Lukas
An avalanche of stale dust and debris rains down on me as I tear down the next group of ceiling tiles.
The worn, rotted piece crumbles in my hand, falling through my fingers to land on the floor around me.
There’s a gray haze in the air, and for once, I’m thankful that Grayson pulled the big brother card and suggested—no, more like demanded—that we all wear dust masks.
Otherwise, I’d be sucking in about a hundred years of plaster and mouse droppings with each breath.
We have the front door and all the windows propped open to let as much crisp fall air in as possible, yet there’s a stink to this house that we can’t quite clear. A musty, closed-off smell that stings my nostrils and has my eyes watering each time we’ve worked on it.
“Jesus Christ!” Theo shouts, just as two of the tiles fall down at once, landing on his head.
He jumps back, his head twisting one way then the other, eyes darting to the floor to desperately scan among the garbage surrounding his feet.
When he whips around, I see something black hanging from the hood of his sweatshirt.
“Hey, Theo.” I point, but before I can get the rest of the words out of my mouth, his body jerks, and he starts running his hands over his arms, reaching one over to brush his shoulders.
“Where the fuck is it?” he screeches, flailing and flapping his hands around his head.
I’m trying to call his name, trying to tell him that the flattened, dried out carcass of a mouse is dangling from the neck of his hoodie by its crusted tail, but I’m laughing too hard at his high-pitched screams to get the words out.
Theo finally rips off his ballcap and sweatshirt, throwing them both to the floor along with the dead mouse. He screeches again, lifting one booted foot to stomp over the discarded pile before running to the doorway.
Once he deems himself safe, he turns toward the mess, letting out a full-body shudder when he spots what it was. It’s then that he looks up at Grayson trying to hold in his laughter, me nearly doubled over from it, and his fear turns sinister.
“You son of a bitch,” I yelp as he swipes the mouse from the floor and flings it in my direction.
It slides across the floor, stopping when it hits the baseboards, and I lunge for it, picking it up and twisting to fling it at Grayson. For a big guy, he’s still pretty spry and manages to jump out of the way before it hits him.
“So, this is what you guys do all day in here?” We turn toward the front door and see Harper standing at the entry, one hand on her hip, the other pinching her nose shut. “Why does it smell like something died in here?”
“That’d be all the dead mice we’re freeing from their graves,” Theo says, reaching down to grab his sweatshirt from the floor.
He slips it back on, and when he leans for his hat, he uses his other hand to grab the desiccated creature.
He slyly cups it into one hand as he tentatively approaches Harper. “Want to see what’s left of it?”
She squeals, raising one leg like she’s going to drop kick him if he dares come any closer. “Don’t you dare, Theo. I know where you sleep.” Harper might be small, but she’s mighty, and she’d have Theo pinned to the ground quicker than he could shout mercy.
He opts to toss the mouse into one of the garbage bins nearby, and once he raises his hands to show Harper it’s gone, she starts to take a step forward.
I hold up a hand, gesturing to the box of masks sitting on the counter. “Put one on before you come in, please.”
She reaches for a mask, tucking both loops behind her ears, then picks up my ball cap I had discarded on the counter. She puts it on her head and flips it backward, spinning to face us. “I don’t need any mouse poop in my hair, thanks.”
She takes a few more steps into the room, standing in the center and looking around.
A sense of wonder crosses her face as she spins.
“Wow, Lukas. I’ll admit, I thought you were crazy for wanting to do this, but now that the walls are knocked out, and you’re working on that disgusting ceiling, I feel like I can see your vision now. ”
We had an inspector check out the foundation and overall structure.
With winter on its way, I bit the bullet and hired a professional company to come out and repair the part of the roof that had caved in.
Thankfully, the foundation was intact, so besides the roof and a few additional support beams, the rest of the original frame can be salvaged.
The outside of the house should be done before the snow falls, and I plan to spend the winter working inside.
“New windows come next week,” I tell her, following her gaze around the space.
“Once we tear down the old ceilings and the rest of the drywall, we’ll check out the plumbing and electrical.
Then it’s insulation and new drywall, but after that, it’s time to paint, and I might need your help picking out colors. ”
Her eyes sparkle, and she clasps her hands together, tucking them under her chin. “Can I do at least one room pink, please? It won’t be an obnoxious pink, something muted, soft. It would be so pretty, Lukas!”
Grayson snickers behind me, and I cock my head to the side. “Harper, do you really think I need pink walls in my house?” I raise a hand to flick at the ends of her hair that are dyed hot pink. “I see enough pink in my everyday life.”
Her hands fall, and she props them on her hips. “Don’t forget you’ll soon have a daughter that is going to be living here at some point. Please don’t turn this into a bachelor pad with white walls.”
“Not white-white. I was thinking something softer, like eggshell or beige.”
“Oh, wow,” she deadpans. “Beige? Let’s not get too crazy over there.”
Theo chuckles in the background, and I wish I had the dead mouse available to toss at him.
I pull my little sister in for a hug. “I want my sister to paint all the walls beige,” I tease, rocking her side to side. “Beige on beige on more beige.”
“Stoppp,” she yelps, trying to push out of my hug.
“Give me free rein for Ivy’s room, please?
Just that. I could paint a mural wall. Piper can help me!
You know she’s good at that kind of thing.
” I release my hold on her, and she fake gasps for air.
“We could do something cute. Noah’s Ark or unicorns. ”
I ponder that for a second. A mural wall might look nice in a nursery, as long as the other ones are neutral, anyway.
“Fine,” I relent. “You and Piper get free rein for Ivy’s room, but it has to be age appropriate.”
“Your funeral,” Theo mumbles, and Harper starts toward him, fists raised. He flinches, ducking a little, and when Harper gets close enough, her hands drop, and she digs her fingers into his side, directly on his one ticklish spot.
He pulls away with a girlish giggle, and Harper stares him down, warning him not to mess with her again.
“I thought Dean was coming to help you guys.”
“He is. Had something going on with his family today, but he’s coming out tomorrow.
” A few months ago, my family hired one of Theo’s buddies from the fire department to work with us on the farm part-time.
It was a relief to Grayson to have the extra help, and once Dean heard that we were working on the old farmhouse, he caught me after work one day and asked if we could use an extra set of hands.
“Why?” Theo pipes up. “Someone got the hots for the new guy?”
Harper rolls her eyes at him. “He’s nice, but he’s not my type. Plus, the man hasn’t said more than three words to me in the few months he’s worked with us.”
Dean’s a good guy, I can tell that much.
But Harper isn’t wrong when she says he doesn’t talk much.
He looks like trouble, with tattoos that cover almost his entire upper body up to his neck, but he’s a hard worker, polite to my parents, and offered to come out and help us at the house, which is more than enough to make him a good guy in my books.
“What are you up to today?” I ask, changing the subject. “Bartending tonight?”
“They forced me to take the night off,” she says, leaning against an exposed stud in the wall. “I hired another girl to help out, so I might actually get to take a weekend off here and there.”
“You should take more than a weekend off,” Grayson pipes up. “Holly said you’ve been working almost full-time hours for her during the day.”
“So, instead of calling Piper, or one of your other girlfriends, you came here to bother us.” Theo walks by her, casually wrapping an arm around her neck. It looks innocent, but I know him well enough to know he’s planning something.
“God forbid, I miss my boring brothers.” Harper goes to push Theo away, but he tightens his grip on her neck.
Even though he’s a foot taller and should have an easy time putting her into a headlock, she manages to bend down out of his reach, grabbing him by the back of his knee and forcing it to buckle within seconds.
He falls to the ground, and they grapple for a minute, but it doesn’t take long before Harper has Theo shoved to his chest, her knee digging into his spine.
His face turns beet red, and he slaps on the floor for mercy, but before standing, she leans down to taunt in his ear. “Who’s the little bitch now?”
“I am,” Theo grunts, and when Harper stands, pulling her knee from his back, he coughs once and rolls to his side. Harper offers a hand, and he groans, letting her pull him to stand. “I’m getting old. I used to be able to take you down, no problem.”
“Maybe when I was ten,” she says. “I’m a whole ass woman now, Theo. So, you better watch your mouth.”
I think that was the biggest surprise for me after coming home from the military and seeing my family for the first time in years.
I expected that same eighteen-year-old little sister to come running around the corner, but instead, a young woman walked toward me with a smile on her face and her baby features nowhere to be seen.