Page 58 of Hers to Tame
Setting her down in the kitchen, I take a deep whiff of the aroma of pie filling the room. On the stove is a large pot of chili simmering next to a skillet of cornbread hot from the oven. Pulling my coat off from my shoulders, Maggie pushes me toward the stairs to go change.
We’ve had to stay in her old room upstairs on some tiny bed her mother had apparently bought off of one of the seven dwarfs in the distant past. Just rolling over has to be a coordinated effort. The bathroom upstairs is not much better. I’ve had to bend in half to get my hair wet since the shower head hits me at chest level.
“Are we celebrating something?” I ask, walking back into the kitchen ten minutes later in my oldest jeans and T-shirt. Maggie is setting the bowls of chili on the table when she looks up at me with a grin.
“They’re done,” she states, laughing when my eyebrows knit in confusion. “Colin, the contractor said they’ve finished the house today! Tomorrow the cleaners are coming to scrub everything, then we can move back into our bedroom.” I stare at her, dumbfounded for a moment.
“Woman, I swear if this is some kind of sick joke just to make me bend you back over that island, regardless of the catcalls I get leaving for work tomorrow... well it will probably work. But I’ll feel irritated later. Satisfied, but irritated.” Maggie laughs, the sound coming from deep down inside. That laugh still has the ability to make me go from nothing to ramrod hard in seconds.
“I promise to get that window covered soon. He said if we were happy with everything, he would swing by your office tomorrow for his final payment.” She is so excited, she is almost vibrating.
“Oh, that reminds me,” she says, sitting down. “I’m going to be the sponsor of several of the academic teams at school. It will add a little extra to my paycheck that we can apply to our renovations.”
“Maggie,” I say, rolling my eyes. No matter how many times I tell her we have a very healthy investment account with Grayson, she refuses to let me dip into it for the expansion expenses on our house.
“I know I’m not bringing in the big money anymore, but I don’t think using a tiny bit of our investments is going to render us destitute.” She just shakes her head at me, it’s an argument we’ve had a lot lately. “Fine. I’ve already agreed to teach business law at TCU next semester anyway. You can have that paycheck for your building fund also.”
“How are you going to do that plus your regular workload plus working at the shelter or Habitat on weekends?”
“I’m also playing on the softball team for the DA's office against the FWPD at the annual Law & Order benefit this year.” Maggie looks at me with concern. I know she worries about the hours I put in everywhere, but I can’t think of one thing I would want to give up. As long as I can spend every extra second with her, I always figured sleep was for losers.
“I think you are overworking yourself. Don’t give me that crap about sleep being for losers either.” Damn, this woman knows me way too well!
“Mr. Winters told me he can assign some of my casework to others in the office to help. I’ve signed on two more private attorneys to help with the shelter and I think we only practice once before the game. It’s probably why they get their asses handed to them every year.”
“Do you think Bruce Wayne ever sleeps?” she asks me out of the blue. “Think about it, he has to protect the city all night and still run a major company during the day.” Shaking my head at how her brain slides through topics, we launch into a lively discussion on the sleeping habits of Batman.
“Shall we go tour our new room?” I ask Maggie after the kitchen is clean. Taking her hand we hurry through the house. Walking into the master bedroom, we stand for a second just to take it in. They’ve knocked out the wall on one side, enlarging the room substantially to include a sitting area. The original walk-in closet has been incorporated into the bathroom and they added two new large closets.
The bathroom includes a large, jetted tub with a separate shower including a multitude of heads tall enough for me to stand under. There are now two sinks, one taller to accommodate my height surrounded by an impressive piece of granite.
“Wow!” Maggie whispers next to me, looking around. I have to agree, it came out even better than the image I had of it in my mind. “The shower is even bigger than the one in your old condo.” What can I say? I needed more room to work. “The seat seems kind of high though.” Perfect.
Pulling me back through the doorway, we next walk into our new library. It’s covered in floor to ceiling bookcases on one side with a rolling ladder to reach the top shelves. The bottom cases have cabinet doors on them and two entire cases are glass-fronted for my growing collection of first editions.
I had a fireplace added to the back of the wall in the living room with room for two deep lounge chairs in front of it. The window at one end is made to match the ones on the rest of the house and is covered by a new expanse of porch I had added.
“I figured I could rehang my comic book covers near the window. The sun shouldn’t affect them if we hang some kind of window covering. Whatever you think looks best.” I’m checking out the controls for the fireplace as Maggie looks around.
Even though this one is an enclosed gas fireplace, it still blends in nicely to the feel of the house. I spent a lot of time researching the architecture of this house before hiring a designer that understood our vision.
“Why did you have doors put on the lower cabinets?” she asks.
“I figured you wanted to still keep your porn stash hidden from everyone.” I laugh softly when she spins around to look at me with her mouth open.
“I do not have a porn stash!” she says with conviction.
“Then what do you call what’s hidden under the island behind the casserole dishes in the kitchen?” I watch as she turns a beautiful shade of pink.
“They are not porn, they are romances,” she says with a huff.
“Yeah, sure.” I turn back to the fireplaces, checking the ignition.
“I’ll have you know, romance is the top-selling genre of literature on the market.” I grin at the fireplace without turning around. I’m almost positive I’m about to be put in detention. “I can’t believe you’d think they’re porn. You don’t even know what they’re about.” With a growl sent in my direction, she walks back into the living room, throwing herself down on the couch in a huff.
“Didn’t think about getting caught, huh?” I ask, walking out of the library knowing full well I’m poking the bear. “Wait here, I’ll show you how I know they’re nothing but porn.” I hear a snort behind me as I walk into the kitchen. Bending down, I fish an armload of the paperbacks into my arms before walking back into the living room.
“Okay, smart-ass, tell me what you think you know about them.” Her eyes are narrowed in a stubborn expression. This is going to be fun, after all, she refused to let me bring a healthy collection of Playboys with me when I moved in.
