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The last swing had Nathan shoulders shaking, and he paused, catching his breath. He put the head of the hammer down on the floor.
He glared at the wall with bared teeth. An angry tension seemed to rise in him all over again as his muscles flexed. He was only waiting to take another swing because he needed to catch his breath.
“Uh, Nathan?” Sean asked, catching the worn-out expression on Nathan’s face and the dark circles under his eyes. It was like he’d jumped out of bed angry and decided to take it out on the wall.
His face was tight. His blue eyes glinted with determination, and he shot a look at Sean, his intensity something Sean had witnessed only on rare occasions, like when he was at a tournament, about to take on a challenger who was trying to bully him to throw him off his game.
You didn’t want to get between a man’s sledgehammer and his target if he had a face like that.
Sean recoiled a bit, checking in with North. What happened to set him off? And how do we get him to stop to talk to us without getting a hammer thrown at us?
North had no answer for him, only glaring and waiting.
Nathan took a couple more swings at the wall, but each swing came a little slower than the one before.
Once the edge of the wall finally started to come apart and crumble at his feet, Nathan stopped swinging, putting the heavy hammer head down, leaning it against his thigh. He wiped an arm against his forehead, creating more of a streak of damp dust rather than actually wiping the sweat away.
A moment passed. Nathan glowered at the wall.
“Uh,” Sean said in the silence that followed. “S’up?”
Nathan leaned against the wall of the shower, catching his breath. His voice came out cracked and raspy. “No one told me she fainted because of the shower.” He tilted his head backward, closing his eyes. “She didn’t tell me she didn’t like showers.”
Oh.
North’s hard face softened. He slid a piece of fallen slate across the floor with his boot. “No one knew,” he said in a darkened voice.
“Victor knew,” Nathan said, twisting the handle of the sledge in his hand. “Kota told me when he was here dropping off stuff. Victor should have told the rest of us.”
Sean rubbed the back of his neck, looking for the words to say. “We don’t know why he kept it to himself. Maybe she asked him to. Kind of not the shower’s fault, though... No need to hit it.”
Nathan rolled his eyes. “I’m changing it out.”
North pressed his palm to his forehead. “You’re doing this now? Why? She’ll be here any minute.”
“She’s been around while we were doing construction before. She won’t care.”
North reached for the sledge. Nathan tugged it away, dodging but with limited ability to move around in the shower.
North shoved an open palm out expectantly. “Give me that before you break a pipe. We’ve got enough to do without breaking the house.”
“I want to put in a bathtub.”
“You didn’t want a bathtub. You wanted a walk-in shower.”
“Sang doesn’t like showers!” Nathan tugged the sledge closer, holding it up off the floor with both hands, his chest muscles and biceps flexing.
Sean sharply clapped his hands once to get their attention. “Stop talking,” he said, feeling a pang at sounding a little too much like Owen. “Nathan, you wanted a walk-in shower. You can keep it.”
“I don’t want it anymore.”
“Sang’s staying at her old house now.”
“Maybe for now. What if things change? What if—”
“We don’t play the what-if game, remember?” Sean waved toward the door. “She is where she is right now. We deal with the real issues as they come up. Not create more problems on top of the immediate issues.”
“I want to give her a big tub,” Nathan said, the start of a whine in his voice. “One like Victor’s.”
“You don’t have room for a tub that big,” North said.
“I will if I take out my closet.”
North pushed his palm again toward his own face again, covering his eyes. “We’re not taking out your closet.”
There was a small buzzing of the doorbell.
Sean groaned. Nathan had the worst timing. “Is the door locked? Did anyone give Sang keys?” Sean asked and then waved his hand to dismiss his own question. “Never mind. Stay quiet in here and clean this up. Sang is stressed out enough without this.”
North hurried out, grabbed the kitchen broom and brought it into the bathroom. “Keep her out of here until I can fix this.”
“Just a minute!” Sean called out to whoever was at the door, heading in that direction. He checked the bathroom again. There was some dust in the hallway.
North swept it quickly into the bathroom and closed the door, talking quietly to Nathan.
Sean had a lot of sympathy for Nathan. He honestly couldn’t blame him for wanting a tub. He’d been thinking the same thing about his own apartment. Could he fit a bigger one in?
But he’d considered it like she’d be staying the night more often. At the moment, he didn’t know when she’d get another chance.
He checked the front door quickly through the peephole, found no one and then checked the side door in the garage. A girl stood on the steps...but she looked odd through the peephole. Was it really Sang?
He opened the door and paused, looking at her.
It was her, and it wasn’t her.
The makeup masked every naturally beautiful feature of her face. It covered the freckles, the way she’d blush naturally. It even changed her skin tone into something almost orange.
She had a beautiful face, and with the makeup, it became striking, but way too different from Sang’s natural look.
The dress was okay, but it didn’t really suit her. It reminded him of 50s retro a bit. Maybe for Halloween, it’d be a good thing. And the hair? What had happened there?
Had Carol really sent her to the diner like that?
Sang’s expression was the worst: mortified.
He smiled at her, forcing himself to sound overly pleasant. “You look...amazing?” Ick. Hesitating at the last word didn’t sound great. He didn’t want to encourage this look, which she clearly didn’t like, and he didn’t want to say it looked bad.
“Didn’t have a choice,” she said. “She wanted to dress me up.”
Sean had told Gabriel he could experiment on Sang with blushes and lipsticks, if she
wanted to. She hadn’t had much of a chance before; let her see if she liked it.
Gabriel had always refused. A light touch of gloss here, a touch of mascara, maybe. She didn’t need makeup, he’d say.
Now he realized Gabriel was right.
Sang cast her eyes down toward the floor. “They’ve probably already seen this on the cameras if they were watching, but can I get something else to wear, at least?”
Sean checked over his shoulder, sensing the others in the bathroom still. “Yes,” he said and reached for her hand, pulling her into the house to shut the door behind her. “You could wash the makeup off, too. But let’s take a photo. We’ll need Gabriel to reproduce this when you leave.”
“She used fake lashes,” she said, pointing to her eyes. “Maybe I should leave those on. Can you reuse them?”
“I think so. I can find out.” He didn’t want her to be uncomfortable now that she was out of the house.
She sighed and followed him in. She started to walk into the kitchen, and he tugged her toward the master bedroom. “Come in here,” he said.
Dark, rumbling voices erupted from deeper in the house and then quieted quickly.
She turned around, shoulders tense. Sean waited too, expecting the guys to continue to argue, maybe even burst out of the bathroom. When it was clear they weren’t coming to see her just yet, she relaxed. “Who all is here?”
“Nathan and North. More may show up soon.” He shooed her into the bedroom and then to the en suite bathroom. He opened the blinds for more natural light. The space was small, with a tub shower, a small sink and toilet, and the tiniest of linen closets. Sean opened the closet to find a towel and washcloth for her.
She stood near the tub, looking around and then glancing nervously toward the doorway. A finger hovered over her lips, but she stopped herself from touching the makeup. “I keep wanting to wipe the makeup off.”
“In a second,” he said. He put the towel and washcloth down and took out his phone. He found the camera app and opened it. “Okay, show me a smile.”
She did, halfhearted and not looking directly at him.
