Chapter Nine
THANKS TO Joe’s new self-imposed deadline, the pressure was on for a livable space, at least on the ground floor.
Starling arrived the following day to put in another couple of hours and a few hundred feet of electrical cable. Given her piecemeal schedule and their need for electricity in the meantime, she suggested running the new wiring but leaving it unconnected until they could hook everything up.
But when she let herself into the house, she first beelined for the breezeway and cooed over their new additions.
“They are so cute,” she sighed as she eyed the kittens’ furry tangle next to Pepa.
The kittens and Pepa both loved when they could settle into the hollow of her belly. They even kneaded Pepa and purred at times, as though longing to nurse.
Austin should probably ask Linda about that, for the kittens’ and Pepa’s sakes. She always looked so content that Austin wondered if Pepa hadn’t had puppies in the past. They definitely didn’t want any more of those, though putting her through another surgery right now would be brutal.
Once Starling was busy in the kitchen, Austin dragged Joe to the ReStore.
Austin loved the Habitat for Humanity store. He had a habit of perusing it for objects in need of some TLC. Fixing them up for resale wasn’t a bad hobby; it kept him busy and tended to fund itself and make him a few spare dollars.
Fortunately, luck was on their side, and they found a suitable straight section of cabinets on their first visit, as well as enough wood-look laminate tile to freshen the room (and cover their brand-new subfloor).
The tiles themselves took most of an evening to install, but as Austin had predicted, the cabinets went in quickly once Starling had finished in the kitchen. Without the awkward section of counter that divided the kitchen from the eating space, it was almost roomy.
Days passed in a blur of painting, moving furniture, cuddling and feeding Pepa and her kittens, dodging mockery from Starling and the kids, putting them all to work, and casual physical affection from Joe.
Austin couldn’t say when it started. Joe definitely didn’t touch him at first. But sometime between their first rocky meeting and the decision to host Christmas, Joe got handsy.
Not in a creepy or pushy way. In fact, Austin wasn’t sure Joe knew he was doing it.
After he saw Joe with Starling and the kids, it became obvious that Joe was just a physical guy.
He patted backs and heads, gave high fives, bumped shoulders, played footsie, moved people out of the way with a hand on the back, shoulder, or hips.
Austin could take the more casual touches. Knocking shoulders or boots together when they were chatting to make a point or get Austin’s attention didn’t bother him. But he didn’t know what to do with the more intimate touches.
The day they painted the dining room and kitchen, Joe grabbed Austin by the hips to move him a step to the right and out of his way.
Austin was so shocked by the casual proprietary nature of the act, he couldn’t even protest. Then, later, after an hour of painting, Joe laughingly told Austin he got paint on himself, cupped his face, and tenderly swiped the drips from his cheekbone.
Or tried to, rather, since it had already started to dry.
It took a good few seconds for Austin’s brain to reboot.
What were you supposed to do with a guy who looked like Joe and didn’t stop touching you but who you also couldn’t have a one-night stand with?
Which he definitely could not. For one, they were essentially business partners. Also, they were becoming friends, and Austin didn’t want to ruin that. Not to mention that Joe didn’t seem like the one-night-stand sort. He was too sweet.
A few days after his grudging adoption of the kittens, Austin arrived at the house to find Joe working in the kitchen with Walker Texas Ranger curled up on his shoulder.
The cat looked for all the world like he’d appointed himself Joe’s supervisor, and he was hanging on his every word as Joe softly narrated his actions.
“We have to adjust these screws or the door to the cabinet will always hang crooked.”
“Me-ew.”
“Exactly. We wouldn’t want to embarrass ourselves with wonky cabinetry.”
Austin tiptoed back out of the room. The moment felt too precious to be ruined by Joe’s potential embarrassment.
Besides, there was plenty of work to do elsewhere.
He went back to winterizing the windows in an effort to keep their power bills out of the stratosphere now that the cold weather had hit.
The past few mornings he’d had to scrape frost off his windshield before driving into work, so he was glad to start emptying the garage now that the painting was done.
It would be nice to park indoors. They’d sold some of the furniture, but they’d kept a simple bed frame and a dresser for one of the upstairs bedrooms. Joe managed to convey, without saying the words out loud, that he was keeping them in the eventuality that Will’s parents realized he was gay and kicked him out.
Austin couldn’t think about that any more than he could think about Joe’s new shoulder ornament.
“What do you think?” he asked Pepa as he finished wrapping the window in the breezeway. “Nice and cozy?”
Pepa nudged his hand for pets, which Austin happily provided.
She was getting around well enough that she wasn’t confined to her sickroom anymore, and Austin was starting to think about how to build her a prosthetic.
He had all the skills needed, and the knowledge he didn’t have, a half an hour on YouTube could provide.
“Just in time for the storm, huh?”
Outside, the wind had picked up and was howling through the trees.
Though the sky had been overcast all day and the air smelled like snow, nothing had fallen yet.
Austin figured it would happen overnight; he didn’t look forward to the drive in to work tomorrow if it did.
Back county roads like this one often had drifts.
At least Joe would be here to help pull his car out of the ditch if that happened. He’d brought over his couch, TV, dining set, and mattress crammed into the back of his pickup, and they unloaded it all this afternoon.
“You don’t want to sleep in the house?” he asked Austin. “Like, no judgment, just… it’s cold, man, and I’ve sat on the mattress in there. It sucks.”
The trailer mattress did suck, and it felt extra-hard when it was cold, but Austin wasn’t fussy.
“I will eventually. I just haven’t had a chance to pick up my bed.
” He didn’t have a truck, though the ability to haul things was a consideration he’d be making the next time he traded his beat-up car in for another, slightly newer, slightly less beat-up model.
Now that he’d leased out his place, his disassembled bed was sitting against the wall in his office at work.
His dresser was taking up space in the garage bay.
“We can go tonight, if you want,” Joe offered. “Still two unclaimed bedrooms upstairs.”
Austin shook his head. “This weekend’s soon enough. I want to finish up a few projects first.”
He regretted it now, though, as Pepa followed him into the front main floor bedroom—the one Joe had claimed as his own.
The house had a double fireplace, with one side in Joe’s bedroom and the other in the living room.
There was no overhead light, so the space was currently lit by the trouble lamp they’d been carting from room to room as they painted, set on top of a folding ladder.
But even with its limited furnishings—just the bed and the dresser—the tall wood baseboards and deep windowsills made the room feel charming.
Part of that was the color Joe had chosen—a deep foresty green that, combined with the scarred wood floors and original trim, gave the room a cozy, earthy feel.
Part of it was the furniture too. The pieces might not be antiques, but they were real wood, stained a rich dark brown, and well-made.
Austin didn’t have to Google to know they were expensive.
For the first time in weeks, he wished that he’d moved up the arrival of his own bedroom furniture.
The mattress was eighteen inches thick and covered in soft gray-green sheets, a comforter with a foliage pattern, a kitten-soft knitted throw in earth tones, and more pillows than Austin had ever seen outside the bedding aisle at Home Sense.
Ozzy and Dallas had made themselves at home on the throw blanket, likely via the step stool someone had parked at the side of the bed. There was no way they could’ve jumped that high yet. Joe might still be pretending he’d adopted the kittens at gunpoint, but Austin hadn’t put the stool there.
With a fire lit in the double fireplace—“I didn’t spend all that time cleaning it out to not test it,” Joe protested, wide-eyed; Austin was pretty sure he was just one of those guys who liked lighting things on fire, and decided to be glad they had the appropriate venue for it—the bedroom was….
Austin wasn’t going to think about what it was. He wasn’t going to think about how all it needed was a nice hand-knotted rag rug in front of the fireplace with a bed for Pepa and a small desk and chair in the corner. A nightstand instead of the ladder.
There was even an en suite bath, although its current state was unusable.
Austin would’ve been annoyed about Joe claiming the best bedroom for himself, but it wasn’t like they were staying.
He regretted his choices even more as night fell and he left the warm cozy house for his dilapidated trailer, which did little to protect him from the late fall weather.
The trailer had never felt more rickety than it did right in that moment as the wind howled and buffeted the sides. The space heater couldn’t fight back against the cracks and holes he was now discovering.
Of course, he thought bitterly when lightning flashed, it couldn’t be a snowstorm. No, it had to be rain, thunder, lightning.