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Like what?I wanted to shout. In a matter of weeks, the man across from me went from my father to a man that was almost entirely foreign. I guess it was fitting. To him, I was a guest. To me, he was a stranger. “Maybe next time,” I answered, getting to my feet. Dad didn’t try to stop me this time, picking up his coffee and letting me walk away.
Even though it was early in the morning, tiredness swamped through me much like it had Friday night. The fight went out of me like the spotlight of a lighthouse turning into a different direction. It’d come back eventually, but for now, everything was dark.
Mr. Manning’s website was hard to look at. Not because it didn’t look good—no, I made sure it wasflawless—but because the weight of everything I’d done was staring me in the face, as well as the realization that it’d all been for nothing.
Signing a deal with Mr. Manning hadn’t saved Mom from following through on what I’d hoped had been a flippant threat—our house was up for sale, and I’d already signed a contract. Despite all of it being for nothing, I still had to complete the site.
Even though I knew Mom wouldn’t have been home, I spent the hours since breakfast with Dad camped out at Expresso’s, working through the last bit of everything. It’d taken me the entire time to figure out why the mobile version of the site was getting messed up when I inserted their logo, but after I got that down, there wasn’t much left to do but send it over for him to review.
It was easy to be hyper-focused on coding and HTML when life was more complicated.
Despite the absence of Mom’s car, as soon as I opened the front door, I heard a soft humming sound from directly up the stairs. Hoisting my duffle bag up higher on my shoulder, I stepped in the direction, careful to dodge the creaking steps.
My bathroom light was on, filtering its yellow glow out into the hallway.
The humming grew louder and louder until I stepped into the doorway, and though I could’ve glanced at the clutter everywhere else in the bathroom, my gaze went to Reed Manning standing in my shower.
His back was to me, blue T-shirt taut as he reached up and wound a wrench around the shower head. The matte black rainwater one was a fresh sight from the old mildew-ridden chrome one I’d had before.
Maybe later, I’d be embarrassed by the overflowing hamper in the corner, or worried if there were pink hairs stuck in the shower drain, but right now, I listened to him. The diligence of his movements calmed me like watching the sun set on the horizon. From the basic, methodical way he twisted the wrench to the soft noise he made under his breath. If anyone ever told me that Reedhummedwhen he worked, I wouldn’t have believed them.
But here he was, going through a tune that sounded suspiciously like a Taylor Swift song.
He pivoted to grab something from his toolbox, spotting me from the corner of his eye, and he jumped with a loud swear. The wrench clattered as he dropped it onto the shower floor.
“Gotcha,” I said with a slight smile, watching as he slumped against the shower wall. A super eloquent response. At least it wasn’they, I haven’t seen you since we woke up in the same bed together, how’ve you been?“Now who’s jumpy?”
He closed his eyes, voice breathless. “Your mom said you wouldn’t be home today.”
“Ah, so you only came thinking I wouldn’t be here?”
“I, at least, would’ve been more prepared for a near heart attack.”
My tired lips stretched wider as I ran my fingertips down my duffle bag, eyeing the showerhead. “Fixed it, did you?”
Reed gave me a soft glare before twisting to face his handiwork. “There was a limescale build up in the pipe—that’s why it was causing that screeching sound. I could’ve cleaned it, but your mom wanted to replace it to match the rest of the hardware.” He gestured toward the black knobs on the sink before turning to me. “What do you think?”
The last time we’d been together, I’d woken up in his arms, and now he was asking me about a showerhead. As if it never happened. “I’m glad it’ll stop screaming when I shower.”
“There’s got to be a joke in there somewhere.”
“Did you know Mom was doing all these fixes because she planned to sell the house?”
I wasn’t sure what I expected out of Reed’s reaction, nor what I hoped for, but he only let out a long sigh, picking up the wrench from the shower floor. “She said she wanted to up the value of the house. After years of construction with Dad, I know what that means.”
Up the value. Theresalevalue. After years of listening to Mom talking to her clients, I knew what that meant, too.
Last night, the news of selling the house came like a bomb tearing me apart from the inside out, quaking the ground I stood on. Now, all that was left was the aftermath. I didn’t feel like digging in my heels anymore. What was the point, anyway? My tiredness extended to my bones, no fight left in me.
“I’m going to go unpack my stuff,” I told him, clenching the duffle strap tighter as I walked out of the bathroom.
I walked across the hall and into my bedroom, dropping my bag onto my bed. I had my pajamas in the bag, as well as all my night routine stuff, and the idea of pulling it all out after being so excited to pack it yesterday left me feeling like I wanted to cry.
“Did something happen?” Reed’s voice came from behind me, and when I turned, I found him standing in the doorway with a rag in his hands. He dragged it across his knuckles, but he focused on me. “You seem…”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Different.”
