“I am with Harold and Sons.” There are only three carpentry companies here in Sage. And only one of them is family run.
“Shut up!” she squeals. “My parents used you guys a few months ago to refinish their hardwoods.”
I think for a minute, recalling the few hardwood jobs we had. Only one of those couples were on the older side. “The Olsans?” I ask.
“Yup,” she grins. “That’s them. Such a small world.”
“Great folks you have. They were very kind.” Does my voice sound as monotone as I hear it? Why would anyone want to sit here and continue a conversation with me? I did technically invite her in, but that was before I knew she was a female praying mantis, or in this case, “preying” mantis. “What do you do?” Why did I ask that?I don’t care what you do.But I should. So I ask. I should make an effort to talk to a beautiful woman, especially a forward one who almost but not quite, invited herself into my house. I should be thinking inappropriate thoughts right now, and hoping she’s sharing in those inappropriate thoughts. Instead, I’m staring at Ellie’s photo hanging on the wall behind Charlotte.
“I’m a software engineer,” she says. Her response draws my attention back to her face, but I’m guessing it would be incredibly rude to look shocked, so I do my best to restrain my reaction. She doesn’t have the look of a software engineer, but that’s sexist. I’m just not sure I’ve seen a woman of her type, involved in such an intense profession.Wow, I am a total sexist.
“Very cool. Do you work from home?” She’s dressed well for eight in the morning, but not exactly in corporate attire. Jeans, chucks, and a long sleeve white t-shirt wouldn’t be acceptable in any white-collar company I’ve ever seen. But times have changed, I suppose. That dress code was one of the very reasons I made the decision to take up carpentry instead of finance like I had gone to school for. Stuck in a suit, working ten hours a day, and coming home with a headache has never appealed to me. Although, now that I’m about to hit thirty, some days the body aches from carpentry make a job requiring a suit seem more appealing.
“I do. I run my own company,” she says with a bit of pride. “Ever heard of the ‘TheLWord.com’?”The dating site. Oh boy. Internally, I sneer at the mention. Those things are the epitome of love. Matching up strangers based on a couple of common interests doesn’t seem like the most natural form of a connection, but hey, it works for some people. Just, definitely not my thing. Of course, AJ would completely disagree since “TheLWord.com” is where he met Alexa, the female dictator of his dreams.
“I definitely have. It’s your company?”
“I have a passion for helping people fall in love. What can I say?” She looks shy or reserved while saying this, which is a bit shocking considering her previous assertiveness. “Kind of ironic that I ended up divorced, huh?” Right. That’s like being a doctor with an incurable disease, I would assume.
“We live and learn. I bet your divorce will help you grow your company in a way that helps others avoid the path you went down.” That may not have come out right. Actually, I’m hoping it didn’t so we can end this—whatever this is. It’s not unreasonable to want to be left alone right now. I mean, I just let Olive out of my sight for the first time in five years, and I’m here with a woman I met an hour ago. I don’t do this. I’ve actually avoided people and the thought of making new friends for this exact reason. Charlotte looks down at her watch and her eyes widen in suit.
“Oh wow, that hour went by quickly.” She looks back up at me. “You going to be okay until three?” Am I that pathetic?Yes. Yes I am.
“I’ll be fine. I have to be at a job site in an hour, and Olive was kind enough to leave me a bowl of cereal for breakfast that I must tend to.” Air is beginning to percolate in my lungs again as I feel this meet and greet coming to an end.
“I was wondering about the overfilled bowl of lucky charms, but I went on the assumption that you were either starving or still looking for that pot of gold.” With a cunning grin, she flashes a quick wink at me and stands up. “Well, Hunter, it was a pleasure finally meeting my new neighbor. If you need someone to talk to today, my doorbell is only a hundred feet away.”
“Same for you. Single parents unite, right?” Did I just say that?I did. And she’s looking at me with the same look I would be looking at me with if someone said that to me.
“We do. We’ll get through this,” she says quietly. “Thanks for the coffee.” We. There is no such thing as a “we” outside of Olive and me. I stand up and meet Charlotte at the front door, opening it and standing to the side as she passes by. “I’m glad we met,” she says.
I don’t respond. Nothing good would come out of my mouth if I did. It was never my intention to shut the world out after Ellie died, but it was sort of an unofficial commitment I made to myself. If Ellie couldn’t move on with her life, then why should I? I know it’s irrational, as are most of the common decisions I make, but it makes sense in my head. I think.
I watch Charlotte walk down my driveway and cross the street, but now I’m closing my eyes so I don’t stare at her ass because...why do I want to stare at her ass?It is a nice ass, that’s probably why. I’m trying so hard to keep my eyes closed, but with as much restraint as I thought I had, I come to the conclusion that I obviously have none. So I surrender to my weakness and take in the last couple of ass-watching seconds before she disappears inside of her house. I’m a prick—a prick whose day just got a little better, despite my effort of avoiding what could be a lucky charm in my life—one that isn’t overflowing from a cereal bowl.
CHAPTER THREE
Five minutes.Five.Five more long minutes, and then I’ll take off. This day is going on forever. I look back down at the nails I’m supposed to be hammering but I’m unable to concentrate as I look back up at the clock again. Four minutes and thirty seconds. What if the bus driver gets there early for some reason? Olive wouldn’t know what to do. She’d be standing there alone, crying, wondering if I forgot about her after she had been gone for so long.Oh God. I can’t take this. I have to go.
“Dude, what are you doing? It’s only two!” AJ shouts in from the adjacent room.
“The bus could get there early.”
“An hour early? Doesn’t school get out at three? Because if that’s that case, I’m pretty sure it’s virtually impossible for the bus to get to the bus stop before Olive is actually dismissed from school. I have a point, don’t I? Yes, I have a point.”
“There could be traffic,” I try to reason; although reasoning with AJ is like reasoning with a stubborn five-year-old. Olive and AJ go head-to-head quite often and there is never a winner. Ever.
“We’re two blocks away, so...” AJ needs to add in. Then he looks up at me and stops mid-sentence. I’m pacing the uncarpeted living room, pressing my fingers through my hair, trying to make sense of my ridiculous apprehensions but there is no clarity coming along with my irrational worries. I’m just so uneasy being away from Olive. “I’m sorry, Hunt. You’re right,” AJ says, placing his hammer down and flipping the light off. “Let’s go get our little martini garnish.”
“Really?” I punch him in the shoulder. “I told you to quit calling her that now that she’s old enough to repeat shit. She’s going to tell someone at school.”
He snorts and rubs the spot on his arm that I punched. “I said it to you, not her.”
“Just knock it off, will you?” I snap, causing him to roll his eyes at me. If I ever had to describe him to someone, I could pretty much sum him up as the kid that was always in the principal’s office for doing something stupid, like pantsing a teacher or shooting a spitball into someone’s hair. Years later, AJ hasn’t changed. His brain hasn’t matured along with his twenty-eight-year-old body.
“Why were you so late this morning?” AJ asks. “Knocking boots with the old lady who brought you a pie last week? Oh, did she bring youherpie this week?”
Drowning in a fit of laughter, he regains his composure when I say, “Actually, my neighbor dropped in. She came over for coffee.”
