“Hey, sorry to barge in on your call.”
“Oh no, that wasn’t a call. Uh, it was a…podcast.” For an attorney, she was not thinking fast on her feet. At all. “Uh, with short stories. Romantic ones, which is a little embarrassing.” She laughed her dreaded nervous laugh that she wished she could banish and felt her cheeks go warm. “So I turned it off when you walked in.” She shook her phone in the air and chanced a quick glance at Charlie’s face to see if she was buying any of it but couldn’t read her expression. “So anyway, what can I help you with?”
Charlie winced before she said, “I really am sorry, but my kitchen sink isn’t draining. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I washed some dishes, took the stopper out, and it’s all sitting there. But there are bits of food floating in the water, so I don’t want to leave it all day while I’m out. I tried the garbage disposal,but the switch didn’t do anything.”
Harper’s heart rate had finally slowed enough to take in Charlie’s appearance while leaning against the doorjamb. She looked long and willowy in black yoga pants and a sage green tank top, but the white knuckles of her clenched fists showed her nerves. “Nothing to feel bad about. Let’s go take a look. I can get a plumber out today if it isn’t something I can figure out.” Charlie’s smile was soft, and Harper did not want to acknowledge the little flutters thatthatprompted. “Just let me grab a few tools.”
She grabbed a small metal toolbox from her office and hoped this was something she could fix. She wasn’t terribly handy, but she had fixed her own garbage disposal a few months ago after watching a how-to video, so if it was just clogged and needed to be reset, which was all her own had needed, Harper could easily get it fixed in a few minutes. She gestured Charlie to lead the way.
Harper tried to surreptitiously look around the apartment and see what Charlie had done to it, which wasn’t much. She didn’t have any personal items or knickknacks. Just the furniture that had been in there when Charlie moved in. “Other than this clog, how have things been? Are you feeling settled in?”
“Oh yeah, everything is great. I mean, I wasn’t looking for much.” At Harper’s glance, Charlie said, “Oh God, I didn’t mean that in a rude way. I’m sorry. I meant I was looking for a change in my life, and while I figure things out, I’m searching for simplicity, which is what I’m finding here. Everything is perfect.” Her face had gone a little pink, and Harper didn’t want to find it attractive, but she did. Dammit.
“I’m glad you’re finding what you’re looking for,” Harper said as she set her toolbox down and tried the disposal switch. It made a humming sound but didn’t start running.
“Do you think you can fix it? I have yoga teacher trainingshortly.”
Yogateachertraining?
“I have a few ideas.” Harper pulled a flashlight and a wrench out of her toolbox. “You can leave if you need to, and either I’ll fix it or call my plumber.”
Charlie leaned back against the counter and bit her lip. “I still have a little time.” Was that heat simmering in her eyes as she stared?
Harper swallowed hard to quell the flutters in her throat as she opened the pantry where the breaker box was and flipped the one labeled,garbage disposal, off. “So you’re becoming a yoga teacher? What inspired that?”
Charlie chuckled. “It’s a bit of an unbelievable story, really. But the short of it is that I took a class my first morning in Key West, and the teacher said she had a teacher training starting soon. I decided that yoga had made me feel so good that morning, I’d love to give it a whirl. I’m never impulsive, but I had some time on my hands, so I signed up. I don’t know if I’ll ever actually teach, but right now, I’m finding it…healing, I guess. But that opens another can of worms, and I don’t want to bore you.”
Harper didn’t think learning about what Charlie was healing from would be boring, but that line of thought was dangerous, so she flipped her Scissor and Gavel ball hat around backward and shimmied on her back under the sink. “I bet yoga would make climbing around on the floor a lot easier, wouldn’t it?” she said and grunted as a little twinge of pain surged down her back and into her leg.
Charlie chuckled. “It probably would. It’s been helping with back pain I used to have. Though I’m pretty sure mine was from hunching over a computer for a ridiculous number of hours every week. Let me know if you ever want to take a class.”
Unlikely.“Sure.” Harper turned the wrench in the bottom of the disposal back and forth a few times, trying to break upwhatever was jammed in there. It definitely felt like something was lodged in there, but with no metal ping and some give on both sides, she was pretty sure it was some type of organic matter and not a spoon or something. She grunted as she put her weight into it, and finally, the blockage seemed to break free. “Ha,” she exclaimed in triumph.
“Success?” Charlie asked.
“I think so.” Harper pushed the little reset button on the bottom of the disposal before shimmying back out. When she sat up, however, Charlie’s gaze definitely held a little heat. Harper’s mouth felt like it had been transported to the Sahara Desert. She choked and coughed and rolled over to her knees to stand.
“Are you okay?” While Harper had been nearly suffocating, Charlie had moved next to her and was offering a hand that she took. “Do you want some water?” Still standing close, Charlie snagged a bottle of water off the counter and handed it to Harper, who grabbed it and drank deeply.
She was momentarily distracted by the cool water soothing her scorched throat like an aloe balm, but as she caught her breath, she realized how close Charlie wasstillstanding. How her gaze was lingering on Harper’s mouth. She lost the breath she’d just found and tried not to gasp. She couldn’t remember what she was doing or why she was standing there.
Until Franky barked and bounded into the apartment, breaking the spell.
Thank goodness.
Harper jumped away toward the electric panel. “Let’s turn the breaker back on and see if we can get this drain cleared for you, okay?” Her voice sounded fake and high-pitched. Nothing like her own.
“Sure, yeah, that’s perfect.” Charlie seemed to also realize that the moment had gotten weird as she stepped out of the kitchen and placed her hand on a yoga mat bag.
Harper hit the switch on the wall, and the grumbling of an operational garbage disposal came to life as the water swirled and was sucked down the drain.
“You did it,” Charlie said. “Thank you!”
“All part of the services offered.” They stared for an awkward second before Harper said, “Well, I’ll leave you to it. I hope your class today is great. And stop by later for a drink. We’re partnering with a food truck at dinnertime, so we’ll have amazing tacos to accompany my amazing cocktails.” Why had she just asked Charlie to come by? She should have been trying to avoid her.
“Who doesn’t love tacos? Anyway, thanks again for fixing this. I really appreciate it. And maybe I’ll see you later.” It seemed like she was regretting their interaction too as she grabbed a backpack and the yoga mat bag and fled from the room. “Will you lock up?” she said, seemingly as an afterthought while already standing on the landing out front.
“Of course,” Harper said, but Charlie was already gone. “That was a whirlwind, wasn’t it?” she said to Franky as the door clicked behind her.
