"Jack?" I yell, hastily setting the grocery bags on the kitchen table. "Are you okay?"
All I hear in response is a loud thud. With my heart in my throat, I hurry toward the cacophony of clattering and cursing.
"Jack, are you o—" I start to repeat, but stop dead in my tracks when I finally see the cause of the commotion.
Jack is in the nursery, now empty save for a small pile of baby clothes and the old green velvet couch. We spent most of last weekend clearing out the guest bedroom furniture, repainting the walls in a soft spring green and hanging two sets of curtains—the ugly utilitarian blackout curtains and the delicate lace ones I used to hide them.
And by that, I mean Jack cleared everything out and did all the painting, and I bossed him around.
But now, there's a new addition to the room. Or I'm assuming there will be, I can't really tell what it is yet. Right now, there's just piles of different lengths and shapes of wood, screws rolling across the floor in an outward pattern from an overturned ramekin, pages of an instruction manual crumpled into a ball, and Jack, with his back turned to me, hands gripping his hair as he lets out a growl of frustration.
"Hi, I'm home," I say softly, gingerly stepping across the floor, trying to avoid any rogue screws. "What's going on in here?"
He startles at the sound of my voice. Clearly he didn't hear me come in, or yell. Twice.
"Shit, you scared me," he gasps, dragging a hand down his face. "Sorry, I didn't think you'd be home for a few more hours."
"Something came up with one of their projects, so Ellie had to go do some crisis management," I say, picking up the instruction booklet and smoothing the pages out. "What are we working on?"
"I really wanted to have this done before you got home," he whines, collapsing backward onto the couch. "I wanted to surprise you."
I look at the manual in my hands, flipping it over in both directions until the picture on the front is right side up. It's the crib I picked out, the one Jack watched me spend hours searching for in every "Best Baby Cribs" article I could find.
"Did I black out and order this?" I ask, frowning in confusion. "When did it even get here?"
"No, you didn't," he says, pushing himself back to his feet with a groan. "I ordered it the day after you decided this was the one you wanted. I had it delivered to the station. Like I said," he mutters irritably. "It was supposed to be a surprise."
"Jack Robbit, this is too much," I say, my breath quickening. "You've already done so much for me, too much. And this thing is so expensive, holy shit. Let me pay—"
"You're not paying for shit," he interrupts. "This is a gift, Abby. For you and for Little One. And don't call me that."
"At least let me get a Task Rabbit or someone to come build it," I plead. "You already spent last weekend doing so much work, please, go enjoy your Saturday."
"Absolutely not," he says flatly. "This is my project, and I'm seeing it through."
He snatches the booklet from me, rifling through the contents with an increasingly frustrated look on his face.
"Is it that complicated?" I ask, wringing my hands.
"No," he huffs. "It's just in French."
I peek over the top of the pages to find that the instructions are, indeed, not in English.
"I was trying to see if I could figure it out from the pictures," he explains, tossing the unfortunately useless manual onto the couch. "Then I stepped backward onto the bowl I put the hardware in and tripped into the wall. Which I also need to fix."
I look behind us, opening the door wide enough to reveal a crater in the drywall.
"Was that from your head?" I gasp, whipping around to search him for any cuts or bruises.
"Shoulder," he says, rotating his right arm uncomfortably and scowling at the wall. "I didn't have time to catch myself, so I was completely deadweight. I'm lucky I didn't fall straight through it."
"Poor Jacky boy," I whine, reaching up to gently rub the sore area. "Your muscles are already tightening up."
"I'll have you know," he says incredulously. "My shoulders feel like that because I work out, not because of one minor encounter with some drywall."
He flexes the muscles beneath my hand, the fabric of his shirt straining against his broad shoulders. I snatch my hand back like I've been burned, and put some distance between us.
Jesus Christ. Is the rest of him that solid?
