Chapter 8
Theo
She glares at me through the glass, gorgeous hazel eyes narrowed, lips pressed into a flat line. Honey-blond wisps of hair have escaped the two buns behind her ears and curl at her cheeks. Her arms fold over the most adorable pair of light denim overalls, and her hip cocks to the side.
She looks ready to give me hell.
I’m here for it.
My smile hitches wider. “Tessa told me to bring supplies. Wanna let me in?”
“Not particularly,” she shouts.
“She thought you might say that.”
My attention drifts behind her to the hallway, where it appears wet towels are sitting in a heap, then to the couch, where a few books are spread out on the cushions, then to the haphazardly stacked boxes on the wall.
This looks like way more damage than what Tessa described.
Fable steps forward quickly, blocking my view, and opens the door a few inches. “Just leave it on the porch.”
“Excuse me. What happened to, ‘Hello, Theo, my knight in shining armor. Thank you for coming to my rescue!’?”
She gives me a bored stare and says in a monotone voice, “Hello, Theo, the scoundrel in ugly scrubs. I didn’t need rescuing. You can go now.”
Laughter bubbles out of me. “You don’t like my scrubs?
” I set the fan down to turn in a circle.
“These are my favorites. Admit it, they look pretty good, right?” Her expression hardens, almost like she’s fighting the urge to look down.
I could’ve sworn I saw her checking me out yesterday in the blue version of these.
But when her eyes don’t budge, I change tactics.
“Okay, I really am here to help. I promise I’ll behave. ”
“You’ve never behaved a day in your life,” she responds, unimpressed.
“I’m turning over a new leaf. This is Theo 2.0, at your service.”
She rolls her eyes. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Told them I had to run to an emergency. Garrett’s handling our first two appointments.”
She chews at her bottom lip, analyzing me. “Thank you for bringing what I needed. It was . . . nice of you.”
That is officially the most complimentary thing she has said to me in a long time, and I don’t want to push my luck. I’m walking a very thin tightrope right now, and one wrong step could get a door slammed in my face.
I point to the books lining the couch. “It was The Hobbit?”
Her lips curve down. “Yeah.”
My heart sinks. She loved that book growing up—carried a copy of it to school for an entire year.
“Can I see it? Tessa told me how to help.”
She thinks for a moment, glancing between me and the fan and paper towels, but finally, slowly, she opens the door wider. I grab the supplies and step inside, where Knocks gives me a much warmer greeting than his owner, rushing to my feet.
I set down the fan and scoop him up, feeling Fable’s eyes on me as he curls into my neck. “You’re cute as hell, aren’t you?”
“He’s actually a menace.”
“Ah, so we’re a scoundrel and a menace. Two peas in a pod.” Knocks’s purr rumbles against my chest as I sit on the hardwood floors beside the couch.
“Except I actually like one of you.”
I crack a smile and peer down at him. “Aw, she didn’t mean that. You’ll grow on her. Just give her time.”
“I’m going to kick you out now.”
“No, no. I’ll be serious.” Setting Knocks in my lap, I grab a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.
“From what I saw in the link Tessa sent, we’re going to put a few paper towels every ten to twenty pages and press them down to soak up the water.
Then we’ll put them up in front of the fan for the rest of the day. ”
Fable sits in front of me and sets The Hobbit on the floor between us. I watch her carefully peel apart the pages. Her eyes are a little swollen, like she’s been crying this morning, and my chest pinches at the sight.
“Are you okay?” I ask gently.
“I’m fine.” She reaches out a hand and I tear off a few paper towels, helping her line the page. Lifting onto her knees, she applies pressure.
“You sure?”
Wordlessly, she nudges The Count of Monte Cristo toward me, and I get the message. Whatever is going on, I’m not in the club of people she wants to share it with. As usual.
We work quietly for a while, and when Fable reaches the end of her book, she starts over at the beginning.
I’m really trying not to focus too much on the state of the cabin around me, but it’s hard not to.
It’s sparse, only a couch and boxes in the living room, along with random tools.
My gaze snags on the pile of smoke detectors on the kitchen counter and .
. . a couple broken stairs? What is happening here?
She assured me yesterday that she could fix everything on her own, but judging by .
. . all of this . . . I’m thinking there might be more to that story.
“How’d the books get wet?” I ask.
She blows out a sharp breath. “A minor bathroom leak.”
“How minor, exactly?” I nod toward the towels in the hallway. “Because those are soaked.”
“The house is unlevel,” she grumbles, locking her elbows and pressing down on the book. “All the water went straight to the bedroom.”
“Not very minor, then.”
“No, not very minor,” she concedes, emotion coating her voice.
Her gaze crashes with mine, and there’s no fire in their hazel depths. For a moment, I can see right through to the sadness underneath. “I’m sorry.”
She stares down at The Hobbit, gliding her fingers along the edge. “Me too.”
We fall back into quiet work, punctuated by the sounds of ripping paper towels and her tiny grunts as she presses all her weight onto the book.
She tugs her white sleeves up to her elbows, revealing the thimbleberry flowers tattooed on her left arm.
They curl from her wrist, trail up under her sleeve, and all the way to her shoulder.
The first time I saw the tattoo was a few years ago. I was in town for the weekend, helping Mom install paving stones through her garden. I’d taken a break to get some things from the market for dinner, when in walked Fable in a black tank top and cut-off jeans shorts.
I froze, holding a jar of spaghetti sauce, while I tried to take in every detail from across the store. The setting sun was dancing through her wavy hair and illuminating every dark line imprinted on her arm, and I couldn’t breathe.
My sneakers are still stained from the marinara that splattered across them when the jar plunged to the ground.
“I think that’s as good as I can get this one,” she says after she has gone through The Hobbit three times.
I hand her my book and motion toward an empty corner of the living room. “Can you set them upright over there, and I’ll get the fan?”
She balances our books with the pages spread out while I plug in the fan and point it in the right direction, the gentle hum filling the cabin. The pages are still too damp to move much in the air, but hopefully in the next couple of hours they’ll dry.
Nodding, I step back and scan the room. “So, I was thinking.”
She grabs Jurassic Park and kneels on the floor again. “Did it hurt?” she deadpans.
A surprised laugh tumbles out. “Jeez, Fabes, stop flirting with me.”
“I’m not flirting with you. I’m insulting you.”
I hum wistfully, hoping I can get her to crack a smile. “My heart can’t tell the difference.”
A grin creeps into the edges of her lips before she stifles it. “You’re incredibly annoying.”
That tiny grin feels like I’ve just won the lottery. I tuck the memory of it away for safekeeping.
“I was thinking,” I start over. “That I could take a look at the pipe?” Her movements pause. Eyes shoot up to meet mine. Her lips flatten, and before she can make up some reason why she doesn’t want me to, I add, “I’ll only look. I won’t touch anything you don’t want me to.”
I can practically see the thoughts running through her head as she debates letting me into her life a little more. “Just look. Don’t try to fix it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I salute, turning toward the bathroom.
What I discover there is . . . a mess. Wet towels, channel locks, a handful of smaller wrenches, some quick-dry PVC glue, and a few sawed-off pieces of PVC litter the floor. I kneel beside the supplies and assess what might be going on.
There’s an old shutoff valve lying under the cabinet, along with several quick-connect fittings, and some smaller chunks of pipes. She obviously tried a few different ways to fix this, and I guess none of them have worked.
“What exactly happened?” I call, picking up the pieces in the cabinet to move them out of the way.
“The shutoff valve was leaking,” she replies, her voice coming closer.
“The first time, I took the valve off and tried to replace it.” I glance up to find her leaning on the doorframe.
“When that still leaked, I cut the pipe to cap it off. But then that leaked, too, so I bought those shark teeth-looking things because the internet claimed they were ‘easy,’” she says with air quotes. “But then the house flooded overnight.”
“Well, I have good and bad news. The good news is, I think we can fix it with what you have here.”
She crosses her arms. “And the bad news?”
“I mean, it’s only bad news for you.”
There’s that unimpressed glare again. “What is it?”
“You’d have to spend a few more minutes with me while we get it done.”
Her teeth tug at her bottom lip. She glares back and forth between me and the cabinet. “How annoying are you going to be?”
I smirk at her. “My baseline is incredibly annoying, I hear.”
She sighs, casting a long look over her shoulder to the bedroom. When she turns back to me, she asks, “Why are you helping me? I said no to your pretend relationship thing.”
I tilt my head. The answer seems obvious. “So you don’t have any more house floods for the foreseeable future.”
Her features soften the tiniest bit. Our eyes lock, and I can feel her gaze burrowing beneath my skin. I don’t know what she finds, but it must be good enough, because she turns to leave and tosses over her shoulder, “Fine. Fix it.” After a beat, she adds, “Please.”
Chuckling, I call after her, “Wait! Get back here!” She returns with a scowl, but I only smile wider. “Fabes, I’m not fixing it. I’m teaching you to fix it.”