AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What?” she said, seeming genuinely perplexed.
Had I been that obnoxious to her, that she’d be shocked when I did something considerate? I took a breath, wondering if what I thought was our dynamic of bickering and sparks flying was more just me being an asshole and her trying not to put up with it. I felt a pang of something like regret.
“I was at the diner picking up some supper and I got you some soup. Consider it a peace offering,” I said.
She took the bag and let me in the door. I stepped inside not sure what I should do.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m a little better. Just tired,” she said, but she was looking down, not right at me. I wasn’t sure if she was lying or if she was just weirded out by my showing up at her door. “You might as well stay and eat your food before it gets cold. If you want to,” she said.
I nodded, “Thanks.”
I went to the table with my paper bag and started to unload it. She brought me a plate and a glass of water.
“You don’t have to do all that,” I said.
“You’re a guest. My Granny Cooper would roll in her grave if I didn’t at least give you a real plate.”
“Was she big on manners?”
“The biggest. If it weren’t for her, I think I’d have grown up leaving every door and cupboard open all my life.”
“I got in trouble for leaving my laundry on the floor. I guess I was okay at closing the cupboards,” I said.
“If I left a wet towel on the floor at Granny’s I’d be on laundry duty for a week. No mercy.”
“She sounds like she should’ve been a general,” I said.
“The Army could never live up to her standards. They’d be crying for their mamas,” she said with a grin.
Nicole took her container of soup and her roll out of the bag and transferred it into a bowl, got a spoon.
“I should be waiting on you. You’re the one that’s sick,” I said.
“You don’t know where anything is,” she pointed out. “It’s my house.”
“It’s nice,” I said.
“I may get a rug. I just haven’t decided what color. I was thinking gray and white, but that’s sort of—”
“Depressing? I didn’t know people bought gray things on purpose. I guess I thought maybe stuff like that came with the house or something. My mom got me a rug a couple years ago. It’s dark red and brown and cream. I can ask her where she got it.”
“Okay,” she said. “Those are better colors than gray. I guess I kind of thought I would decorate this place more, maybe in kind of a seaside cottage way like they do on TV where there’s white and soft blues and like, sand dollars on the coffee table and stuff. Seashells.”
“You don’t live near the ocean. The falls are pretty though. I know down at the library they have books about local history. I bet they have some good pictures in them. You could do some pictures of the falls, big ones on one wall. “.
“I hadn’t thought about pictures of the falls, but that would be nice. I like black and white photos. I could probably take some myself. I did some photography in school.” She said it sort of faintly like she was thinking about something else. “The soup is good. Thank you.”
“I got you chicken noodle. Rachel just made it today, she said.”
“It’s good,” she repeated.
“Do you want some of my fries?” I offered. She shook her head, wrinkling her nose like I’d offered her pickled pigs’ feet or something. “Do you not eat fried food or something? One of those eat-clean diets?”
“No, it just doesn’t look good. My stomach’s been a little off.”
“Then I’m glad you can eat the soup. Do you need a drink? I can—” Before she answered I got up and got her a glass of water. She looked at me, a crinkle between her eyebrows.
“Who are you and what did you do with the Noah Jeffries I hired to build a community center?” she asked a little playfully. I felt myself relax.
“I’m still him. But I’m a complex man. Sometimes I argue, sometimes I fill a glass of water on my own. I have skills.”
“I already knew you had skills,” she said, and then her cheeks colored. I tried to ignore the tug I felt, wash of desire that sped through me.
“Thanks for that at least,” I said with a shrug and sat back down.
“The community center is coming along well, right on schedule. I appreciate that,” she said diffidently.
“I took on some new workers last week, expanded my crew to keep up with the workload. One of my men has had some personal issues, and he needed a little time off. So I brought on three new guys. A couple of them are out of Overton, but they had good references, and one guy just moved here but he seems to know his way around a construction site. It won’t increase your budget much. I swear.”
