“Um. I can look it up? Maybe there’s a video on YouTube?”
Sam burst out laughing, a real genuine laugh, the kind that moves through the entire body. It was the first time I’d seen her smile, and I was transfixed by the way it changed her face. It made her look younger, more carefree. Pretty.
She shook her head, still laughing. “Don’t worry, we were going to tear down those walls next.”
She picked up another tool from the nearby table. “Use the crowbar on the wainscoting though, just in case. Barney! Show her how to use a crowbar, will ya?”
Sam
The look on Olivia’s face when she saw the hammer stuck in the wall was priceless. As was her befuddlement when I asked her how she was going to fix it. It was like she was the human manifestation of an “oh no!” emoji.
The truth was I was impressed with how hard she was working. Admittedly, it was a low bar to surpass my expectations, but she’d worked harder than I thought she would. She didn’t know what the hell she was doing, but she was trying hard. And torn herself up in the process. Her clothes were filthy, her makeup smudged, her hair matted to her head, and her fingernails were already ragged.
I kind of liked her this way. She looked more approachable. More like a normal person.
I’d given in to my curiosity earlier and googled her on my phone. There was no mention of her arrest, but there were pages and pages of stories about her attending exclusive parties and fundraisers, her work with Laurent Enterprises, and to my surprise, her charity work.
I didn’t have anything against the wealthy elite per se, but I did have something against people who amassed huge sums of money and didn’t do a thing to help the less fortunate.
In every picture Olivia looked perfectly put together, wearing designer clothing and hanging out with famous people or Seattle elite. Apparently she was a minor celebrity here in Seattle. I hated celebrities.
About ninety minutes later I called the lunch break for the crew. Olivia had gotten most of a wall clear of the wainscoting, although she was now sporting a nasty looking cut on her arm.
“What happened?” I asked, pointing to her wound.
“Just scratched it with a nail,” she said dismissively.
“What’s my top rule for a work site?” I called to Jose who was walking by with a stack of floorboards.
“Safety first, boss,” he said dutifully, as if he’d heard this more times than he could count. Which he had.
“That’s right, safety first. That means all injuries, no matter how small, need to be reported to the foreman.” I pointed to my chest. “That’s me by the way.”
Olivia’s eyes lingered on my chest for a few seconds before she looked at her cut again.
“It’s not bad. Doesn’t even hurt that much.”
“Until it gets infected,” I said. “When was your last tetanus shot?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come with me, I’ll help you clean it up while you figure it out.”
Olivia followed me to a bedroom on the main floor that I’d claimed as my office. More than likely it used to be the maid’s quarters. It was small, but there was enough room for my desk and laptop, which was all I needed. Grabbing the first aid kit I kept on the shelf, I pointed to a chair.
“Sit.”
I put on gloves, then kneeled in front of her, trying not to think about how close we were and how intimate the position was. I started by cleaning the cut, Olivia hissing in pain when the disinfectant hit the cut. I lowered my head to blow on it, the same way my mom used to do for me, and when I glancedup, she was watching me with an intense look on her face, her momentary pain forgotten.
Fortunately, although the cut was a few inches long, it wasn’t too deep, with only a small amount of blood oozing out. I smeared some antibiotic cream on it, then covered it with a square of gauze that I taped onto her slim arm. The woman had zero muscle tone. She was going to be sore tomorrow, pulling off wainscoting was much more taxing than sitting at a desk.
“There you go, Princess,” I said, pressing the tape against her skin.
I felt that strange buzzing again, as if everywhere my finger touched her arm I was leaving electrical sparks, and when I looked up at Olivia, she was staring at her arm like she felt it too. She raised her eyes to meet mine and then we were staring into each other’s eyes, heat pooling low in my belly. I’d never thought of first aid as erotic, but I swear the temperature in the room skyrocketed the longer we looked at each other.
I felt the strangest urge to lean forward and kiss her. When Olivia swayed the tiniest bit towards me, I came to my senses. I was at work, in an industry where women had a hard time being taken seriously. And Olivia was just some spoiled heiress entertaining herself while she was here. I needed to remember that.
“Okay, you’d better go eat your lunch. The guys are at the table in the backyard if you want to join them. We usually eat outside if the weather is good.”
