Chapter 12 #2
‘Right over there.’ He points to a wall display of phone accessories.
I go up to it and see the one Kate needs. There’s only one left and it’s expensive. I don’t have the money for this. But she said she’d pay me back. And I know how badly she wants to use her phone.
‘Add this,’ I say, handing the charging cord to Mr. Finkle.
He rings it up. ‘That’ll be $136.85.’
Shit, that’s expensive. How much are those sweatshirts?
‘I only have 50. Could you put the rest on my account?’
He shakes his head. ‘You already got 200 on that account.’
I do? I didn’t remember it being that much.
‘Can you just add this to what I owe you? I’ll pay you back this week. ’
He eyes me. ‘What’s going on with you, Brody? You having money problems?’
‘No. I just don’t have the cash on me.’
‘You’ve had an outstanding bill here for a month now. And you keep adding to it.’
‘I just forgot about it. But I swear, I’ll get it paid this week.’
‘You better,’ he says, taking a pen from his pocket and writing down what I owe him on a pad of paper. ‘You’re a good kid, but I can’t be giving stuff away for free. I got a business to run. I gotta pay the bills.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ I give him the 50 in cash. ‘I’ll get you the rest this week. I promise.’
He puts everything in a bag and hands it to me. ‘You be careful out there.’
‘I will. And thanks again for opening the store.’
Back at the house, I walk in and see Kate sitting on the couch wearing my black hoodie.
She had a blanket over her legs, but she took it off and got up when I came in.
My gaze drops to her bare legs. She’s wearing the black hoodie and nothing else.
I get that my pants don’t fit her, but this shirt-only look is driving me fucking crazy, especially when I know there’s a good chance she’s wearing nothing underneath it.
‘I got everything you need,’ I tell her. ‘Or as much as I could.’
‘Thanks for doing that,’ she says, sounding relieved. ‘It’ll be nice to finally have clothes that fit.’
‘Oh, and I found a cord for your phone.’
‘Really?’ Her whole face lights up.
‘Yeah. They only had one left so I got it. ’
‘Thank you!’ She comes up to me and hugs me, wrapping her arms around my neck.
I reach down to hug her back and feel her ass. Her naked freaking ass. I quickly let go of her. ‘Shit. Sorry.’ I back away.
‘Oh. Yeah,’ she says, looking as awkward as I feel. ‘I was gonna ask you to get some, um, underwear, but then I thought it might be weird.’
‘I don’t think they sell that stuff there.’
‘Yeah, that makes sense.’ She clears her throat. ‘Do you have the receipt? I’ll send you the money when my phone’s working again.’
‘It’s in one of the sacks.’
She picks them up. ‘Can I look through everything?’
‘Yeah, go ahead.’
She brings the sacks to the couch and takes out one of the sweatshirts. ‘Kanfield Orchard.’ She smiles. ‘I like it.’
‘It’s all they had in your size. It was either that or a Hayden Falls sweatshirt in extra large.’
‘It’s really cute’ She sets the sweatshirt down and pulls out a t-shirt. ‘Another Kanfield shirt?’
‘I swear, it’s all they had. This is a tourist town and the orchard’s a big deal. It’s the main reason a lot of people come here. The drugstore sells a lot of our merchandise.’
‘Another Kanfield sweatshirt,’ she says, laughing as she holds it up. ‘And Kanfield sweatpants. I’ll be a good advertisement for you.’
‘Yeah, you will. Sorry, but it really is all they had. I would have gotten you something else if I could’ve, but this time of year we don’t get a lot of people coming through town and those were left over from the fall. ’
‘I’m just kidding. These are all great. I’ll go put them on.’
She goes in her room and comes back a few minutes later wearing Kanfield Orchard sweatpants and a Kanfield Orchard sweatshirt.
I laugh, seeing her dressed like that. I should get a picture and send it to my parents.
‘What do you think?’ she asks, spinning around.
‘You look great. And everything seems to fit.’
‘The pants are a little tight.’ She looks down at them. ‘But they’ll stretch out.’
She’s bigger on the bottom than she is on top. I hadn’t noticed that before now because I haven’t really seen her body. She’s got a rounded ass that fills out the sweatpants in the best possible way. It’s going to be hard not to look at it. At least the sweatshirt is big on her.
‘While you were gone,’ Kate says, racing over to me, ‘I had some ideas.’ She’s got that wide-eyed, excited look she had earlier when we were out in the snow.
‘Ideas about what?’ I ask.
‘About my room. Well, the room I’m staying in.’
‘What about it?’
‘I can describe it better if we’re in there.’ She takes off to her room.
I follow behind, not sure what this is about, but I like seeing her excited. It’s a lot better than seeing her sad.
She waits until I’m in the room, then says, ‘I was thinking we could paint the walls a greenish-gray color. It’s considered a neutral and is so much better than white or boring beige.
And it’s really in right now.’ She goes over to the window, which is covered by black metal blinds from the previous owner.
‘We could easily replace the blinds with new white ones and then get a white comforter for the bed. It’s a small room so the white will help open it up and make it feel airy, but the darker wall color will keep it from feeling cold.
Accent pillows on the bed could bring in some color.
I’m thinking something warm, like maybe orange.
Add in a small lamp for the nightstand and the room would basically be done.
Oh! And I was thinking we could get a colorful throw to put along the end of the bed and then for the closet—’
‘Okay, stop,’ I say, hearing the anger in my voice. ‘I’m not doing any of that.’
She looks at me, the excitement on her face replaced with disappointment. ‘It’s just a suggestion.’
‘Yeah, I get that, but I didn’t ask for your suggestions.’
She’s looking at me like she’s trying to figure out why I got so angry just now. If I could tell her the truth, I would, but I can’t. I’m too embarrassed to admit I got myself into this mess and don’t know how to get out.
‘I wasn’t trying to tell you what to do,’ she says. ‘It’s just that when I see an empty room like this, I automatically imagine how I’d decorate it. I didn’t mean to make you mad.’
‘I’m not mad. Let’s just forget it, okay?’ I turn to leave.
‘Brody, wait.’ She races up to me, meeting me at the door. ‘I was just giving you some ideas. You said decorating wasn’t your thing so—’
‘I’m fine with how the room looks now.’ I glance at it, at the stained carpet and broken blinds, the walls that need painting, and the trim that needs to be replaced.
The room looks like shit, but new blinds and a new comforter aren’t going to fix it.
Major work needs to be done and I don’t have the money for it.
‘But aren’t you trying to sell the house?’ Kate asks.
‘Yeah, but not now. I need to fix it up first and I don’t have the—’ I stop before I say money. ‘I don’t have the time to do it right now.’
‘Which is why this is perfect!’ She gets that excited look again.
‘What’s perfect?’
‘Me staying here. I could fix up the room. It’ll give me something to do. I’ll start with the paint because that’s easy.’
‘Paint is last. The floor and trim have to be fixed first.’
‘So I’ll start with that. Do you know what’s under the carpet?’
‘No, but—’
‘Let’s pull it up and see!’ She kneels down on the floor and tugs at the edge of the carpet.
‘Kate, stop!’ I hear my angry tone and take a breath to calm down.
‘What’s wrong?’ She looks up at me with her big brown eyes.
‘Get up.’ I offer her my hand and pull her up to standing.
‘I appreciate you wanting to help, but I really don’t want to do this right now.
I need to focus on my business. Winter and summer are my busiest times.
I can’t be taking time off to work on the house.
Maybe in the spring I’ll get back to work on it. ’
She nods. ‘I understand.’ She pauses. ‘But if you wanted me to, I could watch some videos online and learn how to do some of this stuff myself. Like the trim work? I’ve seen that done on home shows. It didn’t look that hard.’
‘I don’t want your help,’ I say, then realize that sounded harsh. ‘I appreciate your offer. I really do. It’s just not the right time.’
‘Yeah.’ She gives me a half smile. ‘I get it.’
‘Why don’t we go do something?’
‘Like what?’
I pause to think. ‘You play poker?’
She smiles a little. ‘Maybe.’
‘What does that mean? Are you saying you’re good but trying to pretend you’re not?’
‘I played in college.’ She shrugs. ‘I might have been good.’
‘Let’s find out.’
We go to the kitchen table and I get the cards out.
I feel bad for getting upset with her, but when she was rattling off all those suggestions for the room, all I could see were dollar signs. Her ideas sounded great, but I don’t have the money for it. And talking about this stupid house just reminds me what a mistake it was to buy it.