“Can you leave for the night and come back tomorrow or something?” I ask, trying not to sound rude, but really needing some time alone to digest all of this. “I really need some rest.”
Trevor hesitates and looks at me for a minute as if he is making sure I am okay. Then he turns and picks up his strewn tools and leaves. I lock the door after him (although I am pretty sure he probably has a key), and then go to lay down on my old bed in my old room. I was being honest when I told him that I really do need a rest. But as soon as my head lays back on my pillow, I find myself completely unable to close my eyes and get some sleep. Instead, as I lay staring up at the ceiling that I stared at all through my grade school years; I find that I can’t stop thinking about high school and mostly about Trevor. I was supposed to come here to find closure and to procure a quick handling of wrapping up the last ties I had to this place. Instead, I find a house that still isn’t willing to let me go that easy, and an old boyfriend that somehow now feels like a new temptation. I hear my phone buzz and I know that it’s work, but my head is too full of other things right now to answer it.
4
Trevor
Icouldn’t sleep all night. All I could do was lay in bed and think about Ava. It makes me mad too. I was perfectly content with life, running my own farm and working with my hands every day. I had gotten over her, at least I thought that I had. I was saddened when Ava’s mother passed away. She was a wonderful woman, and I always tried to help her around the house as much as I could. When my parents both eventually passed away, Ava’s mom kind of became my surrogate parent. But when she died, it was my last tie to Ava, and I was ready to move on. Until, that is, Ava gets here and sets everything on fire again.
When I get back to the house the next morning, I am ready to knock out a bunch of work on the house. There are a ton of repairs that need to get done before the house is sellable, and I know that it’s in both of our best interest to get it repaired and listed for sale as quickly as possible. This time, when I get to the houseI knock.
“Thought you didn’t knock,” Ava snarks as she opens the front door in her pajama pants and tank top.
God, I remember that body.The way the cotton fabric clings to her curves makes me immediately distracted.
“I thought I’d be polite,” I say.
Her attitude definitely hasn’t changed at all since yesterday.
I walk inside as she turns to walk away into the kitchen and pour a cup of coffee. I’ve never seen girls drink their coffee black before. Guess that must be a city thing. She offers me a cup, but I pass since I already had some on my way here.
“So what are you working on today?” she asks.
I can’t tell if she really cares what repair is being done or if she’s just trying to make an effort to be less rude than yesterday. Icantell one thing though. She can’t seem to keep her eyes from wandering. I can almost feel her eyes cause a visceral reaction as she glances at various bulging parts of my body. It’s okay with me though, because I can’t take my eyes off of her either.
“I’m going to start with the old light fixtures today,” I say as I try to talk about something to take my mind off the way her tank top is clinging to her nipples, before my pants get too much tighter.
“You can do electrical?” she asks.
“I can do everything,” I say. “I’m good with my hands.”
It might be my imagination, but I think that I see her chest heave with a heady inhale at my words.
“You know,” I say as I try to kill two birds with one stone. “The repairs would go a lot faster if you wanted to help and we worked together.”
I mostly just said that because I want to see if she will actually lift a finger to help. She never struck me as the type who liked manual labor, and I’m sure the city did nothing but accentuate that.
“Sure,” she says. “Anything to make this whole process go faster.”
I have to say that I’m surprised she agreed to help. For most of the day, the two of us work side-by-side. It’s actually really helpful to have another person to hand me things while I have my fingers tangled up in electrical wiring. It’s also hard not to talk about random things when you spend the day working together.
“Can you hand me the wire cutters again, please?” I say as I try to trim up the ends of a light fixture.
“How were you planning to do this without my help?” she asks as she hands me the wire cutters.
“I assumed you would be coming here at some point,” I answer.
“Yeah, but did you expect me to just jump in and help? I mean, I didn’t even know you were vested in this house until you told me,” she says. “You know I’m not a hands-on kind of girl most of the time.”
“Yeah, that much hasn’t changed,” I laughed.
As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I freeze and look at Ava. She freezes too. Pretty sure that we both just let it slip that we actuallydoremember each other. Instead of amplifying the awkward moment by asking her why she pretended not to remember me, and then having to explain why I pretended not to remember her too, I decide to take the much more blunt and direct approach and go after the answer to the one question that I really want to know instead.
“Ava, why did you run away to college in the city so fast after graduation? You were gone before I even had a chance to talk to you,” I say. “Why do you hate it here so much?”
She looks at me without saying anything for a minute or two, and then launches into an explanation that really doesn’t answer anything at all.
“I just needed to get out, you know, spread my wings. I wanted togosomewhere and experience things,” she says as she avoids looking me directly in the eye while she speaks. “I’ve got a successful career, a nice apartment, and I’m doing what I love in the design world.”
