I wasn’t kidding when I told Lily that kids were expensive. They are frighteningly so with school supplies that are acceptable to a five-year-old girl. I’m thinking about all of this while dragging on my jeans and t-shirt.
Beside me, Lily struggles into the dress she’d been wearing last night, eschewing her bra and panties in preference for haste. I’m not sure why she’s bothering to get dressed. Ethan isn’t yelling for her to go out there.
On exiting the trailer, I find Ethan standing in the middle of the clearing, his arms crossed, his lips tight. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this angry. I don’t get it. His rule is stupid, especially when I care about Lily enough that I’m already thinking about making things permanent.
Ethan glares at me, drawing air in hard enough that his nostrils flare. Sheesh, all I need is a red cape to face down this bull.
“I don’t ask much of you guys. Turn up on time, do the work, fix your mistakes…” He steps forward, before gritting out, “But number one, and you damn well know it, is don’t screw the clients.”
Everything he says is true, but I take exception to him saying I’m simply screwing Lily. Nothing could be further from the truth. While the fury in my belly is slow to burn, it soon erupts with me now every bit as angry as my boss.
It’s at this point that Lily steps up next to me, sliding her arm around my waist, my arm automatically matching hers. For the first time, we’re facing the world as a couple.
Wow, if I thought Ethan was angry before, it’s nothing compared to now.
“Ethan, don’t you think it’s hypocritical to ask your team members not to fraternize with clients?” Lily falls silent while apparently waiting for her words to take effect, although I don’t know why they would.
He’s still glaring at us when she adds, “Word at the rest home is that you were working for your now-wife when you got together. Is it true you put themanin handy man?”
While Ethan looks to be ready to yell at me some more, he doesn’t appear capable. Instead, he’s lost for words, his mouth mimicking that of a goldfish.
However, Lily still has a lot to say, “And I object to you saying that Tyler is screwing me, as you so delicately put it, when, in fact, I’m screwing him.” After this shock, she disengages herself from my arms and huffs back inside the trailer.
Rather than continue to berate me now that Lily has gone, all Ethan says is, “I want you over at the Sanderson place by eight-thirty or I’m docking your pay.” After this vain attempt to gain the upper hand, he spins around and marches off.
“I’ll just grab my boots and be on my way.”
On opening the trailer door, I’m still in a bit of a daze. When he’d shouted my name earlier, never in a million years could I have foreseen this outcome.
Lily is waiting for me just inside the door and, after throwing her arms around me, she reaches up on tiptoe and hits me with a kiss passionate enough to clear my thoughts immediately.
It’s also a move that has her hard up against me, reminding me she’s naked under that dress, although it’s gone soon enough. I don’t bother undressing completely myself. We’ve only got fifteen or twenty minutes. And I want them to be the best of Lily’s life.
So good, in fact, that I have to walk out to my truck still holding my boots. Ethan didn’t stipulate I turn up at the other job completely dressed, now did he?
On climbing out of my truck at the Sanderson place, I’m whistling to myself, happy with this new direction in my life, happy to have Lily willing to fight my fights. At least this one time. Damn it, after hearing how her ex treated her, I’m tempted to show the guy some dentistry skills of my own.
As sure as I am of the air I breathe, no one will ever mistreat Lily like that again. Not while I’ve got anything to say about it.
TWENTY
LILY
The rest of the flip passes in a blur, the house coming alive thanks to the Lucky Break team. I’ve also come to trust in my choices around design and changes to the floor plan.
While it had caused a lot of grumbling and head scratching from the team, the changes have been worth it. Certainly, the house flows better than it ever did now that it’s more open-plan than was popular back in the day.
Silly, but the thing I’m proudest of is those kitchen cabinets. After I’d removed all the layers of paint and spent hours sanding, the wood now gleams.
And dang if that old guy wasn’t on the money with his crock pot trick. While it’s possible to buy reproduction vintage hardware, it’s never as good as the original. It’s definitely a hack I’ll use in the future, with me more determined than ever to make a go of flipping houses.
Just as I’ve moved on from Mitchell, I’ve moved on from the career he’d suggested I take up not long after we’d met. As infatuated as I’d been with him, I’d given no thought to changing schools mid-year.
Thinking back, I should have stuck with the design course as I’d wanted to. What an idiot I’d been to choose dental impressions over dental moldings, and all for the love of that two-timing creep.
It’s yet another thing I love about Tyler. He doesn’t want to change me at all. If I’m happy, then he’s happy. Not that this stops us from discussing things that affect both of us.
He’s definitely a breath of fresh air in that department after years of knowing it was easier to say, “Yes, of course,” to any of Mitchell’s manysuggestions.
