Chapter 7 #2
“Because I have to say, I might have been unkind earlier, but I didn’t actively try to kill you.”
“I’m not trying to—! Wait, were you just pretending—?”
He did some kind of full-body curl that let him stand without using his hands and began brushing the snow off himself. “I’m sorry for earlier,” he said sincerely, “but now you’re sharing the ice cream.”
I forced myself to look away when he dusted both hands over his sculpted rear and got to my own feet less gracefully.
“Son of a bunion,” I muttered, knocking the worst of the snow off my knees. “Should’ve seen that coming.”
“Let’s get inside.” He clomped up the stairs to the front door, swinging his ice cream bag. “We can go over the—”
“Wait!” I cried a second too late.
Webb pushed the front door open… and just like last summer, the entire frame collapsed into the front hall. This time, I saw particles of wood splinter off, and I winced.
“What… the fuck… just happened,” Webb growled, eyes wide as he stared down at his hand, which had been clenched around a doorknob until seconds before.
“There’s a slight problem with the door,” I said apologetically. “I should have warned you, but no one actually comes in this door, because no one ever actually comes out here, and I—”
“This is a huge safety issue!” Webb exploded, turning on the top stoop to look at me, his teasing, lighthearted demeanor utterly evaporated.
“If you’d been behind that door when someone tried to open it, you could have been crushed.
Jesus Christ, Luke. I was trying not to bite your head off about climbing up on your portico without making sure the ground around your ladder was stable, but this—”
“Hey! The ladder was perfectly stable when I climbed onto the portico.” I set my hands on my hips. “And it’s none of your—”
“Facts are facts,” he insisted, talking over me. “You were up on the portico, and the ladder was down on the ground, so clearly—”
“Because I had the ladder balanced on top of the portico so I could reach the roof, jerkface!”
I clapped both hands over my mouth and stared at him with wide eyes. “I’m so sorry. Name-calling is never okay. Please accept my—” I babbled in horror.
At the same time, Webb exploded, “Are you fucking serious? The fucking roof? Are you fucking insane?”
Okay, so clearly Webb didn’t share my concerns about insulting language.
“I wasn’t doing it for funsies, Webb Sunday!” I said defensively. “I was trying to get a tarp up there before it snowed again and caused even more damage. I had no choice.”
“Sure you did! You could have asked a professional!” he shot back. “You could have bought a decent-sized ladder.”
“What professional? And how would I pay them? And how would I transport a ladder anywhere with my little car? Criminy, I’m doing my best!” I took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
I prided myself on my patience, but the second I was around this man, it seemed to evaporate.
“Besides,” I said in a more moderate tone, “this whole place is a safety hazard. The roof and the door are just… a drop in the bucket.”
Webb gave me a look of patent disbelief, and I sighed. “Go inside. You’ll see.”
With one last glare, Webb stepped over the remains of the door and into the entry hall.
I watched his eyes track over the buckled stairs and ripped wallpaper before he stepped into the living room.
He swore under his breath when he saw the small mountain of plaster and the hole in the ceiling, but I caught the sleeve of his jacket before he could go in and inspect it further.
“I don’t think the living room’s safe. That hole goes all the way to the roof, and more might fall any minute. That’s why I was trying to get a tarp up there.”
Webb blinked at me. He shook off my hand to brush past me in the other direction, through a second parlor, where he ran a hand over the deep cracks in the plaster walls. Finally, he stepped into the kitchen, where he made a strangled, distressed sort of noise.
Seeing the house through his eyes, I felt a creeping sense of shame, even though the condition wasn’t remotely my fault.
“I, um… I reinforced the back steps,” I informed him proudly.
“Figured out how to pour the concrete and everything. And there were some floor joist issues in the basement that I got taken care of. Oh, and you should see the barn. I upgraded the electrical all by myself and got the water tank working for the sheep.”
He ignored me and headed for the back staircase, but I grabbed his arm again to stop him. “The second floor was really weak in spots even back in July, and I haven’t even tried to get to the attic.”
“Fuck.” Webb ran a hand over the blackened brick of the kitchen fireplace.
“I had no idea. It wasn’t remotely this bad last time I was inside here, but…
that was a long time ago.” He chewed the inside of his lip for a second, then sighed.
“I keep telling myself I don’t wanna hear this story, but I guess I probably do.
How’d you get the land, then? Ben ran a contest, I know that much. ”
“He did,” I agreed. “And I—oh, lawsy.” A cold draft blew down the chimney, and I shivered hard in my snow-covered clothes. “Sorry, what was I saying?”
“Jesus. Go change into something warm before you die of hypothermia and my family never speaks to me again,” Webb ordered, sounding weary. Then he frowned. “Hang on, are you sleeping in this place?”
“In here? No way.” It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if he thought I was an idiot, but I was pretty sure the answer was yes. “There’s a perfectly fine trailer out there.” I nodded toward the kitchen door and the yard beyond. “That’s where Ben slept, too.”
“Thank fuck for that, anyway,” Webb muttered, grabbing my elbow. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before anything else happens to you.”