17. Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
I showed up wearing my overalls and long-sleeved T-shirt with the sweetest looking bunny on it. It was a special print because it felt fuzzy to the touch. The statement? Cute but Useless. Beau had a good laugh at it, particularly as I flapped around trying to get the gutter sludge off my shirt sleeve.
The gutters were absolutely disgusting. They were full of the brown sludge made from rainwater, brown leaves, and birdies’ little attempts at nests. A twee bit of revenge burst from me, and I threw a wad of gutter goodness in his direction.
He responded by chasing me around the yard as if we were kids playing tag. The training was paying off. I didn’t stand much of a chance against Beau, but I kept up. That is until he stuffed some leaves down the back of my shirt. I wiggled and fished some leaf-twig-bird-nest combo out of my bra right as his parents came out to oversee our progress.
I had to be making the best impression wiping gutter sludge off myself.
“This is Sir,” Beau said as he introduced me to them. His parents handed us some glasses of lemonade as a reward for his hard work.
“As in knight,” his mother said.
“She’s my um… my um…” Beau stammered over the title he’d now bestow to me. “A friend of mine.”
I’d like to say it was no big deal. After all, I told him last weekend, “Go with the flow.” but it stung. Obviously, my reaction was of someone whose last sexual encounter was with the person she married. I had all sorts of cognitive behavior therapy to unfuck that part of my brain.
“How’d you two meet?”
“The gym,” I replied. Beau’s ears turned red.
“You’re an instructor?”
“No, an instructee,” I answered.
Beau fumbled over his next few words. I’m sure he was trying to come up with an explanation that sounded a bit better than admitting he hooked up with his client. “She walked into the gym, and we sort of hit it off. Do you see her T-shirt? She designs those.”
Beau’s mom squinted her eyes as she read the message. “Cute but useless. How… how interesting .” Can’t blame her for underreacting to my niche humor. That was why the whole ItsyBizzy store failed.
His dad, the perfect match to Beau’s elegant, straight-out-of-a-drug-commercial mom, shook a finger, the one on his cast-free arm. His much-the-same puppy-dog eyes glowed with excitement. “Is this the one you said, ‘made you laugh’ a while back?”
Beau mentioned me? A while back? I was squee ing on the inside. He, on the other hand, blushed until he matched the red of his ears as he nodded his head.
“How’s your wrist, Dad?” Beau opted for the change in conversation.
His dad lifted his cast-covered arm. “Eh.” He stretched out in the lawn chair. “Beau never brings anyone around.”
His dad wasn’t reading the total bashful expression taking Beau over. I said, “I kind of insisted on helping him. When he wasn’t at the gym, I took it upon myself to check up on him.”
“Good that he has someone worrying about him. Right, Beau?”
Beau nodded but squinted at the sun, not quite the enthusiasm of leading a workout. His embarrassment that I sensed left him tongue-tied.
Beau and I behaved as the Bishops watched us from their back patio. His dad barked orders, especially at Beau.
Before the late afternoon, we had those gutters sparkling and the organic bins full. We had to end our time together because he needed his family night, and the Bishops were definitely not my family. My family would tell us we organized the leaves and twigs incorrectly before I’d feel back in the cold embrace of my Midwest home. But something wistful came up as I hugged him and set out to go back to my empty condo .
So, I smeared some yard waste on his cheek just so he knew that, although I may be more than a decade older and physically at a disadvantage, he should be on his toes waiting for me.