Not So Easy (The NOT Series Book 4)

Chapter 6

Four days later,I found myself walking through my muddy backyard, debating exactly how far out my new addition should go. Calvin could tell me what the square footage would be at each spot, but getting an accurate picture in my mind wasn’t happening.

“So if we go to here,” I said, walking to the middle line spray painted on the dirt, “how big would the kitchen be?”

He checked his trusty notebook. “Two hundred twenty-eight square feet. If we go to the last line, you’ll get two hundred fifty.”

I walked to the last line and looked back at the house. “That isn’t helping me.”

Calvin stepped up next to me. “Imagine all of this space, plus the nine feet you have inside. All of that together is how big the kitchen will be.”

He smelled really good.

Focus, Donna. Focus.

Spinning to face the alley, I asked, “Then how far out will the back porch have to go?”

“How far do you want it to go?”

I hated when he answered my question with a question.

“Isn’t there a standard porch size?”

“Not in this case, no.”

Funny how karma had a way of swinging around and biting you on the butt. I wanted to make all of the decisions, but I clearly hadn’t thought this through.

Taking several large steps toward the alley, I said, “How big is this?”

Calvin whipped out his tape measure and without bending down, dropped it the length that I’d covered. “Just over four feet.”

Eyeing the distance to the garage, I asked, “How long is the garage again?”

“Fifteen feet.”

“Then the porch could go back farther since we’re taking out the one side, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Cutting him a dry look, I crossed my arms. “Ma’am?”

“We’re doing good,” he said. “Don’t pick a fight over nothing.”

“Is that what you think I do? Pick fights?”

He nodded.

“So I’m stuck up and contentious.” As if pleading the fifth, he stayed silent. “That’s a little pot meets kettle, isn’t it?”

Brown eyes widened as the tape measure snapped back into its case. “Are you saying I’m stuck up and contentious?”

“Yes.”

For a split second, a smile danced across his lips and my heart did an unexpected flip. Turning back to the house, he said, “You see? Always picking fights.”

“We wouldn’t fight if you didn’t poke at me.” I followed him into the kitchen. “You’re the instigator.”

“Poke at you? You get mad if I just enter the room. It’s always been that way.”

“What way?”

He hooked the tape measure on a loop on his hip and tucked the notebook into his front pocket. “You never liked me. Even when we were kids.”

That wasn’t remotely true. “You never liked me.”

Brow furrowed, he said, “I liked you more than I should have. You broke my heart back in middle school.”

“Now you’re making stuff up.” I crossed to the counter and leaned against it. “I never broke your heart.” If anything, he broke mine. Not that I would be confessing to that.

Calvin snorted. “Whenever I wanted to go down to the convenience store, you’d push back and want to get ice cream at Sylvester’s.”

A serious twist of the truth. “You were the one who pushed back any time I made a suggestion. Why would we go all the way down to that store when Sylvester’s was right on the corner?”

“Because I wanted to spend more time with you.”

The words hung in the air as I stared in confusion, unable to process what he’d said.

“You wanted to spend more time with me?” I asked.

“Why else would I have picked the place farther away?”

I went with the obvious choice. “To be a jerk? To be the one calling the shots instead of me, the outsider?”

His gaze locked on mine. “That’s what you thought?”

“What else was I supposed to think? You hardly ever talked to me, and when you did it was to contradict anything I said.”

“I was fourteen and had a huge crush on you. I didn’t talk to you because when you were around my mind went blank. All I could think about was how pretty you were.” Strong arms crossed over a broad chest, testing the stitching on his T-shirt sleeves. “You had it all wrong. I never hated you, Donna. Far from it.”

Stunned, I struggled to wrap my brain around this revelation. How could I have known. He was a young teen with his first crush, but so was I.

“I had no idea.”

“Was I ever outright mean to you?” he asked.

Thinking back, countless encounters raced through my mind. “You never called me names, if that’s what you mean. But you always made me feel unwelcome. Like no one should listen to me because I wasn’t really a part of the neighborhood.”

His expression softened. “That’s what you thought?”

“That’s how I felt.”

Calvin ran a hand over his face. “Man, I’m sorry. That was never my intention.”

My whole body relaxed, as if hearing his apology drained the anxiety I carried into all of our encounters. “I’m sorry, too. I might have been a little too defensive and assumed the worst about you.”

One side of his mouth curled in a half grin. “Might have?”

“We’re doing well here. Don’t start poking.”

Nodding, he took a step forward. “That wasn’t poking. That was teasing.”

Heat danced up my spine at his tone, and I wasn’t sure how to handle this new vibe between us. I’d seen him as the enemy for so long, seeing him as anything else was going to take time.

“We’ve cleared up the past,” I said. “How about the present?”

“What about the present?”

“Do you still see me as stuck up?” Regret set in when he took too long to answer. “Forget it.” I moved to walk past him. “Let’s just do this job and go our separate ways.”

A strong hand wrapped around my arm, stopping me in place. There was no pressure or anger. Just a gentle touch that sent heat racing through my bloodstream.

“I was wrong, okay? How about we start over?”

Inches apart, I stared into his eyes, worried this might be a joke. A way to disarm me, and then tell me none of this was true.

“Truce?” he said, genuine sincerity in his voice.

Relaxing, I nodded. “Truce.”

After we agreedto the truce, Calvin stepped outside to take a phone call, giving me time to process these new revelations. So he hadn’t hated me after all. Huh. I wasn’t sure how to feel about this. That angsty, heartbroken teen still lived deep in my psyche, and she was torn between feeling like an idiot and being angry that he never freaking said something.

Not sure what to do with the past, I focused on the present. This didn’t change anything between us. We were kids back then. Clueless kids, obviously, but that was a long time ago. We were adults now. Different people entirely. I hadn’t thought about Calvin in years, and he likely never thought of me either.

Childhood crushes were meant to be left in the past. So why was my only thought about what could have been?

“Sorry about that,” Calvin said, stepping into the kitchen. “We’re wrapping up a job over on Terrace and the fridge got ordered in the wrong size.”

“Do you handle every detail like that?” I was a one-woman show in my business, but I assumed he had a full staff.

“Mostly.” He slid the phone into his pocket. “I like to keep things simple. The less people between me and the work, the better.”

Not a bad approach. After ten years of wearing all the hats, I was considering hiring a part-time assistant to take calls, book appointments, and give me a little more time for the creative side. Editing photos was by far my favorite thing to do, but the more clients booked meant having to push that part into my evenings.

A catch twenty-two of sorts. More clients equaled more money, but also less time for having a life.

“Are you ever off the clock?” I asked.

His hands slipped into his pockets. “I make time for things when I need to.”

I laughed. “In other words, no.”

This was the first time we’d talked without animosity getting in the way. It felt good. Besides Josie, I didn’t get much time with other small business owners. Self-starters who built something out of nothing. Josie’s bookkeeping business wasn’t a creative endeavor, so though there were similarities, we weren’t quite the same.

The fine line between art and commerce is where I spent most of my days. Flipping houses was likely similar.

“Do you ever clock out from the photography thing?” he asked. “Other than when you’re here, anyway.”

Now that he mentioned it, this house was the only part of my life that didn’t revolve around the business. This and the girls, and I didn’t spend nearly as much time with them as I’d like.

“I do Sunday dinners with Mom and Dad, and my friends and I meet for breakfast once or twice a month.” I couldn’t come up with anything else. “Maybe I do work a little too much.”

“What do you do to blow off steam?”

The question did not compute. “What do you mean?”

Calvin leaned back against the wall. “You know. Something to relieve stress.”

Looking at him, all relaxed and casually sexy, only one form of stress relief came to mind, and we were not doing that.

Examining one of the broken cabinet doors, I said, “Nothing I can think of.” Because I couldn’t help myself, I asked, “What do you do?”

“I break things,” he replied.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Deep laughter filled the room and did nothing to clean up the thoughts in my brain. “It’s called demolition. One of the perks of renovations is that you get to break things before you rebuild them.” Nodding toward the counter, he added, “You should try it.”

My eyes went to the counter, and then back to Calvin. “I should try breaking things?”

I understood that what was here had to go, but that should be left to professionals, shouldn’t it?

“Sure.” He closed the space between us and reached down past the end of the counter. “With this.” Calvin picked up the largest hammer I’d ever seen.

“With that? It doesn’t even look like I could lift it.”

Professional cameras were heavy, and I’d been hefting one kind or another around for more than a decade. But this hammer looked like something only Thor could lift.

Calvin flipped it with one hand and extended the handle in my direction. Quite possibly the sexiest move I’d ever seen in my life. “Go for it. Take out the counter.”

Was I really going to do this? Backing down had never been my thing, but neither was destroying kitchen counters.

“Am I qualified to do this? I assume you have a team of trained professionals.”

Patiently holding the hammer in the air, he said, “You think a person has to go to school to learn how to break a counter?” I supposed one stupid question deserved another. “There are things here I won’t let you get near, but I know the water is off, so the worst you can do is give yourself a splinter. Or maybe you’re afraid of breaking a nail?”

That was definitely a poke.

I held up my hands. “Do you see any fancy nails here?” In truth, I loved getting my nails done, but they interfered with my work so short stubby nails it had to be.

His grin widened. “Then take the hammer.” Whipping a pair of clear glasses from some back pocket, he extended them as well. “Safety first.”

Where did… “Are those magical overalls? Where the heck do you keep all this stuff?”

“Pockets.” The hammer head hit the floor and he leaned the tool my way. “Swing it straight up, and let the weight bring it down on the counter.”

He made it sound so easy. After sliding on the glasses, I grabbed the hammer with both hands and took a step back from the counter while Calvin shuffled into the living room, giving me plenty of room to swing.

Focusing on where I wanted the thing to land, I took a deep breath, then pulled back, swinging the hammer in a full circle until it came crashing down in the middle of the counter. The corner shot across the room, and the rest of it detached from the wall. Only the far end was holding it up.

“Hit it again,” Calvin urged.

Energy from the first hit was still reverberating up my arms, but I followed the order. This time the hammer smashed into the sink, jerking the cabinets the rest of the way off the wall.

The mess tumbled forward, and I hopped back with a squeal. Not my most girl power moment, but what an adrenaline rush.

Let’s do that again.

“What about the top ones?” I asked. “They have to come down, too, right?”

A proud smile split his far-too-attractive face. “Yes, ma’am.”

This was going to take a bit more finesse since I couldn’t drop the hammer straight down. That didn’t mean I couldn’t use gravity in my favor, but I preferred to do so without dislocating a shoulder.

I could see me trying to explain the injury. Calvin was looking all hot and he dared me to break something so I did and I ended up breaking myself.

The girls would never let me live it down.

Deciding to go side arm instead of overhead, I turned and squared up around the fallen debris on the floor. Grip tight, I reared back and swung the hammer straight into the center door of the upper cabinets. Wood splintered everywhere and I held an arm over my face by instinct. Unfortunately, this meant letting go of the hammer, which landed with a thud on the top of my foot.

This time, gravity was not in my favor,

Holding back a slew of very bad words, which Bammy never would have tolerated in her house, I hopped around until my butt hit the wall, and then I slid to the floor. Before my bottom met linoleum, Calvin was by my side.

“Take deep breaths and let me check it out.” His calm voice didn’t help the pain, but it did ease the pending hysteria.

Please don’t let it be broken. Please don’t let it be broken.

“Ouch,” I yelled when he pressed on the foot. “Holy crap, that hurts.”

“We need to get the boot off before it swells. Are you good with me doing that?”

These were my favorite knee-high boots so I did not want to have to cut them off.

I nodded. “I’m good. Just pull it.”

Teeth clenched, I closed my eyes and held my breath as leather brushed over where the hammer had landed. Not until my foot was free could I fill my lungs again.

Peeking out one eye, I asked, “How bad is it?”

“It’s already swelling. We need to get some ice on it.”

I didn’t exactly have a working freezer in the house. “Where are we going to get that?”

“My place.” He rose to his feet and extended both hands. “Grab hold.” Without thought, I put my hands in his and was hoisted upright as if I weighed no more than a child. “Can you walk?” he asked.

I put weight on my foot and saw stars. “Nope. No walking.”

“Then I’ll have to carry you.”

That snapped me back to my senses. “You live two blocks away.”

“So?”

There was macho, and then there was crazy. “You aren’t carrying me two blocks. We can drive my car over. My keys are in the foyer.”

“You’re right. That’s a better idea.”

Of course, it was. Thankfully, my left foot was the injured one, so I could still drive. Calvin retrieved my keys and before I could take them they disappeared into one of his magical pockets with a jingle.

“Put your weight on me,” he said, bending a bit.

I draped my left arm across his shoulders, and he tucked a hand up under my right armpit. We were doing well until we reached the side door and there was no way both of us would fit at the same time.

“We’ll have to go one at a time.” He untangled us—never completely letting go—stepped out backwards, and before I knew it, swung me down to the ground. “Can you make it to the car?”

A tiny voice in my brain said let him carry you, but thankfully, my pride told that voice to shut the heck up.

“I can do it. Just keep me upright.”

It wasn’t the most graceful trip across the yard, but we made it. I was so focused on not falling or dropping my foot that I failed to notice him leading me to the passenger side of the car.

“What are you doing?”

“Putting you in the car.”

“But the driver’s seat is over there.”

Calvin pressed the button on the key fob. “Letting me drive your car for two blocks isn’t going to kill you.”

Loretta, as I called her, was an older model coupe and had a mind of her own. “She’s finicky,” I said.

Brows arched high. “More than you are?”

So much for the truce. “I can go home and get my own ice.”

He stepped back. “You could, but how are you going to get from the car to your apartment?”

Good question. This accepting help thing wasn’t easy.

“When you come to a stop sign, you have to put her in neutral and give her a little gas or she’ll stall.”

Calvin bent to look inside the car. “Is it a manual?”

Head high, I said, “No.”

Opening the car door, he maneuvered me into the passenger seat, then rested an arm above my head and bent until we were almost eye to eye. “At some point, we’re going to discuss getting you a new car.”

“My car is fine.”

“Dying at stop signs is not fine.”

Jaw tight, I mumbled, “I can’t afford a new car.”

Every single penny I’d scraped together was going into the house. The months of the renovation were my busiest, and that would bring in more income, but not enough to replace Loretta. Not yet.

Without another word, Calvin closed the door.