A Tail for Two

by Mara Wells

  Chapter 25

  Lance had never met a coffee maker he couldn’t figure out, but he had to admit that Carrie’s was particularly challenging. She’d clearly bought it for its interesting lines and shiny knobs rather than functionality, a hazard of her profession—appearance over substance. It had driven him crazy during their marriage, how she seemed to believe that if things looked right, then they were right. He’d felt them growing apart long before she’d acknowledged it. Perhaps because he worried about how things were constructed, was an expert at taking things apart and putting them back together, he’d spotted the fractures in their relationship, the cracks in the foundation that eventually led to the total demolition of their marriage.

  Carrie’d pulled the trigger, but he’d seen it coming, and like any cash-challenged homeowner facing an overwhelming expense, had ignored the signs until it was too late. Not again, he promised himself. This time around, he’d be vigilant for any cracks, proactive with his newly discovered superpower of groveling. After all, he wasn’t just protecting himself anymore. He was protecting Oliver, too. Carrie would have to get on board with the new plan. He was back in their lives. For good, he hoped.

  He located Carrie’s stash of coffee beans, the grinder, her eco-friendly strainers. Slammed two oversize coffee mugs on the cabinet, recognizing that he was pissed off but not sure why. Because he’d had to look the coffee maker up on his phone to figure out how to use it? Because his totally efficient morning plan had been thwarted by his own son? Because he was starting to realize how much he’d missed by not being in Oliver’s life? None of those felt right, but they all added fuel to the fire building inside him.

  Oliver trundled into the room, dressed in orange cargo shorts and a red T-shirt with a cartoon T. rex on the chest. His shorts’ zipper was up, but the button was undone.

  “You certainly can dress yourself. Want some help with that last button?” Lance flipped the knob he hoped would start the coffee brewing. It did.

  “No, thank you.” At least Oliver had excellent manners. He stuck his finger in his own belly button and made a whooshing sound, like a balloon letting out air. He grinned up at Lance.

  Lance grinned back, the growing anger inside him diffused by Oli’s gap-toothed smile and the way his blue eyes crinkled at the edges, exactly like his great-grandpa William’s.

  Apparently appreciating Lance’s reaction, Oli repeated the action, this time collapsing in slow motion to the floor. Lance couldn’t help himself. He laughed out loud.

  “What’s so funny?” Carrie entered the kitchen, a two-person space at most. She placed her bare foot on Oliver’s tummy. “Is this a new rug? It’s so squishy and soft.”

  Oliver giggled, and Carrie curled her toes, tickling him. He rolled to his side, laughing.

  “What a strange rug, rolling all over the place. I guess I’ll have to nail it down. Lance, do you have a hammer handy?” She held out her hand. He pretended to pull something out of his back pocket and handed the imaginary hammer to her. She knelt down and pretended to pound on Oliver’s shoulder. Beckham helped out by licking the kid’s nose. “There. That should hold it.”

  Oliver jumped to his feet. “Mama, it’s me! Oliver!”

  Carrie slapped a hand to her chest and staggered backward, bumping into Lance. He steadied her with a hand to her hip. “Oliver? Where did you come from?”

  Lance’s arm slid around Carrie, pulling her back against him. Oliver launched himself at his mother, hugging her legs. Lance reached down to pat his son’s head, surprised at how nice it felt to stand in the kitchen, the smell of coffee in the air, his family in his arms.

  His family. The anger burst back. How many mornings had Carrie had moments like these? Hundreds? And he had one, this one. His arms tightened around them while he acknowledged that although he’d said he understood why Carrie had done what she did, the truth was far more complicated. Yeah, he understood, but no, that didn’t make it okay. It didn’t give him back years with his son, years with her, years of the three of them being a family.

  As a little boy, Lance and his mother didn’t have the kind of relationship Carrie and Oliver enjoyed. He should’ve known Carrie’d be a great mom. They’d talked about how their terrible parents made them confident they shouldn’t be parents themselves, but they’d been wrong. Carrie knew what it was to feel invisible, an unimportant player in her parents’ drama, and she clearly went out of her way to make sure Oliver never felt the same. Lance was so grateful to her and so angry at the same time.

  He didn’t know what to do with these messed-up emotions. He needed a real hammer and something to bang. He needed to get to work, first at the Dorothy, then to Kristin’s to finish up the tile work. He needed to get out of this kitchen. He stepped away from Carrie and busied himself pouring two cups of coffee.

  “Anybody home?” Sherry’s voice carried to the kitchen. “I hope some of that coffee’s for me.” She entered the definitely-too-small-for-this-many-people kitchen, stopping in surprise. “Oh, hi, Lance.”

  “Gamma!” Oliver flung himself at his grandmother, who scooped him up to rain kisses on his cheeks. Beckham bounced off her thigh.

  “I was leaving.” Lance handed her what he’d thought would be his cup of coffee. He grabbed his keys from where he’d dropped them by the TV last night, hearing Sherry’s “What was that about?” as he strode to the door.

  “I don’t know.” Carrie’s voice followed him out, as did Beckham.

  “Not now, Beck.” He squatted to give the dog a good scrub behind the ears. Beckham tilted his head and watched Lance walk away.

  * * *

  “Hello, handsome.” Kristin lounged in the entrance to her apartment, still in what looked like a nightgown even though it was nearly lunchtime. Lance forced himself to smile. Everything had been going so well at the Dorothy that when he’d checked in with Mendo earlier, he’d learned they were waiting for the roof inspector to show up. He’d done a walk-through of the residents’ places to make sure nothing had been damaged during the shimmying and shaking of roof replacement, but it hadn’t provided the hammer-swinging, bang-something-until-it-was-nothing-but-dust therapy he needed.

  “Good to see you. My brother’s already here?” Lance shifted from one foot to the other, eager to get to the bathroom and hopefully some mind-numbing work.

  Kristin stepped back. “Tall, hot, and silent’s hard at work. Unfortunately. That man does not relax, does he?”

  Lance didn’t know enough about his brother to agree or disagree, but he nodded because when in doubt, the client was always right. When not in doubt, the client was right, too. If you wanted to get paid anyway.

  Kristin wandered away, diaphanous wrap billowing around her. He could see why Carrie got the idea for a heaven-inspired bathroom. Kristin possessed an otherworldliness that drew the eye and held it.

  Knox knelt on the cement floor, wiping the extra grout off Carrie’s accent wall of pearl-inlaid tiles. Now that the pattern was complete, it was lovely. Swirling, soothing, just a bit shiny. He could imagine standing under the hot shower spray and getting lost in the flow. Whatever he personally felt about Carrie might roller-coaster from moment to moment, but there was no arguing she was good at her job.

  “Looks good.”

  Knox started at the sound of Lance’s voice but didn’t pause in his cleaning duties. “Does that mean we’re down to the last part? The floor?” Knox wiped the last bit of grout off the wall and pushed to his feet, braced leg held out straight while he powered up with his other leg. Lance had learned not to offer help. Knox preferred to handle things himself.

  Lance pulled out his razor-blade knife and cut away the plastic wrap around the floor tiles piled neatly in the hallway. “This small a space shouldn’t take more than a few hours, as long as we prep the subfloor well.”

  “Prep?”

  “The cement’s in good condition, s
o we’ll lay out a tile membrane and a layer of thinset. Once that dries, we’ll mark out the pattern and get started.” Lance inspected the cement flooring one more time to be extra sure there weren’t any cracks. “We can use some fans to speed the drying along. I know Kristin’s in a hurry to get her bathroom done, and we don’t want to keep the lady waiting.” He also knew Kristin was standing right behind him. He grinned at Knox, then spun around in exaggerated surprise. “Kristin! We were just talking about you.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Still in her pearly-white wrap, she held out two glasses. “Thought you might need some water.”

  “Thanks.” Lance took one glass and, when Knox didn’t react to her offer, took his, too. “We’ll prep the floor today, set up fans overnight, and lay out the tiles tomorrow. Once that dries, my lady, you will have a new bathroom.”

  “Fantastic.” She flounced away in a cloud of her own making, material flapping and with a scent Lance couldn’t quite place. Probably some kind of flower.

  Lance and Knox worked together for a few hours, measuring out the tile membrane that would allow the floor to expand and contract without cracking the tiles, and then remeasuring and measuring yet again before carefully cutting into the material. Once it was laid, Lance mixed up some quick-set mortar and demonstrated how to spread it with the flat side of the tile trowel.

  “No, keep all the strokes in one direction. Like this.” Lance took the trowel from Knox and smoothed out the swirls he’d made in the quick-set before they, well, set quickly.

  Knox reclaimed the trowel with a rare smile. “I can see it now.”

  “Yeah, it’s not hard. Just tedious.” Lance picked up his own tool. Twice the number of hands, half the work time.

  “Not the technique, the teacher.” Knox stretched out along the floor, smoothing the quick-set in an extended straight line. “You’re patient. Good at explaining things. I see how you’d make a good father.”

  Lance dropped his trowel, creating a small crater he immediately smoothed out. “You think so?”

  “Yeah.” Knox fished another scoop of mortar out of the five-gallon bucket and slopped it onto the floor. “Neither one of us had the best role model, but we turned out okay. No thanks to him. Imagine what an advantage your kid has with you in his corner.”

  “Thanks, man.” Lance swallowed hard and kept up a steady smoothing motion with his trowel.

  Now that he’d had his say, Knox returned to his silent, intense focus on his work. Lance lost himself in the repetitive motion, imagining Oliver in another ten years, crammed into this small bathroom with them. He’d be all elbows and knees at that age, maybe even annoyed that he’d been dragged to a work site again. But Lance would stay patient and ask for his help to finish up early so they could surprise his mom with some Chinese takeout for dinner. Oli would reluctantly agree, but once he got the hang of the trowel, he’d be all focus. Maybe his tongue would stick out the side of his mouth. It was easy to imagine big, silent Knox still there, too, conferring silent approval on his nephew. A family business.

  It hit Lance then, how this must be what his father felt back when he and Knox were teens. Lance remembered his first day on the job, how his father had proudly introduced him to everyone on-site. Knox had already left for the Marines by then, and Lance remembered the tremendous responsibility he felt, being the boss’s son.

  Lance remembered, too, the look on his father’s face the day he’d quit. He’d seen one too many shady dealings go down to be comfortable working for his father anymore, and even though he didn’t have a fully formed plan about what he’d do instead of inherit the family business, he’d thrown his resignation in his father’s face with the full superiority of all his nineteen years.

  How would Lance feel if Oli ever hated him the way he’d hated his own father? His fingers curled thinking of it. It would be awful. And if he had two sons who left him? Three? For the first time, Lance felt a glimmer of sympathy for his father. All alone now, except for wife number three, humiliated, broke, incarcerated. At the very least, he owed Christine a phone call and an apology.

  Chapter 26

  Carrie balanced two large shopping bags on each shoulder and double-checked the bungee holding the boxes on her rolling cart before stepping off the elevator onto Kristin’s floor. Today was D-Day. Actually, it was a Wednesday, but it was also her favorite part of any project: final touches. Her personal D-Day—decorating—was enough reason for the excitement rising like champagne bubbles in her chest. It never got old, the final transformation where her imagined vision became reality. The fact that Lance was still on-site was no reason to check the tiny buttons on her sleeveless silk tank top or the hemline on her moss-green pencil skirt, but she did.

  They’d exchanged a few rather terse texts since the morning. She knew he wasn’t the most enthusiastic texter, so she told herself she had nothing to worry about. Lance hadn’t stormed out of her condo on Monday; he’d left when her mother arrived in a very natural flow of events. That they hadn’t seen each other yesterday was also nothing to worry about. Their night together held a lot of ramifications. It was smart, very adulty of them to take a breath and let things settle. At least, that was what she’d been telling herself to keep from freaking out.

  Sleeping together one time didn’t mean he owed her any explanation. She wished for an explanation anyway. What were they now? His few texts made it clear they were working together, but though she’d reread each update on Kristin’s bathroom multiple times, she hadn’t been able to find a trace of affection or humor. Or any acknowledgment that he was thinking about their night together as obsessively as she was. If she was honest with herself, and she always tried to be, she wasn’t sure what to do next when it came to the mystery of Lance Donovan.

  Business first. She knocked on Kristin’s door, smile on her face. Lance and Knox had met the deadline, texting her around noon that they were done, and she was here for the final walk-through and to sign off on their work.

  “Carrie!” Kristin swung the door open and greeted her with a kiss to each cheek. “I’m so impressed with these boys of yours. Gotta say, I’m sad to see those two beefcakes go. I may have to hire you again, if only so I can get my daily dose of eye candy.”

  Carrie’s fake smile turned real. Kristin was happy; she was talking about hiring her for the rest of the apartment. It was everything she’d hoped for, and she hadn’t even added the cloud-soft towels she’d sourced from the same supplier who made the Ritz Carlton’s linens. She couldn’t wait to turn that bathroom into a showpiece.

  “Hi, Carrie.” Knox stood outside the bathroom, propped languidly against the hallway wall. He rubbed the muscle above the leg brace. “Lance is quadruple checking things in there. I had no idea my brother was such a perfectionist.”

  “Says the best crew member a guy could have.” Lance joined them in the hallway, wiping damp hands on his jeans. “Knox, you really came through. Wouldn’t have made this deadline without you.”

  “Enough with the self-congratulations. Let’s see it!” Carrie placed her bags on the carpeted floor, noting to herself that given free rein, the cream low-pile would soon be replaced. Parquet? Tile? So many options. She poked her head in the door.

  “Oh, Lance.” Her hand covered her mouth. “It’s gorgeous.” The accent wall with the pearl-inlay tile swirled in its flower patterns. The champagne-finish fixtures gleamed in the glow from the cut crystal light fixture. She stepped inside, checking corners, joints, turning every faucet, even flushing the new toilet.

  “You’re pleased?” Lance’s voice was so close behind her that she spun and almost bumped into him. The aqua of his Excalibur Construction T-shirt lightened his eyes to a swimming-pool blue. She gazed into their depths, nodding.

  “I want to see.” Kristin pushed her way in, and Carrie stepped into the walk-in shower so Kristin wouldn’t feel crowded. Kristin ran a finger along the pearl-inlay wall, turned a
full circle, and switched the light on and off.

  “Well?” Carrie couldn’t wait another second.

  “It’s”—Kristin braced her hands on the vanity, and her eyes met Carrie’s in the mirror—“heavenly.”

  Carrie held both hands to her chest. “Wonderful. Now get out. I need to get to work.”

  Kristin laughed and exited, saying something to Knox out in the hallway.

  Carrie stepped out of the shower, and Lance handed her one of the bags. “Magic time, huh?”

  She smiled, pleased he’d remembered her phrase for the final-touches stage of any interior design project. “It should only take a few minutes, if you want to stick around for the final reveal.”

  “Send me some pics.” He took two steps backward. “Everyone gets back from the cruise today. Caleb has me on bellboy standby.”

  Carrie tried to hide her disappointment, but those champagne bubbles popped, one by one, leaving her deflated. “Okay. Thanks again.”

  He pointed finger guns at her. “Anytime. I’ll bill you later this week.”

  Finger guns? Carrie buried her hands in the sculpted-cotton bath rug she’d picked for its architectural elements—high loft, white garland on a linen background—and of course for its luxurious softness. She rubbed the looped pile, trying to recapture the feeling she’d had when she found it, that mixture of triumph and satisfaction that let her know when she’d found the perfect product for a job. Instead, all she felt was Lance’s absence. He wasn’t the warm, affectionate man from early Monday morning. Something had changed, made him chilly, maybe even downright cold. The finger guns said it all. Their night together had been a relapse, one he clearly regretted. All those amazing feelings she’d felt? He hadn’t.