Page 78 of Story of My Life
“No drowning yourself on the first day.” Cam sounded irritated, which in my experience was his normal, everyday emotion.
“I’m not drowning myself. I’m waking up.” My voice echoed tinnily off the sink’s stainless-steel walls.
A dish towel appeared in my face. I took it and did my best to mop myself up before straightening away from the sink.
Hair water hit the floor like Niagara Falls. Melvin clomped into the kitchen on his gigantic dog feet and began slurping it up.
I bent at the waist and tied the dish towel around my sopping-wet hair. There were work boots and dog paws just past my bare toes. An odd little family of feet in the kitchen of a single hot mess.
“Can I help you with something?” I asked, righting myself. Was he here to discuss my proposition? Was he going to say yes? Or was he going to reject me and make me feel like an idiot?
“Just wanted to go over the plan for the day,” he said.
“Oh. Okay. What’s the plan?” I cracked open my cherry Pepsi.
“We’re working up some preliminary plans for the kitchen and the bathrooms on the second floor. In the meantime, we’d want to start demoing what we can. Since you’re probably into the whole having-indoor-plumbing thing, I figured we’d start demo on the kitchen and the guest bath and leave your bath for later.”
Did the guy actually expect me to chime in with relevant opinions on demolition? “Sounds fine to me,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster.
“That means we need you to move everything out that you moved in, and you won’t be able to cook in here,” he reminded me.
My oatmeal chose that moment to explode in the microwave. Melvin galloped hopefully toward the contained mess, nose scenting the apples and cinnamon air.
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” I deadpanned.
“Good. Here. Throw this out.” He handed me a balled-up piece of paper.
Frowning, I unfurled it. It was an election poster with a photo of Emilie’s unsmiling face, promising that as chief of police, she would be starting a town-wide HOA to police residential seasonal decor.
“Wow. Where did you find this?”
“On your front door.”
“That woman works fast,” I observed.
Cam turned to leave.
“Wait.” I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “What about what we talked about…last night?”
He studied me for a beat. “Still thinking.”
“Cam!” Gage yelled from somewhere upstairs.
“Keep your pants on,” Cam yelled back and left the room.
Melvin and I stared at each other. The dog’s tail wagged encouragingly.
“Am I really that terrible that he has to think this long about a fake date?” I asked my furry companion.
Melvin’s doggy eyebrows lifted, and he jogged out of the room.
I picked up the toaster and looked at my distorted reflection. “Okay, maybe he has a point.”
I tookthe salvaged remains of my oatmeal upstairs, where I showered quickly and awkwardly in the claw-foot tub. I’d found that getting out was trickier than getting in since every inch of me was wet. I dried my hair into a semblance of order and was just pawing through my makeup bag when there was a thud at the bathroom door.
“Uh. Occupied. I thought you weren’t touching this bathroom until?—”
I opened the door to find Melvin staring up at me expectantly. I could hear the brothers banging around downstairs and yelling over music. The dog barged in, all business as he brushed past me and went directly to the tub. He put his front paws on the skyscraper lip of the tub and peered inside, his tail wagging.
