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“Absolutely. I’ll tell you all about them while you’re crawling around on my roof, hammering nails in.”
“I . . . but—”
I’m already at the door. “Get a move on, Griswold. Time to work.”
Chapter Fifteen
Henry
OnewouldthinkI’dunderstood exactly what I was getting myself into when I offered to help Paige. But one would be so very wrong. Apparently, she was simply waiting on a second pair of hands to really take things over the top.
“You scared of heights?” she asks, heading toward her shed without checking that I’ll follow. But I do.
“No.”
“Good.” She swings open the shed door. Several seconds of disturbing noises follow. Scrapes of things being dragged across concrete, a muffled curse, something metal clattering to the ground, and finally, Paige emerging with an extension ladder. “You’re on roof duty.”
“Because you’re afraid of heights?” I guess. What else would explain her sending an amateur up to the roof?
“Nope. But I’m giving you a job a sea monkey could do while I fix the wiring on the external outlet I need.”
“Oh.”
She smirks at me. “Unless you want to trade.”
“Definitely not.”
She nods. “Then let’s go.”
Soon she has the ladder leaning against the front porch and me standing at the foot of it, holding a handful of plastic clips in a shape I haven’t seen before.
“You’re going to attach these lights at six-inch intervals.” She holds up a strand of lights with larger bulbs.
“That’s the kind everyone used on their houses when I was a kid. How old are these?” I ask.
“Pretty new,” she says. “They’re a retro look but more energy efficient. Anyway, you can eyeball the intervals. Just go along the front of the eaves. Hold the strand against the wood, then clip it. I’ll put in the first one so you can see what I need.”
“So I won’t be actually on top of the roof?”
She smiles. “No. Even I haven’t really done that, but I’m sure I can figure it out. For today, you’ll stay on the ladder. Now watch.”
I do. She climbs it quickly, reaching the lowest corner of the eave and slipping the wound string of lights from her shoulder, neatly clipping it against the wood. But I barely process how she does it, because I’ve seen marble sculptures rendered far less impressively than her butt in those jeans. Wow.
I blink and glance down to refocus. I havegotto start getting out more. With women.
“Henry?”
I look up into her questioning face.
“Did that make sense?”
“I’ve got it.” I do not. But I’ll have to trust that when I take her place on the ladder, I can look at what she’s done and figure it out. I don’t have a high degree of faith that I will, but it’s better than admitting I was paying attention to . . . the wrong thing.
She’s down the ladder in a flash, and I make the disturbing discovery that the only thing that improves the view of her ass . . . ets climbing, is her coming back down.
Once off the ladder, she extends her hand to me, and I hold mine out for her to deposit a dozen clips. “Just keep going. Holler when you need more.”
“I will. But where will you be?”
