“This looks awesome, Ben,” I said, straightening.
“You like it?” He took my jacket and hung it on the free-standing wooden coat rack just inside the door. “The stain isn’t too light? After it dried, I started thinking about adding another layer.”
I shook my head. “It’s perfect just like this.”
A soft chime came from deeper in the house. He turned toward it. “Coffee’s done. Come on in.”
I followed after him, the dogs hot on my heels. “Be good,” I told them. “No licking the walls or trying to eat plastic.”
“They eat plastic often?” Ben asked.
“No, but I just wanted to get ahead of it in case they were thinking of picking today to start.”
He chuckled, a deep, bass rumble that I could really get used to hearing.
The hallway was lined with doors, all closed, most likely sealing off the rooms with fresh paint or exposed wiring. At the end, the hall opened right up to the kitchen, which dominated the middle of the house.
The flooring changed from hardwood to dark slate tile as I passed over the threshold. It spread out in a large rectangle, framing the kitchen space. In the middle was the base of an oversized island, unfinished, with a plywood top. There was a fridge, a gas range, and all the framework for lower cabinets, though they didn’t have doors, and they hadn’t been painted yet. Above the farm-style sink, an oversized window looked out on the back yard. To the left was the barn, and to the right, much further away, the edge of the forest.
It was a nice view now. It would be beautiful in the warmer months.
I stopped at the island and inspected the builder samples spread out on top of it. Paint swatches, wood stains, tiles, and kitchen hardware were clustered together in groups: white with dark blue with silver; black with copper with lightly stained wood; subway tile with butcher block.
“How do you take your coffee,” Ben asked.
I looked up to see Fred and Sam on either side of his legs, “helping” him. He didn’t seem to mind, one hand idly scratching Fred between the ears, so I let them be.
“Just cream, if you have it,” I answered. “Are these your potential pallets for the kitchen finishes?”
“They are,” he said, his back to me as he poured. “I’m thinking butcher block for the island countertop and cement for the rest. I like that dark blue paint for the lowers, and then for the open shelving, cast iron supports with the same butcher block used for the shelving to tie it all together.”
I imagined it for a minute, moving the corresponding samples together to get the full picture. I could see it spread out in front of me when I looked up again. It would lend the space a kind of understated, industrial farmhouse look.
“What about the backsplash?” I asked.
He turned to me, coffee mugs in hand, and set mine down near my right hand. “Uh…this one,” he said, picking up a sample from another pile and moving it over to join those I’d gathered together.
It was a swatch of unfinished cuts of rectangular rock, tiled in a herringbone pattern, light gray in color, with a rough surface and darker veins running through it that would go great with cement counters and slate flooring.
“I want to tile the wall around the window above the sink with it,” he said, pointing.
“That’s going to be awesome, Ben.”
His answering grin lit up his face. “You think so?”
Jesus, buddy, watch where you point that smile.
I nodded. “I don’t know why Jack thought I was needed. You’ve clearly got this.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
I wrapped my hands around my coffee mug, thankful for the distraction. The first sip was magical. Exactly the right temperature, not acidic at all, just a nice, mellow bean with the perfect amount of cream.
“Hey, thanks for coming over,” Ben said. “I know it was a weird phone call. My parents are worried about me all alone out here, and if I don’t give my mother proof that I have human interaction of some kind, she’ll hop on a plane and fly out.”
And that would be a bad thing, because…?I wanted to ask, but didn’t. None of my damn business. “No problem,” I said instead. “My sister needed some space anyway.”
