Page 12 of The Chad Next Door
Grizz grunts and glances past me, eyes twitching a bit as he listens to Zelda’s impressive shrieks. “Rough afternoon?”
“Don’t start. Can you help with the furnace or not?”
I could almost swear he smiles a little as he steps inside, brushing past me because I don’t exactly move out of his way. Maybe I’m being petty, but I hate that he doesn’t think I can do this whole parenting thing when he has no room to talk. From all the gruffness I’ve seen so far, I doubt he has ever interacted with a kid, so he has no idea how hard this can be. Honestly, I don’t thinkIknow how hard it can be. All things considered, Link and Zelda have been way easier than I expected, which makes me think they’re just holding out on the real difficulties until I’m a little less prepared for them.
I don’t even want to think about the upcoming teenage years, mostly because I still feel like I’m a teenager myself. It’s only been five years since I was a teen, which isn’t very long at all.
“Where’s your furnace?” Grizz asks, though his eyes are locked on the hall where the screams are still coming. He stands with his hands on either side of the walls, directly in the entrance to the hallway which is exactly where I need to go to show him the furnace.
The mature thing would be to ask him to move. Instead, I slip under his arm. But I misjudge the space between his ribs and the wall, colliding painfully with the sharp corner of the wall and bouncing directly into him. It’s probably instinct that has him wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me safely into his side, but heat still floods my whole body at the contact, just like it did at the hardware store today.
I have spent enough of my life being on the clumsy side that I don’t easily get embarrassed, but when I took him out today, I wanted to bury myself in a hole and die. Not only did I make a huge mess that June refused to let me clean up, but I am well aware of just how thoroughly I injured both his body and his pride. I’ve never been much of a flirt, but I’m pretty sure hitting a guy in the nuts doesn’t count.
And let me be perfectly clear: I have no intention, nor will I ever have it, of flirting with Grizz the Grump. I’m barely capable of taking care of myself let alone these kids, and throwing a guy into the mix, especially an older man, would do nothing but complicate things.
Does that stop me from taking this miniscule moment to nestle myself in his arms and enjoy the solid warmth of his body? No. No, it does not. It really is cold in here, okay? No one can blame me for taking advantage of a moment of clumsiness. And no matter how old he might be, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s all sorts of good-looking, to the point where I’m almost angry that there are people in the world who age this well. We’re talking George Clooney levels here, though the only sign of gray on Grizz so far is in his scruff. Still. The man looks—and feels—good, and I refuse to let that go to waste.
Grizz clears his throat, and I step back, pretending there was nothing weird about that moment just now.
“Balance and I aren’t friends, as you well know,” I say, glad to see him pink a little. At least he knows he was rude earlier. “Furnace is this way.” I open the closet door and wave my hand at the big appliances that are currently the cause of many of my woes.
He glances at me. “Water heater too?” he guesses, and I appreciate the wince he gives me when I nod. “You should have told me yesterday. Were the kids okay last night?”
“They were a little cold, but not too bad. I think we’d all like a shower, though.”
He grunts again, and I’m starting to understand where the nickname Grizz may have come from. I’d still like to know his real name, but with the way he seems to keep to himself, I have to wonder if anyone would even know it. June told me she’d only just met him today, even though he bought the house a year ago. Maybe Eleanor would have better info? I have to ask her about the school situation still anyway, so I could just throw that in and—
“Done.”
I blink. “Wait, already?” Sure enough, a little flame glows from the furnace, warm and bright. I hear the heater kick on, and suddenly I relax. “It was that easy?”
There’s that almost-smile again, and I am so curious to know what his smile would look like if he let it loose. He’s got that permanently grumpy look that a lot of people have in their resting expressions, but the wrinkles around his eyes tell me he’s nottotallyagainst smiling. When he’s this handsome, he either has a perfect smile or a terrible one; there is no in between with this kind of guy. If it’s terrible, I can see why he would hide it from people he doesn’t know. (For the record, there’s no such thing as an actually terrible smile. A smile is a smile.) But if he has the kind of smile that lights up his face and makes rainbows appear, I desperately want to see it, just to say I did. So, the big question is which is it?
“Do…” He hesitates, glancing at me as he opens the panel on the water heater. “Do you want me to show you how to do it in case it goes out again?”
If it means I can avoid asking for his reluctant help again, then absolutely. But I play it cool and shrug one shoulder as I say, “Sure. If you want.”
I’m not sure how that warrants an eye roll, but he gives me one anyway. “First, you want to make sure there isn’t any gas floating around in there. The valve was already off, so we should be good, but if it goes out later, you’ll want to turn it off for about ten minutes.”
“So we don’t go boom. Got it.”
That throws him off, pulling his eyebrows down low as he tries to see if I’m serious or not. I am, which makes this funnier. “Then you’ll want to turn it down to the lowest temp.” He shows me, twisting the dial. “Newer models have a button you can push to ignite the light, but this one is, uh, pretty old. You should probably get a new one.”
Yeah, that’s not happening anytime soon, but I’ll add it to my list of things I need to buy if I ever find a job. It can go alongside a bed and dresser for my tiny room which, I’ll be honest, is likely still inhabited by our wolverine friend.
“Noted,” I tell Grizz, just so he’ll keep going.
“Then you take your lighter, and…” He holds the flame toward the place where I assume the pilot light is supposed to be, and it ignites immediately. “It’s pretty simple, so you should be able to handle it.”
“Because I am only capable of simple things,” I agree as seriously as I can manage.
This time he turns more red than pink. “That isn’t what I meant,” he growls.
“I’m having a hard time figuring out what else you could mean. Thanks for your help, but I think I can take it from here.”
He seems to fully agree because he turns without a word and heads for the door. But he gets stopped by Zelda suddenly opening her door as he approaches it. I knew he was big, but seeing his broad silhouette next to Zelda’s thin frame makes him look exceptionally huge.
“Did you turn our heat on?” Zelda asks him. There’s a bit of anxiety in her face as she looks up at him, like she’s also realizing how big this man is now that he’s standing so close to her.
