Chapter 3 #2
Paige hesitated, uncertain if she should be accepting help from Hudson. The guy really had tormented her when they were kids, so she was struggling to trust him.
He grimaced. “No strings attached. No hidden whammies. I’m trying to make up for the shit I did to you in school.” He gestured toward the rug. “I know this doesn’t come close, but it might help assuage some of my guilt.”
Hudson felt guilty for what he did to her?
“There are, uh, a few empty boxes in the front foyer, the last from my unpacking,” she said.
Hudson smiled as if she’d just given him a gift, rather than more trash to haul. “Let’s grab them and add them to the pile.”
He waited for her to lead the way, clearly uncertain if she was going to invite him in. She was seriously debating the wisdom of doing so, but in the end, she nodded and started for the front door. She hated clutter, and she’d been dodging the boxes on her way in and out for days.
“They’re just right inside,” she said, as she opened the front screen door.
She turned to look at Hudson when he whistled.
“Damn!” he exclaimed, as he walked over to the arched entryway that led to the living room, running his hand over it.
The arches were one of the things she loved most about the house.
They added such an elegant touch. Not that the elegance was noticeable, considering the wall surrounding the arch was covered in the gaudiest purple floral wallpaper ever designed.
“The arches are great, aren’t they?” she said, directing his attention farther down the foyer. “There’s another one here that leads into the formal dining room.”
Hudson followed her, then pulled up short, no longer looking at the arch but into the dining room. “Holy shit,” he breathed.
Again, Paige’s back went up. She was getting tired of everyone’s “what the hell have you done” reactions whenever they walked through her house. It might currently be a mess, but Paige couldn’t understand why no one else saw the potential.
Before she could snap at Hudson, telling him the house was a work in progress, he spoke.
“Who the fuck hides gorgeous hardwood floors under shag carpeting?” he muttered, almost angrily.
Oh. Yeah.
Hudson was as taken aback by Paige’s discovery as she was.
“Actually, who the fuck puts carpet in a dining room,” he added.
She grinned because yeah…that too.
“I had no idea it was hardwood under the carpet,” she said. “My original plan had been to hire someone to lay down laminate flooring, but now—”
“You can’t take this out,” he insisted. “It would be a crime.”
Paige agreed one thousand percent. “I agree, but, well…” Once the hardwood was revealed, she’d started watching videos on how to refinish them.
“I’ve been doing some research, trying to figure out if I can save them.
” Hudson said he was a contractor, so she might as well take advantage of his expertise, since she didn’t have anyone else to ask.
“The floors look really rough after a million decades buried under all that shag. I wasn’t sure if I could refinish—”
“You totally can. Refinishing floors isn’t all that hard, though I’ll admit it’s physically grueling.
You can rent an orbital sander from the hardware store for the main part of the floor, but I’m afraid you’ll have to sand the edges and corners by hand.
That’s what takes a toll on the back and knees.
You need to pay attention to the grit on your sandpaper, too.
Start with coarse on the first pass, then progress to finer grits. ”
“You sound like you’ve done this before,” she mused.
“Been working construction since graduation. I’ve sanded my fair share of floors. I’m also a licensed plumber.”
“You are?” She hated to sound so shocked, but—bad as it seemed—she sort of suspected Hudson would spend some part of his adult years in jail, if all the time he’d spent in Dad’s courthouse was anything to go by.
“It’s always been my intention to take over Granddad’s business.
I worked for a man in Dallas who believed the best contractors knew how everything worked.
He manages a huge construction company. One so large that he had an in-house crew of plumbers and electricians, so I apprenticed with his plumbers. ”
“That sounds great. But like I said, Hudson, I’m not really looking for a contractor. Just a handyman to help me do some of the renovations.”
“Macie said you have a leak somewhere.”
Paige sighed. “Macie has a big mouth.”
Hudson laughed. “And everyone in town knows it, Princess.”
She growled, but he ignored her, grinning.
“TJ, who also loves the sound of his own voice, said Maris lost their plumber and y’all have to call to Douglas now whenever you need someone.”
Paige grimaced, because Hudson clearly knew he had her over a barrel, something that was bothering her less and less as they continued talking.
For one thing, he’d been perfectly polite, and his sincere apology had been appreciated.
Hell, he’d even gone the extra mile, lugging her heavy carpet to his truck and offering to make the dump run.
“Douglas is over an hour’s drive, so unless it’s an emergency, it takes longer for us to get someone to Maris for general plumbing concerns.
Mainly because there’s plenty of work for plumbers in Douglas without them having to make the long drive.
As such, we tend to get placed lower on the list,” she admitted, as she led him to her office.
She pointed at the water-stained ceiling.
“The master bathroom is above this room, so obviously the leak is coming from there. The previous owner said the leak had been repaired before his aunt passed away. Unfortunately, I believed him.”
Hudson walked over and touched the wall. “It’s a bit damp.”
Paige nodded. “Even with the leak, it’s the only functioning shower.
I tried using the one in the guest bathroom, but it has zero water pressure.
I put a call in to a couple of plumbers in Douglas, but I haven’t heard back from either of them yet.
So…I’m taking showers at the speed of light every other day. ”
“Sounds like it’s been leaking awhile. You’re going to have to replace the drywall on this wall and the ceiling.”
“I know,” she said.
“And the floors under this carpet might need a lot more work, especially if the hardwood is rotten.”
“Great,” she muttered.
“Since you’re tearing the whole ceiling down to replace the drywall, you should also get your plumber to see about replacing all the pipes.”
“Why?” Paige asked.
“This is an old house. Unless someone updated the plumbing in the last fifty years, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you’ve got cast-iron pipes.”
“I think I do.”
“It would be easy to replace the cast iron with PEX, while the ceiling is down. But even if you don’t, you should consider hiring a plumber to replace it all eventually because cast iron corrodes, which can lead to leaks,” he pointed to the ceiling, “or blockages as rust builds up. Which might be the cause of your low water pressure.”
“That’s a good suggestion. I’ll add it to my list and see if I can get someone to work on the pipes while the ceiling is down.
Would you, um, want to see the rest of the house?
” Paige had no clue where that invitation came, but Hudson really was a wealth of information, so it would be stupid not to see what other suggestions he had.
Hudson nodded. “I’d love to.
The two of them worked their way through the house room by room.
Hudson listened to her ideas for the renovation, and more than once she got the sense he was impressed by her plans.
No one, not even her family, had understood her excitement.
But Hudson not only got it, in some ways it felt like he shared it.
She could also tell from the way he talked about his work that he genuinely loved his job. It wasn’t just a paycheck for him.
They ended the tour in the kitchen because it needed the most work.
“I’m thinking of taking out this broom closet-slash-pantry thing because it eats up one whole corner of the room, and it’s not big enough to justify such a poor use of space.”
Hudson nodded slowly, then pulled a tape measure out of his back pocket. “You know, this space would be perfect for the refrigerator.”
Paige hadn’t considered that. “Oh my God. It would be. And that would allow me to add at least two more cabinets and expand the countertop.”
“It’s a nice-size kitchen, but the layout is all wrong. Getting rid of that closet is a great idea.”
She smiled, walking over to the kitchen table to flip open her notebook.
Hudson stepping behind her, chuckling. “Still organizing your work with those color-coded tab things, Princess?”
She narrowed her eyes as she glanced over her shoulder at him, but there was no anger behind the look this time.
“Each section represents a room. It’s where I keep all my thoughts and ideas.
This house is way bigger than the apartment I just moved out of, so obviously I need more furniture.
I’ve got lists of things I’d like to buy eventually, and I’ve hand drawn layouts of how I plan to arrange the furniture in each room. ”
Hudson studied her lists and her drawings. “You always did think a hundred miles ahead. This is cool. And I can really see your vision now.”
Paige had spent a few minutes in each room describing her thoughts about the décor and color schemes. She hadn’t even thought to take the notebook along with them on the tour.
Hudson flipped to the front of the large three-ring binder. “What’s this?”
“It was my schedule for the remodel.” Paige ran her finger along the columns. “The days I’m off and what I hope to do. This column represented the days Bobby was going to work, both solo and with me—which is, of course, garbage now.”
“Why are you so fired up to do all of this work yourself?”