He mouths:Help me.
I reply:You’re on your own.
He says:Traitor.
Grandma Joyce spins my way. “Winnie, why don’t you help Patton with the light? You know where the tools are if he also has time to look at the pipes under the sink.”
I most certainly do know where the tools are and we are not on a friendly basis! But it looks like he brought his own, but I recognize when someone is playing matchmaker when I see it.
“When you’re done, I’ll set out some dinner for you. Maybe light a candle if you can’t get it fixed. Could be romantic,” she trills.
Horrified as if this is Halloween and not Valentine’s Day, I hurry down the hall with Patton on my heels.
He says, “I could use an extra set of hands. Winnie, can you hold the flashlight?”
I do so while he tests the wires with a stick thingy that makes different beeping sounds.
“I’m so sorry about this,” I whisper.
“I can’t say no to older women in need of a ‘young, strapping lad.’” I’m about to comment that his confidence tree is overflowing when he says, “Her words, not mine.”
“Sounds about right.” Part of me wants to be upset and disappointed that I didn’t get to these repairs first because I can’t afford this.
He adjusts something and I note how capable he is—the kind of guy who’d win one of those survival reality shows that Grandma likes. I’m close enough that I smell cedar and woodsmoke, close enough to see the concentration on his face.
“Do you accept brownies as a form of payment?”
“Your grandma is a character,” he says quietly.
“That’s one word for it.”
“She loves you.”
“She’s also shameless.”
“What do you mean?”
“This.” I gesture vaguely between us.
“It is Valentine’s Day.” He glances up at me, his face inches from mine in the cramped space in the hall.
My eyebrows bob. So does he agree that she’s playing Cupid, trying to be a matchmaker?
“Does it bother you?” he asks.
“Does what bother me?”
“That they’re trying to set us up.”
My chest short-circuits, and I have a feeling that tool with the beeps and lights won’t detect a current. “Should it?”
“I don’t know.” His voice is rough when he repeats, “Should it?”
We’re staring at each other in the dim light. My thoughts slow down. My breathing too. I have no idea what’s happening, but I also don’t want it to stop.
“Got it,” he says abruptly, leaning back and flicking the switch. “All fixed.”
The light comes on, steady, bright. The moment breaks.
