Most women her age had given up more than a couple years ago, living in yoga pants and ponytails. At least she wasn't at that point yet. Then again, most women her age had children and husbands keeping them crazy and tired. And happy.
A pang of sadness twisted her stomach. If one single day three years ago had gone differently, she would be crazy and tired and happy too.
Gwen pulled a chunk of hair across her face and sniffed, making a face at the stale stink of the bar that had penetrated the strands in such a short time. She sighed and tossed the hair band she was preparing to throw her hair up with onto the counter.
It was almost two by the time she was washed, dried and sliding between the crisp Egyptian cotton sheets of her bed. She flicked on the TV, dropping the remote on her lap so it would be easy to find, and began scrolling through e-mails on her phone. Nothing that needed her attention now except Richard asking if he could call her tomorrow to discuss some ideas he had.
Even when she hadn’t been up for almost 24 hours straight Richard annoyed the shit out of her. His enthusiasm for work was sickening. And more than a little obnoxious. She opened a reply e-mail and drafted a response.
No.
She sent it and plugged her phone into the cord on her nightstand. After turning off the lamp, she curled up and started flipping through channels filled with the terrible shows reserved for the after 2 a.m. slots, finally landing on an infomercial about some sort of new coffee machine.
She watched as an over-hyped actress ‘oohed’ and ‘ahhed’ over the machine’s ability to recreate coffee house drinks for a fraction of the price at home. She laid through the whole hour long commercial hoping it would force her mind to shut down, with no success.
Instead of slowing down and taking her to dreamland, her brain crept toward the darkened edges where she forced all thoughts of that one day that changed everything.
It had been years. Long enough that she was usually able to keep her mind free of the memories. Definitely long enough that this evening shouldn’t have created a problem.
She’d been around bikes and bikers plenty of times, and each time it got easier. Eventually, she could hear the sound of a motorcycle and not give it a second thought. But not tonight. Maybe it was being back where it all happened again, or maybe it was meeting a man who reminded her in many ways of the one she lost. It didn't matter why, just that for whatever reason, tonight left her plagued with the memories and what-if’s she did her best to avoid at any cost.
Gwen rolled to her side and curled into a ball as memories of a past so painful it was hard to breathe overwhelmed her. Silent tears of sadness and loss burned her tired eyes and soaked her pillow, making the fabric stick to her cheek.
She should have stayed home. Then she would be peacefully sleeping in her bed instead of tossing and turning, sniffling into her pillow feeling sorry for herself.
Gwen flipped her pillow and laid her face on the cooler and drier underside and closed her eyes, hoping not to be met with more images of the past. The mental picture that greeted her wasn't from her past, but could turn out to be just as devastating. It was Joe. The tall, dark and handsome man she'd only just met.
Who was he? She’d never heard Gabbi or Heath mention him, but tonight her sister introduced him as Heath’s best friend. Not a friend, not some guy he knew from riding. His best friend. She hadn’t realized grown men had best friends. But then those were Gabbi’s words, not theirs.
She stared at the ceiling, no longer even interested in pretending to watch the TV, instead focusing on the play of shadows and lights it cast above her head.
What was it about the man that caught her attention so effectively?
His looks would definitely garner him more than his fair share of female interest. While she wouldn’t argue the fact that he was nice to look at, she came across attractive men every day, but not one drew her in like he did and they definitely didn’t keep her up at night.
There was something else. Or countless something else’s.
It was the way he studied her when he looked at her. Not ogling like other men, but watching, taking everything in. Like he was appreciating a piece of art work, not checking out a woman in a bar.
It was the richness and the depth of his voice. She heard it only twice, but that was enough to have her imagining him saying all sorts of things to her. Things she hadn’t heard in years.
“This is ridiculous.”
She turned off the television, put a pillow over her head and forced any thoughts of the past and the events of the evening to the back of her mind.
She started mentally running through the numbers of a company she was dealing with at work and almost immediately, finally fell asleep.
****
“Gwennie!”
Her sister’s voice was muffled, but the sense of urgency was still obvious. She’d just finally gotten to sleep. Was she dreaming?
“Gwen!” Gabbi’s voice was still muffled, but louder than the first time.
Gwen bolted upright in bed, the pillow she’d placed over her head falling to the ground as she moved. The bright light of the morning assaulted her eyes as she shielded them with her hand.
“Oh thank God.” Her sister was in her room, her hand over her heart, panting slightly.
“What in the world is going on?” Gwen blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the light and clear the cloud of sleep still fogging her brain.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been calling you all morning. You always answer your phone.” Gabbi crossed the room and struggled to climb onto the foot of the bed. “This bed is awful Gwen. It’s made for freaking giants.” She looked over the edge. “You’d probably suffer head trauma if you fell out of the thing.”
Damn. What time was it? Gwen reached down and grabbed the pillow off the floor. Hopefully no one from work was trying to call her. She grabbed her phone and began scrolling. “I like the bed. I wanted to be comfortable and I’m not in the habit of falling off of anything.” Five calls from Gabbi and one from Richard. “Ass.”
“I was worried about you!”
“Not you.” She set her phone back on the table and slid off the bed. She’d wait to call Richard back until her sister left. She already caught enough grief from her family about how much she worked, no need to add fuel to the fire.
“I gotta pee. I’ll be back.” She’d chugged almost the whole liter of water she brought upstairs before going to bed and it was dying to come out.
She came back out to find her sister propped against her pillows, shoes off, watching television. “You might be right. It’s pretty comfortable. Might be worth a concussion.”
Gwen climbed up beside her sister. “You probably didn’t stop for coffee on the way did you?”
Gabbi turned to her, a look of incredulity on her face. “I thought you were dead. No, I didn’t stop to get you coffee.”
Gwen sighed dramatically. “Fine. I’m going to go make some then.” She slid back off the bed and padded across the room in her bare feet. “Want a cup?”
“Yeah. Can we drink it in the bed?” Gabbi patted at the fluffy covers around her body with open palms. “This thing is like a flipping cloud.”
Gwen shot her sister a look and held up one finger. “We can drink it in bed, but you have to swear you’ll be careful.”
Gabbi held her hand up like she was taking some sort of oath. “Swear.” She dropped her hand and leaned back, snuggling into the pile of pillows. “But if something were to happen and the bed was ruined, I’d be happy to find it a new home for you.”
“Gabbi, I swear if you spill coffee in my bed I’ll cut you.”
“Yeah, whatever. I don’t have a dick. You don’t scare me.” She pointed out the door. “That coffee’s not gonna make itself.”
Gwen turned and headed down the hall to the staircase calling back over her shoulder loud enough for Gabbi to hear.
“Just for that I’m going to leave the bed to Heath in
my will with the stipulation that you can never sleep in it.” She could hear her sister's laughter all the way down the stairs.
Gwen opened the K-Cup holder mounted to the underside of the cabinet above the Keurig and pulled out a dark roast and popped it in the machine, letting the aroma of freshly brewed coffee stimulate her still groggy brain. Just knowing caffeine was in the works was enough to get the gears grinding. She switched out her cup and got her sister’s milder brew going as she opened the fridge, splashing a little half and half in hers.
After hitting her sister's with some cream and sugar, she carefully headed back up the stairs to find her sister had moved under the covers and organized the pillows so she was vertical enough to drink her coffee without choking, or more importantly, spilling.
Gwen passed her a steaming mug and climbed in beside her. “Heath got the kids?”
Gabbi took a long sip of her coffee, keeping her eyes closed, clearly relishing the experience. “You know I never get to enjoy my coffee? I never get to savor that first taste.” She took another long drink. “I’m always running around fighting with the girls while they cry and throw shit and take their clothes off two seconds before we have to walk out the door.”
“Those girls are angels. You’ll never convince me otherwise.” Gwen’s nieces might be her two favorite people, with her sister and Heath close on their heels. They were beautiful and smart and funny.
And hell on wheels.
“You’re their Auntie. It’s your job to think they’re perfect. I’m their mom. It’s my job to feed them and bathe them and wait till they’re in bed to talk about what assholes they’ve been to me all day.” Gabbi pulled the duvet up higher and savored another gulp of coffee.
The women sat quietly, watching some cooking show Gabbi picked out, drinking their coffee. Gwen polished hers off and set the empty cup on the table trading it out for her phone. She was scrolling through e-mails when she remembered why Gabbi was here in the first place.
“What were you calling me for this morning?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m making dinner for Heath’s birthday Wednesday. I figured you’d have to work but I wanted to let you know.”
Gwen’s ears perked up against her will and before she had a chance to stop her mouth, she heard herself saying, “I’ll be there.”
Three
Joe carefully eased the toilet down onto the fresh wax ring. He was just finishing tightening the bolts when he heard footsteps shuffle up behind him.
“How’s it going?”
He snapped the cap over the secured bolt and stood up.
“Just finished.”
He’d spent the day replacing every faucet and toilet in the huge house. He pulled a clean cloth out of his kit and wiped the bowl of the commode free of any fingerprints he may have left. “Are you ready to do a walk thru?”
“Sure thing.” The new owner of the house was a round man in his mid-fifties. He and his wife just bought the place and she didn’t want to use toilets anyone else had used before. Not sure what she did when she wasn’t home, but that wasn’t his business. They also wanted to switch out all the brushed nickel faucets for brass. No accounting for taste.
When he got there this morning, they added even more to the list, having him check the water heater and anything else he could think of for leaks or problems. It was a lot to cram in to one day, but the house was in a nice neighborhood and if they were happy with his work, he would almost certainly get referrals.
Joe took the owner through the house, turning on each of the new gaudy faucets and pointing out any fittings he tightened or replaced. He flushed every toilet and ran every shower and tub.
“I’m so grateful you were able to get it all done today. The movers are coming tomorrow and my wife wanted to be in by the weekend. She’ll be thrilled.”
She wasn’t the only one. Joe didn’t have the time to spare either. Another job had to be started tomorrow, running all the plumbing in a new build, and it would eat up the rest of his week.
“Happy to help. Call if you have any questions or there’s anything else I can help with.” The men shook hands and Joe left with a check and a van full of perfectly good toilets and fixtures.
It was after six when he finally headed out. As he got on the highway, the sun was still bright in the sky, the air still swelteringly hot. Between the long day and the heat, he was exhausted and it was only going to get worse.
It was a forty-minute drive to get home and he hoped to get another coat of mud on the drywall he and Heath hung in his bathroom over the weekend. It was gonna be a late night.
He was halfway home when his cell started ringing over the speakers. He turned down the fan speed on the vents and connected the call. “Hello.”
“Hey man. How’s your day been?” Heath must have been on his way home too. Both men put in long hours at work. Both cleaning up shit other people didn’t want to know about. One literally. One figuratively.
“On my way home to work some more. You?”
“Same. Gabbi called as I was leaving to let me know the central air unit is rattling. I’ve gotta go home and check it out.”
“Need help?” Joe really wanted to get his bathroom up and running, but going to Heath and Gabbi's would mean dinner.
“Nah. If it needs more than I can handle I might hit you up for a referral for an air guy though.”
Even just a few seconds of imagining a home cooked meal left him more than a little disappointed Heath didn't need him. “Call me if you change your mind, and I’ll text you my buddy's name when I get home just in case.”
Right now was not a fun time to go without air. Mid-July in central Alabama was stifling. Luckily his friend owed him a favor and would push them to the front of the line if they needed it.
“Thanks. Before I go, Gabbi’s got some sort of thing she’s planning for my birthday Wednesday evening if you’re free.”
“She cookin’?”
“Probably. I think I heard something about ribs.”
“Hell yeah I’m free.” He might not get it tonight, but at least he'd be well fed at least one night this week. Six o’clock Wednesday would be the best meal he’d had since the last time Gabbi made him dinner.
They said their goodbyes and he disconnected as he exited the highway. His stomach rumbled so loud he could hear it over the noise of the air conditioning. He’d been so busy today he skipped lunch to be sure he could finish everything and he was starving.
It was hard to consider anything after thinking about Gabbi’s ribs, but grabbing something on the way made the most sense if he wanted to get to work on the bathroom right away, so he was stuck with fast food tonight. It would be worth it if it gave him time to work on the drywall. After a week of having to take a bath, he was ready and willing to do whatever it took to get a working shower back in his house.
He resorted to a burger and fries that he ate during the twenty-five minutes it took him to get from the urban spread surrounding the highway, to the big drafty farmhouse he’d called home for the past six months.
He’d just guzzled the last of his drink when he pulled his van up the gravel driveway, if you could call it that. The rock had scattered over the years until it was mostly comprised of compressed dirt. Fresh gravel would be nice, but not as nice as a hot shower, so it had to wait.
He pulled around the back of the house and swung the van around, backing it up against the sliding door of the barn. Climbing out, he thumbed through the keys on his ring until he found the one that unlocked the sliding double door.
He tugged the barn door to one side and opened the split doors on the back of his work van. It took five trips to unload all four toilets and the box of faucets and shower heads from the house he worked on today.
One of the perks of his profession was most people didn’t want to have to figure out how to get rid of what they replaced. He offered to take it with him when he left and nine times out of ten they took him up on the offer.
He locke
d the barn back up and grabbed the trash out of the van. He didn’t want to open it up tomorrow morning and gag at the smell of grease baked into the interior.
Heading to the house, he chucked the garbage in the can outside and let himself in the back door. The cooler air hit him as he stepped in and pulled the door closed. He knew it wasn’t nearly as cool inside as it could be, but once he replaced the windows and upgraded the insulation, the hundred-year-old building would be just as efficient as a new one.
The kitchen was just inside the door and had last been redone in the sixties. It was closed off and didn’t have much space to move around or many cabinets, and as a result, very little counter space. It worked for him, but he didn’t want a kitchen functional for a single man. He wanted a kitchen big enough to feed a family.
He’d asked Gabbi for help figuring out the kind of kitchen she’d want if it was her house. She had been more than happy to put her two cents in. The actual dollar amount of her two cents could make a grown man cry, but he’d learned long ago, women like their bathrooms and their kitchens. He needed to have as much going for him as possible when the right woman came along, and if a big fancy expensive kitchen would help his chances, so be it.
He poured out the half inch of cold coffee left from this morning and rinsed out the pot before filling it with fresh water to get another batch going. After replacing the soggy filter and used grounds with fresh, he fired the maker up and headed back through the house to get set up.
Even at nearly seven o’clock, the house was still bright on account of him not putting up any curtains or blinds. He figured he was far enough away from any neighbors the chances of someone peeping inside were pretty slim.
He climbed the stairs, the sound of his heavy work boots as they hit each bare wood riser echoing through the house. The bathroom was directly across from the top step with two empty bedrooms on the left and the one he used on the right. He flipped on the bathroom light switch, the bare bulb dangling from the ceiling illuminating the windowless room.
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