Tom twisted up his mouth, trying to remember the place. His top concern, before their honeymoon, had been not getting caught sneaking into or out of Rosie’s room, not the quality of the furnishings. And on their honeymoon—well, the suite’s bed, walls, and floor had been pretty sturdy, he could confidently report.
But now that he thought about it, he could recall getting beaned by a chunk of ceiling plaster in the shower. Creaky stairs. Peeling paint.
“Yeah, it’s kind of a shithole, isn’t it?” he said cautiously.
Rosie went stiff. “It is not!” she protested. “It’s a great building. In a great location. It just needs some cosmetic updates, and…and a few repairs.”
From her affronted, worried look, Tom could begin to guess what she wanted, though he had no idea why she’d thought of him in connection to the project. His portfolio of useful abilities, which were mostly limited to stage acting and sexual prowess, did not include home repairs.
She twisted her delicate, ladylike hands in her lap withanother deep breath. “So I—I remembered that your parents used to be property managers at that retirement community outside Boca—”
“Still are,” he cautiously confirmed.
“—and I thought, they probably had to handle a lot of repair stuff? I know you said you went with them on all their rounds during summer vacations…” She trailed off hopefully.
Tom swallowed hard. He had indeed spent most of his childhood trailing behind his parents as they went from one septuagenarian’s apartment to another, but if he’d picked up anything along the way, it had been nothing more than a little Yiddish, a fondness for show tunes, and a good sense for which old folks kept bowls of candy for visiting children and which would smack him with a spoon if he touched their piano whileWheel of Fortunewas on.
“Yeah, definitely,” he lied. “All the hitting things with hammers. And unscrewing things. Screwing them too. I learned how to do all that.”
When her face softened with relief, a nearly forgotten sensation of pain and tenderness twisted in his chest. Wanting more for her than he had to give. He wanted to tell her not to worry at all, that he’d take care of everything, but he also wished, even more fervently, that it would be the truth.
Shit. A kidney would have been easier to promise her. Maybe he could learn how to hang roof shingles on YouTube during the train ride out to the Cape?
“I mean, insurance will pay for some contractors. Most of what the place needs, hopefully. I’ve been writing a lot of letters. But it would be great if I could update the place a little.You remember all the whaling swag my uncle left there—let’s toss out all the harpoon guns before they accidentally skewer a toddler—”
She cut off when she began to speak very fast, her cheeks going pink again. She’d probably realized that she hadn’t actually asked him yet, and she was having trouble making the request.
Well, Tom could sympathize with that problem.
“Of course I’ll help,” he said in his gentlest tone. “I meant it, after all.”
Rosie looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes, her mascara gone clumpy with either tears or rain. Hope warred with caution in her expression.
He didn’t like the caution, but he understood it. It was that hope he wanted to seize on, make real.
“It’s the middle of the night,” she said abruptly. “I’m so sorry. I’ll text you about this tomorrow. I don’t know why I came all the way up here—”
“Rosie.” He dared to put a hand on her shoulder, got two seconds of soft warmth against his palm before she jerked away. He pulled the hand back slowly, pretended he hadn’t done it, and cleared his throat. “It’s fine,” he said faintly.
She stood up, looking around for her coat as though she couldn’t remember where she’d put it fifteen minutes ago. He could observe her visibly attempting to put some layers of mental distance back between them before she could resume the physical kind.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” he asked, and her eyes widened in affronted disbelief. “No, I mean, it’s raining, andmy roommate is traveling for work. You could have his room…or I could go back to sleep on the couch—”
“I’ll get a car,” she said, patting her handbag.
“At least borrow a jacket,” he said. “Yours is soaked.”
Without waiting for her agreement, he bounded into his room and rifled through his closet. He grabbed the first waterproof thing he found and returned to the living room to thrust it into Rosie’s arms.
She thanked him genuinely at first, but then she turned the parka to check the size and saw the label.
“Wait,” she said. “Is this real? Canada Goose? This is, like, a thousand-dollar parka.”
“Is it?” he said, aghast. “Jesus. It ought to be illegal to charge that much. It’s just a jacket.”
Rosie hesitantly pulled it on. The parka fit her through the hips and bust, but the shoulders and sleeves were absurdly big on her. It made her look like a little kid in someone’s hand-me-downs in a way that made him want to squeeze her hard. She cuffed the sleeves and rolled them up nearly to her elbows.
“I think they make them out of very special geese or something. Fancier geese than normal parka geese. Did you thrift it? Which place?” she asked shakily, zipping it up despite how poorly it fit.
