Chapter 5 Ella #3
I bent down to untie my boots and used it as an excuse to check out the hardwood floors I’d heard so much about at Jack’s. The planks were well over a foot wide, and they gleamed a rich gold.
“This looks awesome, Ben,” I said, straightening.
“You like it?” He took my jacket and hung it on the free-standing wooden coat rack just inside the door. “The stain isn’t too light? After it dried, I started thinking about adding another layer.”
I shook my head. “It’s perfect just like this.”
A soft chime came from deeper in the house. He turned toward it. “Coffee’s done. Come on in.”
I followed after him, the dogs hot on my heels. “Be good,” I told them. “No licking the walls or trying to eat plastic.”
“They eat plastic often?” Ben asked.
“No, but I just wanted to get ahead of it in case they were thinking of picking today to start.”
He chuckled, a deep, bass rumble that I could really get used to hearing.
The hallway was lined with doors, all closed, most likely sealing off the rooms with fresh paint or exposed wiring. At the end, the hall opened right up to the kitchen, which dominated the middle of the house.
The flooring changed from hardwood to dark slate tile as I passed over the threshold.
It spread out in a large rectangle, framing the kitchen space.
In the middle was the base of an oversized island, unfinished, with a plywood top.
There was a fridge, a gas range, and all the framework for lower cabinets, though they didn’t have doors, and they hadn’t been painted yet.
Above the farm-style sink, an oversized window looked out on the back yard.
To the left was the barn, and to the right, much further away, the edge of the forest.
It was a nice view now. It would be beautiful in the warmer months.
I stopped at the island and inspected the builder samples spread out on top of it. Paint swatches, wood stains, tiles, and kitchen hardware were clustered together in groups: white with dark blue with silver; black with copper with lightly stained wood; subway tile with butcher block.
“How do you take your coffee,” Ben asked.
I looked up to see Fred and Sam on either side of his legs, “helping” him. He didn’t seem to mind, one hand idly scratching Fred between the ears, so I let them be.
“Just cream, if you have it,” I answered. “Are these your potential pallets for the kitchen finishes?”
“They are,” he said, his back to me as he poured. “I’m thinking butcher block for the island countertop and cement for the rest. I like that dark blue paint for the lowers, and then for the open shelving, cast iron supports with the same butcher block used for the shelving to tie it all together.”
I imagined it for a minute, moving the corresponding samples together to get the full picture. I could see it spread out in front of me when I looked up again. It would lend the space a kind of understated, industrial farmhouse look.
“What about the backsplash?” I asked.
He turned to me, coffee mugs in hand, and set mine down near my right hand. “Uh…this one,” he said, picking up a sample from another pile and moving it over to join those I’d gathered together.
It was a swatch of unfinished cuts of rectangular rock, tiled in a herringbone pattern, light gray in color, with a rough surface and darker veins running through it that would go great with cement counters and slate flooring.
“I want to tile the wall around the window above the sink with it,” he said, pointing.
“That’s going to be awesome, Ben.”
His answering grin lit up his face. “You think so?”
Jesus, buddy, watch where you point that smile.
I nodded. “I don’t know why Jack thought I was needed. You’ve clearly got this.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
I wrapped my hands around my coffee mug, thankful for the distraction. The first sip was magical. Exactly the right temperature, not acidic at all, just a nice, mellow bean with the perfect amount of cream.
“Hey, thanks for coming over,” Ben said. “I know it was a weird phone call. My parents are worried about me all alone out here, and if I don’t give my mother proof that I have human interaction of some kind, she’ll hop on a plane and fly out.”
And that would be a bad thing, because…? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. None of my damn business. “No problem,” I said instead. “My sister needed some space anyway.”
“Family in town for Christmas?”
“The entire family. Megan and her wife Stacey are bunking down at my place. Megan is the sole introvert in our family, so she needs to have quiet time, which is why they stay with me whenever they’re in town.”
Ben gave me a questioning look.
“I know when to leave her alone,” I told him.
“They drove up from Boston yesterday, and after the stress of that, the energy level of the dogs, my excitement to see them, and a night of cribbage, she’s pretty wiped out.
We’re going cross country skiing later, so she needs to recharge her battery before that. ”
“Makes sense,” he said. “What’s cribbage?”
I stared at him. “What? How do you not know what cribbage is?”
He smiled and shrugged.
“They don’t have it in Hawaii?”
He shook his head, his mane of hair floating around him in a way that made me want to reach out and bury my fingers into it to see if it was as soft as it looked. “If it has, I somehow missed it.”
I frowned. “But I thought it was big in the Midwest.”
“Might be. All anyone wanted to play in Wisconsin was euchre when I was out there.”
“Huh, never heard of it.”
He threw his hands up, grinning, and mimicked my disbelief from a moment before. “What? How do you not know what euchre is?”
I clammed up for a second. He was treating me like I swore I wouldn’t treat him.
What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?
Maybe acting a little more like myself would be okay after all? Maybe?
“Well,” I said. “Clearly it pales in comparison to cribbage, or I certainly would have heard of it before.”
He waved a hand at me. “Describe this king of all games.”
“No way. I won’t be able to do its glory justice. It’s way easier to explain while playing. I’ll just have to bring a board over next time I – crap, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to invite myself over again.”
“You didn’t invite yourself over the first time,” he said.
Of course he was super polite. Of course. It made me feel like an even bigger asshole for immediately breaking my own promise to myself, and to him, not that he knew it.
“You know what I mean,” I said, and, feeling the need to explain myself, I just. Kept.
Going. “I can be pushy. And I know you said you hate it when people pry, which is pretty close, so please tell me to back off. Seriously, sometimes I don’t even realize I’m doing it.
I won’t be insulted. I probably need more of that in my life, actually.
Most of my family let me bowl right over them because they know how I am and that I don’t mean to, like, insert myself into their lives like they don’t have plans or something.
My brother’s wife says it’s because…uh, you know what, never mind. ”
Wow. I almost told him I shared a character trait with sociopaths. That would have been a fun conversation to have the second time meeting someone.
He placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Ella, it’s fine. It’s nice having someone else in the house.”
He squeezed me and then let go, and I stared down into my coffee afterward, trying to think of something to say to break this uncomfortable silence.
Too much silence, I realized.
Shit! The dogs!
I whipped my head up. They were nowhere in sight.
“Faaak,” I said, the word strangled as I pushed away from the island. “Sam! Fred!”
Ben pointed to an open doorway behind me. “They went that way.”
I dashed toward it.
“There’s nothing in there for them to get into!” he called after me.
“They’ll find something! It’s their superpower!”
I skidded to a stop just inside the room. A fire danced in the fireplace, safely tucked behind a large metal screen. Sprawled out in front of it, on thick blankets that looked like they had been set there just for them, were the dogs, both chewing on a piece of rawhide.
“I grabbed a couple of treats from Jack when I told him they were coming over, and he suggested the makeshift dog beds,” Ben said from just behind me.
I nearly jumped when he started speaking. For a big guy, he sure did move quietly. Or maybe my panicked pulse had masked the sound of his footfalls. “That was…really thoughtful.”
He stepped next to me and shrugged one massive shoulder. “Well, you were doing me a favor, coming over here. I wanted you and them to feel welcome.”
Why did he have to be so nice?
My hormones.
Help.
I nodded for a second like an idiot before remembering my manners. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. This is kind of a nice scene, with them snuggled down and the fire going. It would make for a cozy selfie to send to my parents.”
Some might say romantic, but I’d be damned if I was going to point that out right now.
“Sure,” I said. “This is perfect if you want to include them in it. In most of the pictures I take of them, they show up as black and white blurs. The only time they’re still is when they’re eating or sleeping.” Or shitting, but again, not saying that.
Behind the dogs was a comfortable looking leather sofa, with end tables on either side.
We set our coffee down on the nearest one and then positioned ourselves so that we were visible in the camera frame, with the dogs and the fire in the background.
Even with Ben’s freakishly long arms, we still ended up smooshed together to get the shot.
I was excruciatingly aware of the heat radiating off of his big body, of the swell of his bicep where it pressed against my arm.
“Smile,” he said, and then took the picture.
I looked kind of manic in it. My eyes were too wide.
All of my teeth were visible. If he wanted to keep his parents from worrying, I was afraid seeing the face I was making next to their son would have the opposite effect.
Maybe I’d get lucky, and they’d be so distracted by the beauty of my dogs that they wouldn’t notice the creeper in the frame.
He pulled the phone down and sent the image off.
Not five seconds later, the unmistakable ring of a FaceTime call filled the room.
Ben sighed. “Seriously, Mom?” He lifted his eyes to mine. “I’m sorry about this in advance.”
I had just enough time to freak out before he picked up.