Page 83 of Midnight Valentine
At 11:00 a.m. on the nose, someone knocks on my front door. I’ve been standing at the patio windows, staring out at the ocean, my mind as blank as a clean sheet of paper. When I open the door, I find Coop and his team grouped on my porch. They’re all wearing tool belts and carrying lunch boxes. Work trucks line the curb on either side of the street.
“Mornin’, Megan,” says Coop. A small smile hovers at the corners of his lips.
“Hey, Coop. Hey, guys.”
The men solemnly nod. I stare at them, waiting, but no one says anything.
“You boys lost? Out for a morning drive and took a wrong turn?”
Coop’s smile grows wider. “No wrong turns.”
My face grows warm, and my heart beats faster. I whisper, “Theo?”
Coop’s eyes are so blue. As blue as the sky above. He nods, grinning now. “The one and only. Sent word that we were to start work on the Buttercup as soon as I could get everyone together. So, I got us together. Here we are. We’re gonna start on the master bedroom first. Theo said make sure that gets done before anything else.”
The men look at me. My cheeks go from warm to burning.
Coop says, “You ready for us?”
I swallow, quickly
nodding. “Yes. Please, come in.” I swing the door open, and the men file inside.
Coop is last to walk over the threshold. He stops and gazes down at me. He keeps his voice low so only I can hear his words. “I take it you and Theo hashed out your problems.”
My laugh is a little shaky. “I guess that’s one way to put it. Is he…is he coming?”
Coop slowly shakes his head. “But he seems better. What I could tell anyway, from his emails. I’m sure I have you to thank for that.”
“Well, you know what they say, Coop. The thing that breaks you is the only thing that can put you back together.”
“Yeah, I think Einstein said that, right?”
I rise up on my toes and kiss him on the cheek, making him blush. “Yes. It was Einstein, for sure.”
Coop chuckles, giving my arm a friendly squeeze. “You talk to Suzanne since you ran outta church like you were bein’ chased by the Holy Ghost?”
“No.” I think for a moment. “That must’ve been an interesting spectacle I made.”
“Hate to tell you, Megan, but it was all anyone could talk about after. New girl in town starts laughin’ like a hyena at the start of the sermon, then bolts for the doors at a hundred miles per hour—the general consensus is that you’re either on drugs or an atheist. Drugs bein’ the better option, by the way. Folks around here are pretty nonjudgmental, but nobody likes an atheist. You can’t trust a person who doesn’t believe in God.”
I smile at that. “I can honestly tell you, Coop, that I’m not an atheist this morning.”
“So it’s drugs, then,” he teases. “Guess I should make you pay up front for the job in case you’re incarcerated for possession. That way we can still work on the place while you’re dryin’ out in the poke.”
I laugh, pressing a hand to my forehead because it feels like my brain is cracking underneath my skull.
Coop shakes his head and sighs. “Okay, dopehead, outta my way. I gotta get to work.” He tweaks my nose and ambles past, his boots thumping hollowly against the wood floor.
* * *
That night, I wait, but Theo doesn’t come. He doesn’t come the next either, or the next. By Friday, I’m climbing the walls in frustration, my need to see him gnawing my guts like an infestation of termites.
So much for paddling upstream.
Meanwhile, the men of Hillrise Construction are hard at work turning my vision of the Buttercup Inn into reality.
One team works on the master bedroom—starting by ripping out the bathroom sink, bathtub, and shower—while another team goes to work on the roof. A construction Dumpster rental company delivers two huge trash bins on flatbed trucks and parks them along the curb. Every day, more workmen and equipment show up until the place is crawling with both. Coop keeps me abreast of all the plans and the progress, but I pay attention to his briefings with only half my mind.
