Or, rather, the whole thingshouldhave been held up on a slant by a lever, but both boards merely flopped back flat when Winnie tried to prop them up.
“See?” she said, when the contraption dropped to the floor with athwack. “It’s all connected, but it just doesn’t stay put.”
“Huh.” Shane knelt on the floor next to the two cornhole boards, pleased to see that Winnie had a toolbox nearby. He hadn’t even thought to bring by tools. Some help he was turning out to be.
He flipped the boards over and checked the mechanism, bending it back and forth to see what was going on.
“Right,” he said, affecting more confidence than he truly felt. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here.” He felt for tension, and, finding it lacking, looked at where the boards were all attached. “Oh, okay, so maybe we can just tighten this here…”
Winnie handed him a Phillips-head screwdriver, and he set to tightening the screws that held the lever to the main body of the cornhole board. When he was satisfied with the tension in both sides, he gently flipped over the board, stood it upright, and?—
Thwack! Clatter!
Shane and Winnie watched as the board tipped overandthe lever fell completely off.
There was a terrible moment of silence while they watched the lever spin a little on Winnie’s hardwood floor before coming to a stop. Shane felt horror sink into his gut.
And then Winnie began to laugh.
It was one of those irrepressible, deep belly laughs. It struck her so hard that she had to bend over, pressing one hand to her knee. She laughed and laughed until she was gasping for breath. Gradually, Shane felt himself starting to laugh too. Itwasfunny, if he thought about it. They were these two bright, competent people, who absolutely could not fix something that, when you boiled it down to its base parts, was two pieces of wood stuck together.
“You know,” Winnie said through her laughter when she could catch her breath enough to speak at all, “I think you did it.”
This made Shane laugh all the harder, and eventually they had to move over to sit on opposite ends of Winnie’s couch, abandoning the cornhole boards. They kept going for some time, as every time their gazes met, one of them would be sent into repeated peals of laughter, and the other would soon follow suit. By the time they’d gotten control of themselves, Shane’s stomach actually hurt from the effort.
It felt really, really good.
“So,” he said a bit thickly, more laughter threatening to rise up in his throat, “I have a confession to make. I might not be as good with my hands as I wanted to believe.”
She put her hands over her face, pressing the heels into her eye sockets, like she needed to physically hold the laughter inside herself.
“You don’t say,” she chuckled.
“I promise I’m better at computers.”
“Shane.” She pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry to say this but…” A chuckle slipped out. “You could hardly be worse.”
He looked over at the boards, now in more pieces than when he’d started.
“Yeah,” he admitted ruefully. “That’s fair.”
She shook her head with a smile and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Shane liked her sharp blonde bob, but he liked the way she looked with it pulled back a little too. It softened her.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said. “I can ask Garrett to help me fix it.”
Shane faked affront. “You had an offer from Garrett and you still made me come over here and embarrass myself? That’s cold, Winnie. Really cold.”
She pointed an accusing finger at him. “You offered, bud. And we both know perfectly well that all poor Garrett wanted this morning was to be left alone. I was trying not to bother him!”
“I have no qualms about bothering him,” Shane replied. “He and my sister are totally gaga for one another. That affords me certain privileges.”
At the mention of Eleanor, a tiny flicker went through Winnie’s expression. Their happy moment emboldening him, Shane dared to pry, just a little.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah, of course.”
He took a deep breath. “There seems to be a… weird sort of vibe between you and some of the book club ladies, but you also seem like you are all friends. You allsaythat you’re friends, and it doesn’t seem like it’s a frenemies sort of thing. What’s going on there, if you don’t mind me asking?”
