Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
SIERRA
I fly out of bed when it happens again, because the sound of someone’s fist hitting wood over and over—that’s happening against my bedroom door. I’m fully aware that my sleep shorts and T-shirt with no bra aren’t really appropriate to answer the door, so instead of opening it I just ask, “Yeah?”
“Ahh . . . it’s Ed. The contractor?”
“The contractor?”
“Yeah.” His gruff and decidedly annoyed voice carries through the door. “The one redoing your bathroom.”
I reach over and grab a cowl neck sweatshirt that I left sitting on top of my dresser and drag it over my head before I open the door a crack.
“I’m sorry, redoing my bathroom?”
“Yeah, we’re scheduled to start demo today.”
“On the primary bathroom?”
He sighs and puts his hands on his hips, along the waistband of his paint-splattered work pants. “Yes. I get the sense you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“You’re absolutely right.”
“Listen, Beau just let us in. He knew we were coming, and he said just to go ahead and knock on the door and you’d show us to the bathroom.”
I haven’t had coffee yet, so I can’t be responsible for the fact that it is taking my brain a little longer than normal to catch up.
The bathroom in this bedroom is getting remodeled.
And Beau knew about it, but didn’t tell me.
And he insisted I take this bedroom, where all the construction will be.
“Okay, sorry, this is obviously all news to me. So you’re starting demo on my bathroom now, but also I’m just learning about this, which means the bathroom isn’t ready to demo. I just moved in a few days ago and, not knowing this was happening, I unpacked all my stuff into the bathroom.”
Ed looks at me like, What do you want me to do about this? “I got a crew showing up here in about half an hour. Think you can have your stuff outta there by then?”
Deep breaths. It’s not like I was about to hop in the shower and then get off to work or anything. Sure, why not just drop everything and pack up the bathroom first?
“Of course.” It’s not like I have that many toiletries. “If you’re doing demo today, how are you going to prevent the rest of my bedroom from filling with dust?”
“Can I step into the room and show you?” he asks. He’s an older guy, probably early fifties. Seems like a decent human being, and apparently he’s here for legitimate reasons.
“Sure,” I say, taking a step back into the bedroom so he can enter.
He takes a look at the bathroom, then eyes my rumpled bed across from the bathroom door.
“We’ll put up a zip wall right here,” he says, pointing from the left side of my room to the right.
It leaves a couple feet between the bathroom wall and my bed for them to get from the bedroom door to the bathroom.
He explains how the plastic sheeting will completely wall off the rest of my bedroom and I will use a zipper to get in and out.
Great, just great. “How long will this whole remodel take?”
“It should be done in a week, two tops. We’re not moving anything, just redoing all the tile, paint, and putting in a new vanity and new fixtures,” he says as he shoves his hands into the pockets of his Carhartt sweatshirt.
“All right, I should get to packing this bathroom up,” I tell him.
“Right,” he says. “I’ll go grab a cup of coffee and be back to meet my guys at eight.”
“Thanks,” I say, then walk him to the door and lock him out.
Thirty minutes to pack up my whole bathroom and shower before they get back here.
Okay, I can manage this. I run to my bathroom and grab my stuff out of the shower, moving it to the bathroom off the hallway.
The one I’m now apparently sharing with Beau.
Two more trips and I’ve got my stuff moved into the hall bathroom.
Luckily, Beau has hardly anything in the bathroom, aside from little trimmed beard hairs all over the sink and counter.
I roll my eyes at what an inconsiderate little shit he is for pulling this whole you take Jackson’s old bedroom stunt when he knew about this bathroom reno and I didn’t.
The only thing he’s accomplished is pushing me to look for my own apartment even more quickly than I would have.
It’s past 7:00 p.m. when I get back to my apartment that night.
I spent my lunch break scouring various websites, looking for potential apartments to rent, and went to see two after work.
I’m starving and still pissed at Beau about this morning.
I can hear him banging around inside the apartment and I am half dreading facing him when I open the front door.
After pausing and taking a few breaths, I crack the door open. The smell hits me before I’m even inside—it’s garlic and cheese and bacon-scented in here.
“Hey,” Beau says when I walk in from the entryway, looking up from where he stands at the kitchen counter. “I just made dinner. Want some?”
I’m tempted to say no because I’m still furious about this morning and don’t want to even have to talk to him, but the loud rumble of my stupid stomach answers for me.
He just laughs and grabs another of the big flat bowls out of the cabinet and loads a heaping portion of pasta into it.
Then he grates some fresh parmesan on top.
“What is this amazingness?” I ask as I approach the peninsula that divides the kitchen from the open living room and dining room combination.
“Carbonara,” he says as he slides my bowl toward the barstool closest to me and pushes his bowl toward the other seat.
He opens two of the drawers closest to him and pulls out napkins and silverware and slides them over to me.
“What do you want to drink?” he asks as I grab the utensils to place them at our seats.
“Water’s fine.” I shrug.
“You don’t want wine or something?” he asks, gesturing to the several bottles I have sitting on the counter.
I took literally every item of food and drink from my old apartment, even though it was petty.
But it brings me just a little bit of satisfaction to exact that tiny revenge on Peter, because fuck him.
“Nah,” I say, “that wine will taste like bitterness anyway.” I don’t plan to drink it. I just didn’t want Peter to have it because they were all bottles he’d chosen. He was a much bigger wine drinker than I ever was.
Beau laughs, and the sound dissipates some of the tension I’m feeling. “Why’s that?” he asks as he grabs two glasses and fills them at the water dispenser on the refrigerator door.
“They were my ex-fiancé’s, and I took them when I moved out.”
“But you’re not planning on drinking them.” It’s a statement, not a question. But I feel the need to respond anyway.
“I haven’t decided.”
He nods as he walks around the counter and sits next to me, placing my glass at my place setting. “Fair enough,” he says.
It’s strange having Beau sitting on the barstool to my left again.
Though the arrangement is the same, it’s not the easy, flirtatious feeling I had sitting next to him at the cocktail reception.
Thank goodness. But it’s also not the hate-filled rage I expected to feel when I saw him tonight after the stunt he pulled this morning.
“I’m sorry about this morning,” he says, as if he can read my mind. “The contractor told me what happened. I didn’t realize that you didn’t know. Jackson told me about the bathroom reno when I asked to crash here, so I assumed she told you too.”
“So you didn’t ask me to take the primary bedroom just so you didn’t have to deal with the mess and inconvenience?” I ask as I wind my first bit of pasta on my fork, my skepticism clear in my voice.
“I told you why I didn’t want that room,” he says, “and it had nothing to do with the bathroom.”
“You know, it’s not exactly like the bed you’re sleeping in hasn’t been christened as well.”
A look passes over his face, but he quickly raises his glass of water to his lips so I can’t quite tell what it was. “At least not by my sister, though, right?”
“I mean, not that I know of, but I wasn’t living here anymore when she and Nate got back together.
So, no promises.” I take my first bite of the pasta carbonara and a small moan involuntarily escapes.
“This is delicious,” I say, even though my mouth is full.
This is quite possibly the best pasta I’ve ever tasted.
“Thanks,” he says and takes a bite as well.
“Do you always cook amazing food like this?” I ask. I absolutely hate to cook.
“Eh, this is deceptively easy to make. But yeah, I do okay in the kitchen.”
“How’d you learn?” I ask. I’m always surprised by people who have this skill that I seem to lack no matter how hard I try.
“I usually travel with my two best friends. We spent years eating crappy food or ordering out before I decided I should just learn to cook. I followed a bunch of food bloggers on Instagram and watched a bunch of tutorials on YouTube. It’s much easier to follow a recipe when you’ve watched someone do it before.
And then, I guess, it just became more natural over time. ”
Ah yes, the travel. This is Jackson’s primary issue with her brother: he’s never around.
He didn’t even come home last winter when his mom was going through chemo for the third time.
Instead of spending that time with his family, he was snowboarding all over the globe.
I don’t think Jackson expected him to give up his career and move home like she did, but she’s definitely been holding a grudge that he couldn’t be bothered to even come home when his mom was really sick.
But of course, it’s not my place to bring that up, so instead I focus on the food.
“I can’t imagine cooking something like this,” I say as I wind more pasta on my fork. “I love baking, hate cooking.”
“Isn’t baking cooking?” he asks, a small smile playing on his lips.