by Roxie Odell
“Looks like you’ve been doing that already,” he said, eyeing her seductively.
Cheri squirmed at the compliment.
Thomas winked. “The way I see it, coffee is a good mood in a cup.” He grinned at her, then pointed out the window. “This is the place, right?”
It almost angered Cheri that he was playing so coy. Of course he knew where she worked, because he had visited her there once. Not only that, but he’d slept with one of her co-workers. Every little thing seemed to open the floodgates for more and more, and within seconds she was overwhelmed with a whole hurricane of emotions, memories, and feelings she simply did not know how to handle. Without another word, she opened the door and slipped out of the truck, feeling a little sick.
Thomas was already out and on her side, ready to catch her as she made the leap.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, and hated that her voice sounded like she was snapping. “I’m a big girl, Thomas.”
“Yeah, I know.” He smiled, oblivious to her inner torture.
Instantly, she collected herself, feeling guilty for snapping. The big, rugged man looked like a five-year-old as he stood there in front of her building, completely wounded by her outburst when he was only trying to be hospitable. She touched him tenderly. “I apologize for being…so short with you,” she whispered, her voice full of the emotion she could not hide. She looked up at him as she said it, searching his gaze with pleading eyes.
“I know,” he said softly. “Look, Cheri, I fucked up big time, and I miss you somethin’ awful. It’s driving me crazy just seeing you. Are you sure you can’t break down and let me take you to lunch or dinner or something?”
“I-I can’t,” said Cheri, shaking her head. “I just can’t. What’d you say to that guy back there? Them’s the breaks, pal.”
“Have a heart,” he pleaded.
“I do, Thomas…and it’s breaking,” she said, then quietly walked inside, sliding her arms into her sweater on the way.
Chapter 2
The scorching temperature blanketing the city gave way to rain of biblical proportions. Washington, D.C. needed relief from the relentless heatwave, but the rain was getting to be too much. Streets were experiencing random standing water, and flash-flooding caused structural damage and rendered parts of the city uninhabitable. The summer had been fraught with thunderstorm disasters, and the city workers were always having to clean up one mess or another. Fortunately for Cheri, her neighborhood was one of the few in which buying an ark did not yet seem necessary.
The deluge did serve one very helpful issue, however, in that it prevented Cheri from making an excuse to accidentally-on-purpose run into Thomas, just as she had a few days prior. She couldn’t walk by his jobsite, and he wouldn’t be working in the wet weather anyway. Still, no amount of torrential downpour could keep her thoughts about him from gushing through her head nonstop.
Her mind filled with images of the two of them. She vividly remembered what his mouth felt like on hers, and her brain scrambled to do the math time and time again, struggling to solve the equation. Her ex, who was never officially a boyfriend to begin with, was now a series of whys. Why is he so bad for me? Why can’t I just have one meal with him? Then it came to her: Women like Thomas, and he likes them right back.
He had promised he would change, and Cheri believed he meant it. Sadly, she just didn’t have it in her to conjure up another dose of that belief. It had been so hard telling him to leave, when all she wanted was to erase all the bad things that ever happened and continue on with him. As good as he was at saving the day, that was one little rodeo stunt even the cowboy could not pull off.
Cheri had to focus on the present if she was going to make it home in one piece, the sky dumping water on her in buckets, without mercy. She struggled through her short commute home, running from her office door to the metro station, shielded only by a thin, borrowed umbrella she didn’t quite know how to operate. She managed to open the stubborn contraption, but she had to settle for pushing it up just far enough to cover her hair. Occasionally, the umbrella tried to close, pinching Cheri’s fingers in the process. Eventually, she made it to the metro with her hair intact but with her shoes soaking wet, and blisters on her forefinger and thumb where the nasty umbrella had bitten her. It was the shortest of commutes in distance, but it was certainly long in misery.
She rode the train, sat through a couple stops, then disembarked in her neighborhood, where she dashed, paying the puddles no regard, to her home, glad it was not an electrical storm that would have left her to contend with all the anxieties of lightning on metal. Safely inside, with that familiar roof over her head, she stripped down to her skivvies.
As the thunder roared and raged and ripped across the sky, Cheri grabbed a couple granola bars, microwaved a cup of coffee, and cuddled on the couch with her favorite cozy blanket wrapped snugly around her, her damp body cocooned in the air-conditioning. She surfed the net for a while, just random lookups like recipes and to see what heinous nonsense the latest Kardashian was up to. Suddenly, an idea occurred to her, and she typed Thomas’s name into the Google bar, just to see if there were any images of him lurking about cyberspace.
Lo and behold, Thomas had a website, and she was amazed she’d never thought to check it out before, as obsessed as she had to admit she was. She read everything she could find about him, then finally forced herself to wander to YouTube to stream cooking shows about recipes she knew she could never possibly successfully complete.
The pitter-patter of the rain against her windowpanes was a constant lullaby. Cheri yawned despite the caffeine she’d slurped from her hot mug, then wiped her face mindlessly. She looked up when she felt a drip of water fall from her hair. She wiped it off her cheek and then felt another drop on her hand. It couldn’t be from her hair.
It wasn’t. There was a leak in her living room ceiling, which seemed impossible since there was an entire floor above her, but sure enough a dark spot had formed on the ceiling where the rain had found a way in.
It seemed her mind was always working against her, drumming up ways to encounter Thomas and making excuses to call him. This was a perfect one, as he was a carpenter, and a roof job definitely warranted that. He was unquestionably qualified to rectify the problem, and she knew Thomas would be over in a flash.
Cheri imagined herself answering the door in next to nothing, playing that she’d simply forgotten to put actual clothes on. She was sure he would spruce up a little, knowing he was going to see her. I could just wear my bra and panties, wrap up in this blanket, then point at the leak and drop the blanket and… I mean, I do look amazing after all that walking and all those trips to the gym, right?
Of course, she couldn’t resort to that; there was no reason to tease them both, and it was tough enough to let him go without constantly inviting him back in. As it was, she knew it would be a couple days or more for her to detox from that impromptu truck ride with him, to get through the withdrawals of seeing him unexpectedly, and there was no use in giving in to her addiction again so soon.
There were plenty of other contractors in the city, so she searched the internet for people within a few miles of her home and started making calls. None of the first three picked up, but the third one had a rather impressive website and what looked to be lots of five-star reviews and affordable rates, so she left a message with all her contact information, asking him to stop by in the morning. A pan would have to do for now. Or maybe a pail.
Just as she was staring intently at a British chef whipping up a batch of bangers and mash, a name that made her giggle like an immature adolescent in a fifth-grade locker room, her phone buzzed. She assumed it was the contractor she had just messaged, but the name on the screen was familiar, one that instantly drew a smile across her face and warmed her like a cup of hot cocoa. In that moment, her suspicion was confirmed: He, too, was going through withdrawals, and he wasn’t nearly as good at restraint as she was.
“How are y
ou holding up in the rain?” he asked, that baritone oozing sweetness and hotness all at once.
Thank goodness for the rain, thought Cheri, but she coolly answered, “I’m fine, thanks.”
“Well, I just thought I’d check. If I remember correctly, you don’t like storms too much,” he said. “You got over that once, though.”
Cheri’s body burned with scorching recall as he made reference to the time when they were both stuck at his house during hurricane-like conditions. They could have easily parted ways much sooner, when the rain let up a bit, but instead they made a pretty sizzling storm of their own right in his backyard, enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime, mind-blowing experience while Mother Nature drenched them from head to toe. The very thought of it was powerfully erotic for her, being naked and chilly in the pouring rain, with Thomas all over her, the man she had to struggle to resist now. “Thomas…” she whispered into the phone, more of a plea than a scolding.
“Yeah?”
Before she could elaborate, a droplet of water hit her right on the tip of the nose. “I have to go,” she said sharply. “I’ve gotta get a bucket.”
“A bucket? What for?”
Without answering him, she hung up, wrapped the throw around herself like a makeshift robe, and waddled into the kitchen for a saucepan. She set it beneath the dripping water and moved the sofa. Her internet was sketchy because of the weather, but the call from Thomas Graham was like a fresh cuppa joe, wiring her to the point where she knew she wasn’t going to fall asleep anytime soon.
As if the phone could read her mind, it buzzed again.
“Yes?” she said with a laugh as she looked at the caller ID and took the call.
“Cheri,” he said seriously, “unless you’re talking about fried chicken with that bucket of yours, I think you might need me to come over.”
“You’re so full of yourself, Thomas,” she said, trying to make it sound like a joke.
“I could say the same about you,” he replied with amusement. “You have a leak, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“I should check it out.”
“Mr. Graham, thanks for the offer but I don’t need you to be my knight in shining armor tonight. It’s just a little drip, so it can wait until it stops raining. Besides, I called someone else already,” she said.
“Who?” he demanded vehemently.
“I’m not sure,” she replied, then checked her internet history. “Uh…Titus Home Repairs.”
“So you’re seeing another contractor?”
Seeing one? Ha! Cheri knew he didn’t mean for it to come out the way it sounded, but she couldn’t help snickering when she heard it. She desperately wanted to tell him he was the only contractor—or anything else—for her, but she managed to keep that embarrassingly desperate tidbit to herself. “Goodnight, Thomas,” she spat quickly, to prevent herself from saying anything they’d both just regret.
“Cheri, wait,” he pleaded. “You hired someone off the internet, without researching them?”
“Um, that’s what the internet’s for, research,” she argued. “I read the reviews and—”
“Look, I get why you don’t want me involved, but let me at least make a recommendation.”
“I can take care of myself,” she said in an even tone. “Anyway, I’ve gotta go. I need to take a bath and get to bed. Don’t worry about me, Thomas.”
“Gee, thanks,” he whined, like a wounded puppy.
“For what?”
“For leaving me to imagine you naked beneath the bubbles.”
“Hey, Thomas...” she said playfully.
“What?” he barked.
“I’m always naked…beneath my clothes,” she answered.
“Damn you,” he said, letting out a gasp.
“I really have to go,” she said quickly, then abruptly disconnected the call. She knew she was being childish, but she couldn’t resist. She also knew that she might have inadvertently provoked him to come over anyway. She tidied up in a hurry, just in case, but as ready as her home was to welcome him, she certainly wasn’t ready for that.
As she walked upstairs to her bath, she realized just where she was with Thomas. Is this really happening? Are we in that calling-each other phase, making all those silly jokes and innuendos, telling each other what we’re up to every moment? She had, after all, felt compelled to mention to him that she was taking a bath. How am I gonna tell him to go away forever? Can I even do that?
She had plenty of time to do her thinking, because she was awake most of the night, acutely afraid that the drip was weakening her floor and ceiling, to the point where there might be a collapse that would send her crashing through. Between the sleeplessness and the water damage, she decided to call in to work. She fired an email over to the Human Resources manager in the wee hours of the morning, then finally found her eyelids heavy enough to force her to doze off for a while.
Some indeterminable amount of time later, Cheri was startled awake by what sounded like the pounding of a hammer. She threw on some clothes and staggered downstairs to see what it was. Rather than nails being pummeled through wood, it was a loud, demanding knock at her door, and she opened it quite apprehensively, wondering who could be so insistent on bothering her at that early hour of the day. “Yes?” she said sleepily, wishing she’d opted for something a little more flattering than a hoodie and her yoga pants that hadn’t yet been laundered.
“Ms. Holt?” he said. “Wayne Titus, of Titus Home Repairs.”
“Oh great,” she said happily.
“I actually got a number of calls on this street, and since I was in the neighborhood already I thought I’d stop by and give your ceiling a look. I know I didn’t have an official appointment yet, but I hope you don’t mind.”
“Nope, not at all,” she said, relieved to see him after the hellish night of constant dripping. “Come on in. It’s in the living room,” she said, thankful that there would now be no need for Thomas to show up on her doorstep. “I put that pan out at about nine last night,” she said, pointing to the rather deep accumulation of water within it.
The handyman’s face scrunched up.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“Well, that water had to travel through the floor above you, and that’s never a good sign. It’s good you caught it right away, but we could be talking lots of mold and water damage already. You want me to take a look?” he asked, leaning his head up the staircase.
“Sure,” she replied.
He began to trudge up the stairs in his heavy work boots, still staring at the water spot on the ceiling, which had grown in circumference since the night before and now resembled the continent of Europe rather than just the state of Ohio.
“Do you need me to come up with you?” Cheri asked.
“No need,” he said. “These houses are pretty much all the same. I’m gonna take a tour of your crawlspace, then take a walk around outside.”
“Be my guest,” she said.
Despite the potential serious problems with her house, Thomas continued to cross Cheri’s mind. Thoughts of him just wouldn’t leave her alone, even when she had major distractions; it was still almost as bad as when they’d first broken up, though the pain did seem to sting a little less with each passing day.
Wayne Titus reappeared from upstairs, then headed outside. He stepped back toward the street, looking up at the roof and scribbling a few notes on a clipboard. “I can write you up an estimate if you’d like,” he said, handing her his card.
“What do you think I’m looking at here?” she asked.
“Have you considered a new roof?” he asked.
“A whole new roof?" she squawked.
“Yeah, I’m afraid so. See the gaps in those shingles?” he said, pointing up at the area.
“I guess,” she answered with a shrug. “What about it?”
“You’re due for some roof work, for sure,” he said. “Send me an email, and I’ll shoot my best estimate over to ya.”
“What do I do about the drip in the meantime?” she asked.
“Dump out that water,” he answered, “and put the pan back as many times as you need to. Also, if you’re the prayin’ sort, you might try that till we get that roof mended. I’m hoping God isn’t trying to flush out a modern-day Noah, with all this rain we’ve had. Maybe He’s finally turned off the spigot.”
“I sure hope so.” She tried to laugh, but it wasn’t easy considering the unexpected expensive repairs she was going to have to make. Not only that, but just as she was bidding the contractor farewell Thomas pulled up on his bike, holding two cups of coffee. She had always wondered if motorcyclists used drive-throughs, and now she had her answer.
“It’s a beautiful day out here,” he said, holding up his hands and feeling for precipitation. “It’s like the whole place is covered in diamonds, huh?” he asked, nodding toward some nearby trees and fence posts sparkling with fresh-fallen raindrops.
Cheri waited for him to put the coffee down and remove his helmet. She loved to watch him shake out his thick, gorgeous head of hair, but even more than that, she couldn’t stop staring as he swung his leg over his bike to dismount. As soon as he handed one of the cups to her, she silently did an about-face and went back inside the house.
“Who was that?” he asked, following her.
“The other man,” she replied.
“What?” he said, his brows crushing together.
“Wayne Titus, of Titus Home Repair,” she replied.
“You mean that guy you Googled?” he complained, as if she’d committed a felony. “So you’re really gonna go with whatever random outfit popped up in your search bar first?” He darted his eyes over to the water splotch on her ceiling and the quickly-filling saucepan beneath it.
Cheri followed his eyes as he examined the scene. The water was super dirty, and the pot was nearly full.
“Where’s your crawlspace?” he demanded.
“With all due respect, Thomas,” she said, “I’d prefer you stay out of my crawlspace.” She shoved him lightly, but he was as solid as an oak so she did more moving than he did.
