He swallowed and spoke, “What’s that?”
Evie smiled and drew closer to him with her fingersnow gliding down to his jeans. She stepped back and put her hair up in a ponytail. Caleb’s heart fucking roared when he saw those bedroom eyes siphoning his soul straight from his body.
Then she took the brownie plate from his hand and walked away. “I want a glass of milk to go with these brownies. Want one?”
He stared. Brownie still in one hand, smudges of chocolate on his lip and his cheeks puffed out in confusion. He glanced down at Teddy who was staring up at him, seemingly to mock him. “Your mom is terrible.”
But he had a better way to get back at her. He hurried in through the living room, past the doorway to the dining room with its cozy four-seater white wooden table by the bay window and its cushioned seating, her grandmother’s china hutch that displayed all sorts of china from Japan and Sweden. He tried to move cautiously so he didn’t topple the little pictures in their frames within the hutch, since he could be heavy-footed at times. He entered the fragrant kitchen and saw her little Swedish kitchen towels all nicely hanging from the racks.
It was the first time he had seen her kitchen in its entirety, as when he ate the French toast, they dined in the dining room, and now he knew why. At first, he was going to rush inside and pin her against the sink only to just wash his hands. She seemed to respond favorably to being trapped by the car, so he was going to relive that moment.
Except, being a man, he noticed the stupid cupboard door she kept trying to fix and kept failing at. He noticed the wallpaper of goofy chickens and cornstalks that had been attempted to be peeled off but only left in distressing strips. She had tried to refinish the counter with one of those cheap Dollar Store stick-on graphics that could look great in pictures but looked trashy in person. Her job wasn’t donetoobadly, but it still wasn’t even or flattened correctly, and some bubbled close to the wall and the sink.
Okay, it was done very badly.
Caleb stroked the horrible wallpaper. “This wallpaper is corny.”
Evie busted out laughing. “Oh my God, youarea dad!”
He flashed her a smile, brushed his fingers on the cabinets, and checked the cupboard door. It came off the hinge, and he grabbed it before it fell. “Good thing I brought those hinges for ya.”
Evie sat at the small kitchen table, only big enough for two. She pushed the toaster aside to make room for her milk and brownie plate. When she saw Caleb examining everything in her kitchen, all the way from bouncing on the floor to knocking on the walls, she sighed terribly.
She said, “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Baby,” he said, still in examination mode, “it’s no wonder why you’re overwhelmed. There are things wrong with this house that you can’t fix alone. You need to get an inspector out here. I’m worried there might be some structural issues with the floor joists, beams, possible foundation settling.” Then he checked the water pressure of the sink. “Who the hell sold you this house? Did you even get an inspection done on it?”
“I didn’t.”
“Why the hell wouldn’t you?” He checked to see if the window would open easily, and it wouldn’t. He had remembered their first morning together when she had to fight with the window to open it. And this one was no different. It was too tight.
“Covid made the housing market hell out here with everyone fleeing from Kansas City to the country. And there were so many offers on this house. I was told that if I waved the inspection, especially since one had been done a year ago, that it would make my offer more attractive to the seller.”
He put his hands on his hips, being pissed that this sweet woman was so naïve to the world she didn’t realize she had been duped. “Let me guess, the seller’s agent told you that.”
“Well, yeah,” she responded meekly.
“Son of a bitch,” he huffed while looking around.
“What’s wrong with my house, darlin’?” She only called him by the name because he had started to call her “baby,” and it gave her a sense of familiarity, like she had known him her whole life. Like he wasn’tjusther prospective lover but a dearly cherished friend, one she could trust.
He took his hat off to scratch his scalp and put it back on. He examined every little corner and reached up by the back door frame to feel the little crack. “Seller’s agents are supposed to act in the seller’s interest, notyours. And while he wasn’t exactly wrong in telling you this, it seems you’ve got a lot of structural damage that needs to be fixed.”
He turned and she saw the weird brown smudge on his shirt. She laughed. “What’s on the back of your shirt?”
He pulled the fabric on his shoulder hard, twisted, and looked at it. “Oh, I accidentally ran through a wasp’s nest that was hanging on one of your lower branches, and so I fell when they came at me. It was muddy in that area!” Then he looked back around and felt the counter. “No doubt the reason for some of the structural damage.”
Evie sank in her emotions and stared off blankly while her hands cradled her milk mug. “And I worked so hard for this and was so proud of it.”
He came and sat across her, offering reassurance with a smile. “Listen, youshouldbe proud. I was here before it sold to you because the owners from about ten years ago wanted me to fix it up, but they didn’t give me a price I was happy with. You should be proud. That living room was horrible when I walked in here ten years ago. I just thought the owner you bought it from did some of the work you did.”
“No,” she said dryly. “That was me. It was in worse shape than this.”
He held her hand, comforting her. “It’s gonna be okay. The crown molding is a little shoddy. But I can teach you how to do it right. And I know a great a guy who can work with you on getting this structural thing taken care of.”
“Isn’t that like thirty thousand dollars or something?”
“It can be. But I’m a contractor. I’ll do a thorough look around here and get you an inspection done. And I’ll pay for it.”
