14. Devon
DEVON
There’s a different feel now that Ember and I are trying to work together.
It’s good to also have a different focus other than the attraction I feel for her.
Not that I don’t notice it every time I look at her, but I can drown it out with work, and if I start to look at her a little too much, I just put my head down and drown myself in even more work.
Currently, though, Ember is playing another new YouTube video for me, so we’re huddled so close I can smell the apple-scented body spray she’s started using. It fills my nostrils, and I have no problem inhaling so deep that it overwhelms me.
On the screen, two men are erecting a haunted house with PVC pipe and black curtains. It’s actually not a bad idea. They erect hallways and full rooms filled with child-appropriate scariness. The ballroom is so huge that it could definitely support a rather big haunted house for kids.
“You can make the structure, and I can sew the curtains.”
“Have you sewn before?”
“No, but I can figure it out. Doing it like this might make it easy to erect year after year if we label it properly.”
“I like it,” I finally say.
She turns toward me. “You do?”
“Why are you so surprised?”
“I’m not used to you being so accommodating.” She waits a beat. So much so that I almost answer until she speaks up, “I guess you’ve realized who’s the actual boss around here.”
Her remark catches me so off guard that I have to laugh. “Yes, Obi-wan, you just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“I like this new attitude.”
Admittedly, I kind of do too, and it doesn’t hurt that I’ve caught her fire for the projects. Mom was right about me doing the work. This way, I know it’s being done correctly.
When I don’t respond, she says, “I have to go back outside to work on the yard, but I’ll plan what I want in my head, then I’ll draw it out, and you can tell me whether it can be done or not.”
It kills me that she’s the one working on the yard. I offered to help, but she said she couldn’t afford for me to do both, and since she can’t be the one getting the ballroom in good enough shape, she’ll have to be the one outside raking, clipping bushes, and mowing the lawn.
“Sounds like a plan,” I tell her.
She puts her phone down and ties the handkerchief in her hair. An oversized tank top hangs off her shoulders. The arm holes are long, showing off a sports bra underneath and a pair of dark leggings that hug her behind.
“I’m off,” she says.
I grind my teeth as she spins, taking her phone and heading outside. Once she’s there, I hear her phone speaker come on again, this time blaring The Beach Boys. Such an odd band for her to play, but in a way, it makes sense.
I get down to work because I know that once I finish what I’m doing in here, I can head out there and help.
I fix the molding around the length of the room, tacking up pieces I found lying on the floor and also the new ones I purchased online that matched.
When I’m done a few hours later, I peer around at all I’ve accomplished.
The place is really coming together. I have to fix a few floorboards here and there that got warped, but really, our final step is painting the room.
The lights will be low for the Haunted House and the Ball, so it doesn’t have to look perfect.
Our main concern is safety. After a good cleaning, this room will be as good as new.
That said, I spot a window and give it a closer look. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of rot. Add new windows to the list, but they should last the season. Hopefully.
I check my watch when I finish and realize it’s past lunch. I search near my toolbox and don’t find a sandwich waiting for me. Peeking outside, I find Ember still in the trenches with the bushes lining the porch, so I head into the kitchen to make us lunch.
I make us up a few PB&J’s, throw some chips on a plate just like she does, and I head outside. The crisp air hits me first along with a high note from one of The Beach Boys singing about summer and girls and surfing.
Soon after, a short curse sounds from below. “You piece of antique garbage.”
“Oh Ember?”
She backs up, a pair of hedgers in her hand that look like they’re three times as old as her. I hold up the sandwiches, and she smiles, blowing a clump of hair out of her eyes. “Oh, thanks.”
My gaze travels down the length of her, and I cringe. She has cuts and scrapes all over her arms and shoulders. She looks like she’s been in a cage fight with a cat. “What have you been doing?”
“Fighting with these bushes, and these stupid clippers. They’re dull.”
“You should’ve said something, I have a sharpening kit.”
“Of course you do.”
She leans the hedgers against the stairs and stomps up them. Sweat clings to her, as well as her tank top. She takes the plate from me and plops down in one of the metal chairs. “Today is one of those days I hate being a homeowner.”
I chuckle.
“No, really. I mean it.”
I set my own plate down and then run back in for a couple of glasses of ice water. When I come back out, her eyes light up and she gulps eagerly from the glass. “Now that hit the spot.”
“It’s looking a lot better.”
“I wish it would hurry up and cut itself because I only have a couple of days until the Haunted History Tour. I haven’t even figured out who I’m going to dress up as to tell the stories, or for that matter, even have the stories I’m going to tell.”
“You’ll figure it out. Plus, I’ll bring my mower by.”
“There’s a mower in the shed, but I have no idea if it works. I couldn’t get it to start, but it makes a sound like it wants to.”
“I’ll check it.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
That shuts her up. She blows out a breath and takes a bite of her sandwich. Her gaze fills with tears. “Have I mentioned I’m so sick of eating peanut butter and jelly?”
It dawns on me then. She’s not overly attached to PB&J, she’s eating it because she’s worried about money. She’s worried about affording everything for the house and still being able to live off of whatever lottery money she has left over.
I take her plate and throw mine and hers over the railing.
She narrows her gaze. “That’s the second time you’ve thrown something of mine away!”
I chuckle because yeah, I guess it is. “Have you ever been to the pizza shop in town?”
She shakes her head.
“Do you like pizza?”
She nods.
I pull out my wallet. “Here’s twenty bucks. Go get yourself some pizza and a drink and relax.”
“I’m not taking your money, Devon. I can afford pizza.”
“You’re not taking it, I’m giving it to you. Now go get some pizza, or I’ll call Bea to come get you so you can both go for pizza, and if you still won’t do it, I’ll call Rose.”
The absolute exhaustion on her face when she stands and takes the twenty-dollar bill from my fist is a clue to how terrible she must be feeling. She sulks down the porch steps and keeps walking past the overgrown grass, out the squeaky gate and down the sidewalk without another word.
I expected some pushback, but I’m glad she didn’t give it.
The fact that she didn’t even wash up a little before leaving the house tells me she really needed this break.
She’s been working on the yard for a couple of days now, and though she’s always excited when she talks to me about the Children’s Haunted House, I can tell yardwork isn’t her thing because she comes in most evenings without even saying a word and heads upstairs like a zombie.
I even have to lock up for her before I leave.
Some days, I’ve thought about spending the night on the couch, and I would if I thought she wouldn’t freak out in the morning to find me there.
Once she’s out of sight, I head to my truck to find the sharpening kit.
I give the hedge clippers a quick touch-up then go to the shed where I find a wheelbarrow and the mower she talked about.
I back it out of the shed, hit the primer button a few times, and when I yank on the cord, it starts right up.
One problem down. She probably didn’t know to hit the primer button.
Since the Tour is only concerned with the front of the house, that’s where I concentrate my efforts.
I use the newly sharpened hedge clippers to cut down the bushes, throw the errant leftovers I rake up in the wheelbarrow, and then start the mower.
I have one side of the house completely done and am starting on the other side when I hear a shriek.
I let the mower go, turn, and find Ember at the front gate, a pizza box in one hand, the other over her mouth. “Devon!”
For a moment, I think I’m in trouble until she smiles. “Are you serious? You did all this?”
The gate squeaks as she pushes it open. One side of the yard isn’t touching her calves anymore. She steps in the newly mowed grass and beams, twisting around, her now dry shirt billowing out around her while the pizza box sits precariously on her palm.
“I just had the right tools,” I tell her.
“And the mower works?”
I crook my finger to beckon her toward me, and then I show her the primer button. “You have to push this a couple of times, then it’ll start right up.”
She throws her arms around me, and I still. The corner of the pizza box presses into my shoulder, but I don’t stop her. I wouldn’t dream of it. For a moment, I’m engulfed in everything Ember. Slowly, I enclose my arms around her torso and hug her back.
We just stand there for a moment, as if she also can’t believe we’re actually hugging, while at the same time, not wanting to let the other go. “Thank you,” she sniffs. “I brought you back pizza since you sacrificed your own PB&J.”
She backs off, handing me the square box.
“Thanks.”
“You can eat it while I finish this half.”
“I don’t think so,” I tell her.
“You don’t want the pizza?”
I give her a smile, then briefly touch the dirty scruff on her chin. I wonder what the guys down at the pizza place thought when she came walking in the way she did.
“You go upstairs and climb into that huge clawfoot tub. Draw out your plans for the Children’s Haunted House, and I’m going to finish up out here.”
Her eyes gleam, but she hesitates. “You sure? I can’t afford to—.”
“I’m not asking you to pay me, Ember. I’m doing it because I want to.”
She nods, stepping back some more as I take the pizza box from her. She backs away, still unsure, but once she hits the stairs, she walks up, striding across the new rug she laid down over the mismatched floorboards and then stops with her hand on the door. “Thanks, Devon. For everything.”
“No problem, Sweetheart.”
The ends of her mouth tip into a smile, and I watch as she enters the house. I take a moment to eat a slice of pizza before placing the box on the stairs and finishing up the other half of the yard.
By the time I’m done, the sun is setting and the sky is a beautiful, fiery orange color, and I’ve also polished off the rest of the pizza for dinner.
I tilt the wheelbarrow up at the street and unload the final batch of bushes and leaves.
The town will be by in a day or two to pick it up, so that when it’s Haunted History Tour time, Sleepy Hollow Manor will shine.
I didn’t get to the other spaces, but the front is beautiful. The tiny touch ups of paint that I did and the new landscaping have transformed this place from what it was only a couple of weeks ago. It’s amazing everything that has gotten done.
I stand out there and snap a picture. It isn’t until I’m really looking at it that I notice Ember in the doorway. The door creaks open, and Ember steps out in a dark blue lounge set, her hair around her shoulders. I beckon her forward, and she nearly skips down the steps.
She gets outside the gate with me, and turns. A gasp wrenches from her throat, the sound almost inaudible as a couple of kids go by on their bikes. “Hey, look at the manor!” one kid calls out.
His friend responds, “Still creepy though.”
Ember and I peer at each other and laugh. “He’s right,” she says.
“She hasn’t lost her charm,” I agree.
Ember squeezes her hands together in a praying position in front of her. “She looks unbelievable.”
Immediately, she hugs me again. My hands go around her on instinct, and I just settle in to how right this feels—how good. How perfect that we’re both standing in front of Sleepy Hollow Manor together—when she peels away from me.
“Bea!” She tears herself away from me, and I turn to find Bea heading up the street.
Ember throws her arms around her, too, and Bea grimaces and mouths, “Sorry” to me.
I don’t know why. It’s not like anything was happening, or that we were having a moment or anything.
Ember grabs her friend’s hand and drags her to where we’re standing. “Look.”
“Wow, you guys. I don’t have any words. The house looks beautiful.”
“You think so?”
“It looks how I remember from when we were kids. Don’t you think, Dev?”
“Yeah,” I croak out. I can almost picture me and my grandpa up on the porch sitting with the Lewises.
Most of the time I was bored, the kind of little kid bored because something shiny and new wasn’t in front of me at every turn, but when they talked about the well, I always listened.
And the one thing Mr. Lewis loved to talk about was the well.
Off to our right, out of sight from us right now, the structure still sits.
I haven’t visited in years, though I think about it all the time.
At one time, I thought it was the only reason I made it into the league.
Sure, that fell apart, but I still believed.
When I came home for the final time, after no other team would give me a chance, I walked out there again.
I threw a penny into the well and said if it was the last thing I did, I’d own Sleepy Hollow Manor and make sure no one forgot about the well.
That certainly didn’t work out either.
Maybe that’s why I haven’t visited in a while. I haven’t tested its abilities or asked for anything new. I thought I didn’t deserve it. However, standing right here along with Ember, I’m starting to think that maybe I do.
Maybe the well did listen, just not in the way I thought it would. I thought I would buy it. I thought I would be bringing it back to life as a solo venture. But Mr. Lewis did warn me that sometimes the well works in mysterious ways.
I guess there’s one thing I have to come to grips with.
Not only is Ember O’Malley here to stay, she might have fixed something in me along the way.
Someday soon, I’ll tell her about the well, and maybe, I don’t know, I can tell her about these feelings, too. As long as I haven’t screwed it up for myself.
“It’s perfect,” Ember says. “I’m still in shock.”
“She just needed a little love,” I agree.
“You two make a good team,” Bea says, then she winks at me with a knowing grin.
Yeah, yeah. Maybe everyone in this town knew it before I did, but Ember is quickly becoming the reason I do anything. In such a short amount of time, she’s wrapped herself around my prickly heart and evened out the edges.
Damnit, but I think I’m falling for her.