It felt good to be excited.
At 9:59, there was a soft knock at the door, and the secret-keeping nature of their meeting meant that Nora didn’t even have to stall before answering. She opened the door and hoped the waiting didn’t show all over her face, and Will Sterling stood there in his glasses, one hand holding a toolbox and the other holding two bags from the hardware store, and he looked so easy and unbothered that for a second she had the sinking feeling he hadn’t been waiting at all.
Still, she smiled (unbothered!) in greeting, stepping back so he could come inside. He set down his stuff and then held up a finger and retreated into the hallway again. When he came back, he was bearing the biggest towel rod Nora had ever seen.
“Uh,” she said, once she’d closed the door behind him. “That—”
“It’s for a shower curtain,” he clarified immediately, setting it onto the floor. “Like the one I put in downstairs. It’s got this curve to it, see, so when you’re in the shower it feels bigger in there. It matches the towel rod I picked up, and they’re pretty much right next to each other in the aisle, and . . .”
He carried on, something about his friend Sally’s advice, and also a sale at the hardware store, and the returns policy if Nora didn’t need anything new when it came to the shower curtain situation, and as he talked Nora realized, with a delighted sense of relief, that hehadbeen waiting. Maybe as much as she had been.
Suddenly that shower curtain rod looked like the best thing she’d ever seen.
“Will,” she interrupted. He looked up at her, and maybe she was imagining the faint touch of color high on his cheeks, but she liked it all the same. “That was a good idea, thanks. You’ll let me know how much I owe you?”
He waved a hand. “We can figure that out after.”
“Okay.”
So this was it, the thing she’d been waiting for. Three days, or maybe—probably—even longer. Minor changes, and now she had the supplies. She had the will, and she had . . . well.
She had Will.
It was time to do this.
“Let’s get to work.”
“My God, you were right! It feelshugein here!”
In her bare feet, Nora stood inside her shower, curtain pulled closed, and admired the view. Above her hung her newly installed rod, sitting slightly higher than the previous one and bowing gently outward. She couldn’t quite account for how such a small change could make such a big difference, but it really, really did. She turned to the side, mimicking her hair-washing posture, exaggeratedly sticking out her elbows as she raised her hands to her head.
“I’m not eventouchingthe curtain!” she exclaimed.
From the other side, she heard Will’s soft laugh, the clink of a tool being set down, and for a second, she relished this small moment of something like privacy. In all the time she’d been waiting these past three days, she hadn’t really given much thought to what it would be like to work with Will in a space as small as her bathroom, but over the last hour and a half or so she’d gotten arealclear sense, and the fact was, Will’s body was . . .effective. Effective at doing things like holding tools and fixtures, yes. But also effective at looking fantastic while doing such things. Thirty minutes ago, Nora had stood on the edge of this shower with a drill in her hand (Will was also effective at power-tool-use instruction, and at letting Nora do things herself), her partner-in-home-improvement holding up the rod that was destined to change her shower experience forever. One stray glance and Nora had caught sight of the narrow strip of skin exposed at his waist—the curve of his lean, strong hips, the line of dark hair above the button of his jeans.
She’d almost fallen right into the tub.
“Whoa, there,” Will had said, dropping one arm to steady her. So, another point for his hands in theeffectivecolumn, especially since she was pretty sure she could still feel the spot on her waist where he’d touched her.
She lowered her arms, taking the occasion to use her own decidedly less effective hands to fan her face. She needed to look normal when she reopened this shower curtain, and not like a woman who was wondering about what it would be like to fit a (specific) man into this newly expanded space.
But also, in here, would he be able to—?
“You ever coming out?” he said.
“I might stay in here,” she said, relieved to sound like she was joking, and not like she was halfway to a full set of deeply inappropriate fantasies. “There’s so much new ground to explore!”
Another chuckle, some more tool clinking, and Nora took a few deep breaths before finally settling herself enough to face him. She pulled back the curtain, smiling broadly (innocently!).
He straightened from where he’d bent to close the lid of his toolbox. “Happy?” he asked tipping his chin up toward the rod.
He asked it lightly, casually. But she knew Will better now—not only from the time she’d spent with him over the last couple of hours, but from the weeks she’d watched him and talked to him while they’d been feuding—and she had the sense that things weren’t always what they seemed, even when they seemed effortless. During their first project—the hand-towel fixture—Nora had had a brief but embarrassing moment of pause, and Will had done his best to act entirely unfazed.
“I don’t know why this feels so weird, to do this,” she’d said, Will’s drill resting heavily on her thigh. “It’s like . . . this wall has always lookedexactlythe same.”
“We don’t have to,” Will had said, shrugging. “You’ve still got that thing over on your counter.”
Nora had looked over at the cord-tangling, toe-crushing towel rack and had taken a deep breath. “Nope,” she’d muttered, and held up the drill. But after that, she could tell Will had been cautious, almost as if he worried that she’d blame him if she ended up regretting any of the changes.
