Chapter 6
NASH
Oof. Why does it have to be so blasted hot in here?
I grabbed a bottle of water out of my cooler, my second of the day. It seemed like overkill when I put three cases of it in my truck this morning, but it actually might not be enough to get me through a few days in this heat.
Lifting the bottom of my shirt, I wiped the sweat off my brow to keep it from dripping down my face. The humidity had to be close to ninety percent. Even with the windows open, it felt like a sauna.
I rolled the cold bottle across my forehead and looked up to see Raven staring at me from outside. A secret thrill moved through me. My ego had me lifting my shirt one more time and flexing my abs to give her a better show. Shameless, I know.
She immediately turned back to her work, hiding behind her canvas.
I laughed, imagining her seething about getting caught. Nothing brought me more joy than getting Raven riled up.
Most of the time, she was hostile toward me. She obviously hated me. But catching her looking told me she wasn’t completely repulsed. I took that as a win.
Not that I could do anything about it.
I swore to myself, and to Rowan, that I’d stay away from his sisters. My best friend had no idea that the only woman I’d ever wanted and couldn’t get out of my head, no matter how hard I tried, was his sister, Raven.
As difficult as it was to stay away from Raven, it was even more challenging to keep my feelings from Rowan. Especially now that he was back with Elle, the love of his life, and disgustingly happy. Like all happy couples, they wanted me to join the same club.
It hadn’t been so bad when neither of us wanted to date anyone. Yeah, he frequently nudged me to ask someone out. Most of the time, I told him I was too busy, or wasn’t interested. Both were true, but not the real reason. And sometimes I did date, just to get him off my back and keep him from suspecting anything.
It was a good thing Raven was perpetually mad at me. That kept us both safe. If she’d been the least bit nice to me in the last decade, I wouldn’t have been able to resist.
Thank God she can work outside while she’s here.
I scooped up a pile of crumbled carpet pad and dumped it into the bin. The carpet came up easily, but the pad had to be scraped away, bit by grueling bit. It took me all morning to complete the task. The subfloor was now clear and ready for the new flooring, but the old kitchen linoleum still had to come out before I could work on the next phase of the renovation.
A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance.
I looked out the window and saw the sky clouding up. The weather reports gave a twenty percent chance of rain today. It’ll most likely miss us.
With my music blaring, I focused on the next area of the tear-out. The linoleum was so old, it wouldn’t peel back. I had to chisel it off the subfloor with a long-handled scraper.
Putting all of my energy and frustration into my work, I didn’t notice the rain until the door flew open and Raven and her mutt barged in.
She set her canvas and bin of supplies onto the floor and then pulled a sketchbook out from under her shirt. “Munch, stay here. I have to run out to get my chair and easel.”
I watched as she darted back outside. She got about halfway back to the cabin when the skies opened up. Raven, being Raven, set the chair and easel on the porch and stepped back out into the rain.
She opened her arms wide, and tipped her head back, letting the cool rain wash over her. She pushed her hair away from her eyes and allowed the rain to slick it back. Her tank top and shorts were soaked in an instant, along with her black combat boots. But she didn’t care in the least.
So free. So spontaneous.
I’d always envied the way she did what she wanted without worrying what others thought. She seemed to know who she was at an early age, and remained true to that, no matter what.
It’s part of what drew me to her, even back when we were kids. Opposite of her, in pretty much every way, I did my best to blend in, to belong, and to avoid attracting attention to myself. It was safer that way. But I always wished I were more like Raven.
God, how I longed to join her out in the rain. Even to simply rinse the dirt and sweat off my overheated body.
Watching her out the window, I felt like a voyeur. But the beauty of her in that moment…I was unable to pull myself away. This was as close as I could get to sharing it with her.
Rain splashed onto her face and into her mouth. She danced with her body twirling in slow motion. Her eyes closed in ecstatic reverie, a peaceful smile adorning her face.
She was an angel. I’d never say it to her face, or to anyone else. But beneath her attitude and bravado was something more. Something that stole the breath right out of my lungs.
But then she opened her eyes and caught me gawking. Sure, I tried to play it off, pretended to wipe something off the windowpane. Didn’t fool her, though. Her face transformed back into the tempestuous tigress I was used to seeing.
The door flung open, and she stood dripping onto the wood subfloor. She shook her head wildly, not unlike Munch would do, flinging water droplets all around her.
“Hey, you’re messing up my clean floor.” I tried to sound grumpy, but probably confirmed the dork that I was.
She looked down at the bare plywood subfloor riddled with patches of glue and pad that wouldn’t come off. “I love what you’ve done with the place. They say distressed flooring is in style, but I don’t think they meant it literally. Gladys wouldn’t happen to have some towels stashed in here somewhere, would she?”
I pointed to a room down the hall. “Check the guest room. She told me there was a box labeled linen closet, with sheets for the bed. Maybe there’ll be towels in there, too.”
A few minutes later, she came back rubbing her hair with a towel. When she’d got it as dry as she could, she patted her soaked clothes. Even soaking wet, she still gave off the fresh minty scent that was uniquely Raven.
“I hope you have other clothes,” I grumbled.
“I do, but they’re in the car. I’ll just wait it out, and when the rain slows down, I’ll head home.”
“You’re going home in this?”
“Not right now, but I’m sure it’ll die down in a bit and then I’ll make a break for it.”
I peered out the window. Dark clouds enshrouded the sky, making it look hours later than it was. Thunder boomed and lightning flashed. It was a deluge out there. “Good luck with that.”
Her posture stiffened to match her resolve. “I said that’s what I’m going to do, so I’ll do it. You’ll see.”
“No sense drying off then. You might as well make a break for it now, before it gets worse.”
The indignant expression on her face gave me a burst of satisfaction.
“Come on, Munch,” she said. “Race you to the car.”
She and her dog sprinted out the door to her car. I watched, waiting for her car to come to life and back out of the driveway. But it didn’t happen.
What was she doing? Agitated, I mumbled, “It isn’t going to lighten up, Raven, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”
A few minutes later, Raven and Munch plunged into the room, soaking wet again. This time she carried bags with her that she had retrieved from her car.
In an attempt to cover up my awkwardness, I had to give her a hard time. “Hey, you two are making puddles all over this fancy floor.”
She bent over at the waist and looked over at Munch. “Ready Munch?” They both started shaking their heads and bodies. Water splattered all over the room.
“Much better.” I couldn’t help but smile. “Decide I was right, and it’s too treacherous for driving?”
“No. I could drive in this. No problem. But apparently Clive disagrees.”
“Clive?”
“My car. Of all times, he chooses now to protest starting.”
A chuckle erupted from me. “Protest starting? You mean that rusted bucket of bolts finally gave up the ghost?”
“Clive is not dead. He’s just resting.”
“You mean like your fish rested on his back on the bottom of your fishbowl back in grade school?”
“He woke up the next day. Just needed a good nap.”
I smiled at the memory. “You still believe that?”
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”
I shook my head and walked back to the kitchen to get back to work. Rowan and I had scooped out her dead fish and replaced it with a new identical one. It hadn’t taken much to convince Rowan to help me make the swap. He thought it would be a good prank on his sister. But my motives were different.
“You tricked me, didn’t you? Did Felix die, and you lied, letting me believe he woke up?”
I picked up my scraper and went back to scraping the linoleum, trying hard to keep a lid on my feelings. I was a pro at that. Normally.
Still standing on the other side of the room, she stomped her wet boot to get my attention. “How could you do that to me? What an insensitive brute. You were mean to me even back then.”
“I’ve never been mean to you, Tweet.” I kept my voice steady and my eyes on what I was doing.
“Look me in the eye and tell me you had nothing to do with Felix’s resurrection.”
I kept chipping away at the floor, unable to look at her.
“I knew it.” She moved closer and glared at me with her hands on her hips. “So you thought it’d be funny to pull a fast one on me, huh? Bet you had a good laugh over that. The only thing you’d have liked better would have been if I’d have caught on. Then you would have rubbed it in and teased me about it forever.”
My fingers tightened around the scraper to keep from reaching out and touching her. “Let it go, Tweet. You’ve got it all wrong.”
“I don’t think I do. You live to torment me, Senor Spite. Always have.”
“Whatever.” I chipped away at the flooring.
Munch pounced on a scrap of carpet pad I had missed, and ran around shaking it in his mouth, proud of his conquest. He dropped it at my feet. I recognized this game and tossed it across the room for him to fetch.
Raven, however, was not distracted by this, or ready to let go of her argument. “What about the time you and Rowan stole the cookies from the kitchen just when I was about to take one, brought them up into your treehouse and pulled up the ladder? Then you two stood at the window stuffing your mouths full and moaning about how good they were.”
She had me there. We did do that. Just to rile her up. It didn’t take much to get her going. Still doesn’t. “I tossed you one to get you to stop your whining.”
“You threw it into the dirt on purpose.”
“I was ten. What do you expect?”
“What about when you held me down so Rowan could dangle spit from his mouth right over my face, and then suck it back in just before it hit me?”
“That was all Rowan.”
“You were a willing accomplice. And thus just as guilty.”
“So you judge me by the idiotic things I did in my youth. Is that fair?”
“I don’t see much has changed.”
“Of course you don’t. But I haven’t done anything like that to you since middle school.”
“I knew you were a despicable fiend, but I didn’t realize you were such a liar.”
“I may be a lot of things, Tweet, but I’m not a liar. We give each other a hard time and banter back and forth. That’s what we do. But I’ve never been mean to you and I’ve never—” I turned away. The memory of my worst and biggest lie popped into my head. She was right, I was a liar. Especially when it came to what mattered most.
“Come on, Lord Lies-A-Lot. You couldn’t even say it out loud. The lie dried up on your tongue. Didn’t it?”
That’s exactly what happened. But I couldn’t admit that to her. “We’re both here to work. Why don’t you let me get back to mine?”
“I’ll gladly leave you to your work after you give my car a jump so I can get out of here.”
“Sorry, Tweet. Not gonna happen.”
“What? Are you kidding me? You won’t even help me when I need it. Unbelievable.”
“You really think it’s safe to be standing outside in a thunderstorm holding a pair of metal jumper cables, hooking them up in the pouring rain and running electricity through them? If you want to electrocute yourself, be my guest. But I won’t help you do it.”
“Hmmph.” Her shoulders sank. She looked out the window with a dejected expression on her face. “Well, as soon as it stops raining, I’m out of here.”
I looked up to the heavens. If there is anyone up there, please do something about this storm, so we both make it out of here unscathed.
Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, rattling the entire place. Rain poured down in sheets. All I could see was gray.
I returned my gaze to the sky. Thanks for nothing.