dropped a wrench on my foot."
"Ouch. That sounds painful. Shouldn’t you get that looked at?" She asked.
"Not you too. I had to talk down Fretful Fred over there—"
"Fretful Fred?" She asked with a frown.
"Bane." I pointed at the man in question, who had his arms folded across his chest and was scowling in my direction.
"What are we going to do about my dog problem?" Tori asked.
I marveled at how quickly she traveled from subject to subject. As if topics of conversation were meant to be skimmed over like a stone skipping across a lake. She wouldn’t sink into a depth of conversation because she needed the quantity of it.
"Send her a bill for dog sitting. Make it atrocious."
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