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Wow! I’m super impressed. You guys almost done for the night?
Don’t wait up,I replied.
She sent me back laughing emojis, and I put my phone back in the other room as Brad typed something on his.
“What do we do about the electrical in the wall?”
“Well, the safest thing is to cap it off and then cut the board around the outlets to see what direction the wires are going. We don’t want to strike the wall with the sledgehammer and end up yanking the electrical wires down from upstairs or electrocuting ourselves.”
“Yeah, I might like pain, but shock therapy is out of the question.” He agreed, and I went to get a screwdriver.
“Do you have wire nuts?”
“Um, I don’t know. Let me look in this box. If I have any, they will be in here.”
“Are all of these tools yours?”
I glanced back over my shoulder to see him leaning against the threshold of the room, his arms crossed over his chest. “Yeah. I have accumulated them over the years. It’s funny”—I moved to dig around inside the box—“when I got divorced, I made sure that I got all the tools in the settlement. My ex, Rick, started fighting me for them until I reminded him that I was the one that fixed everything in the house—not him.”
He chuckled, and as I peered back at him, I noticed him checking me out from the back. There was hope yet. I finally located the wire nuts. “Got them!”
“Anything you don’t have in here?”
“Oh, there is a lot that I don’t have, but I learned early on as I did jobs around my house to repair things, to buy the correct tools for each job.”
“Smart idea.”
“I have those sometimes,” I told him sassily as I passed by his side into the kitchen.
He watched over my shoulder as I did the work, giving me suggestions as I did it, and once the wires were capped, we cut a section off on the board to see where the wires went. Once we knew the path, we stood at the other end, and he handed me back the sledge.
“I’m pretty sure you can do some damage to this wall all by yourself.”
“Let’s see.” I picked up the sledgehammer and stood back, taking a deep breath as I pulled it back and then let it loose. It went right through the drywall into the kitchen, and I whooped and laughed. When I turned, I found Brad grinning at me, his cellphone out as he held it up.
“Did you take a picture of that?”
He grinned. “Better. I took a video. Keep going.”
I did. After a few minutes, I set the sledgehammer down and started tearing the wallboard away with my hands. Brad jumped in to help me, and before long, we were down to the studs. He studied them for a few minutes and made sure that they weren’t holding anything up, and then we began to work on them. Instead of smashing those out, we dismantled them piece by piece.
It was close to midnight when I stood in my kitchen, happy as a clam. Brad came to stand beside me, and I glanced his way. His t-shirt was filthy, and I looked down at myself. “Wow, I’m a mess.”
“Please don’t go whipping your shirt off right now,” he commented huskily, and I peered his way to find his eyes closed as if he were praying.
I laughed. “I’m not going to take my shirt off, Brad. You’re safe to open your eyes.” I stepped away, slightly confused. “You know, most men would be like, ‘take it off, let me check you out,’ but not you.”
I expected him to say something, but he didn’t. I shifted to look at him, and he was watching me.
“What?”
“I’d like nothing more than to check you out, Nolan, but I’m afraid if I do, looking won’t be enough.”
My breath caught in my lungs, and took a second to start moving again. “You know I wouldn’t mind that.”
His gaze slipped down my body and back up, a lazy smile caressing his lips. “I wouldn’t either, but I think we both could use a shower before we even think to go there.”
“Well, I’d invite you into mine, but it doesn’t work.”
