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“Let’s get ‘em inside,” Sully said. As he and his dad prepared to haul the cabinets into the kitchen, Sully gazed at the shelves bolted to the wall. His eyes swept across numerous bins filled with Christmas decorations, old exercise gadgets his mom enthusiastically ordered from infomercials and discarded roughly one month later, and just about every item Sully had ever touched as a child. Somewhere in those boxes, Sully knew, were the baseball glove he never used, the football his dad had bought him for Christmas, even the punching bag that had appeared in the garage his freshman year of high school.
“You ready?” his father asked.
“Yep.”
On day two of theMom Kitchen Project, Sully carefully instructed his father on drawing an upper and lower level line around the kitchen to ensure the cabinets were even. Then, using shims to compensate for the uneven walls and floor of the old house, the two men began to install the cabinets, one section at a time.
Sully loved this part of the renovation phase, watching how something as simple as cabinets transformed a kitchen.
“You should have seen the kitchen in my current place,” Sully told his father as he held a cabinet while his dad screwed it to the wall using an electric drill that might be older than Sully. “It was a disaster. Tiny footprint, Formica countertops, peeling linoleum flooring. Oh, and popcorn ceilings from hell. The 70s were strong in that kitchen.”
His dad chuckled. “Yeah? How’d you fix it up?”
Sully glanced at him. “You really want to know?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Sully tamped down the flutter of excitement in his chest. Surely, his father was just being polite to pass the time.
“Well, for starters, my friend Hue and I tore everything out. Everything,” Sully said as he released his hold on the cabinet, then held a level against the side. “Perfect. Let’s get that next one on. Hue and I scraped the ceilings. Took out the cabinets and the countertops. We even knocked down half the wall between the kitchen and the living room. We pulled up that horrible flooring. Whoever put it in used this cheap glue, so it took me days. But it was worth it.”
Sully paused as his father carefully screwed the next cabinet into place. Tiny wood shavings dropped into the cabinet as the drill whirred. When the drilling was complete, Sully continued. “I put in this really great water-resistant vinyl flooring. It looks like ash wood. Then granite countertops and then pre-assembled cabinets just like these.” Sully rapped a knuckle on the cabinets sitting on the floor. “We added a huge sink and a glass backsplash. Here, check it out.”
Sully dug in his pocket for his phone. He couldn’t help himself. The Ugly Duckling was his baby, and he’d show pictures to anyone who exhibited the slightest interest. He whipped out his phone and, after scrolling through waaaaay too many pictures of Sheba, presented his father with the before and after pics he’d taken of the kitchen.
John’s wiry gray eyebrows shot almost to the brim of his ball cap. “You did all that?” He looked at Sully as if seeing his son for the first time.
“Well, my friend Hue is a master renovator. He taught me a lot,” Sully admitted, feeling strangely bashful beneath his father’s gaze. “Here, look at this.”
With his dad bending over the phone, Sully flipped through the before and afters of the Ugly Duckling’s living room, bathrooms, master bedroom, exterior, and landscaping, which was still a work in progress.
“Wow, that’s really something,” the older man admitted, straightening back up after viewing the last picture of the new, sunlight-filled living room.
“I’d planned on renting out the home,” Sully explained, glancing down lovingly at the last picture. “But with all the work we’ve done…”
“But what?” his dad asked, grabbing a water bottle and taking a long slurp. Wet stains under the arms of his faded Aztecs t-shirt spoke to the effort of the past few hours.
Sully studied the picture on his phone’s screen, showcasing the Ugly Duckling in its new coat of white paint. He remembered all the hours of blood, sweat, and tears he’d put into the house.
“Well, I’ve kind of fallen in love with the house,” he admitted to his father. “I don’t know if I want to give it up.” Somewhere in the middle of the renovation project, he’d stopped making design choices based on the best ROI and had started to follow his heart. Hell, he’d added cat steps to the living room wall and was already devising a catio for the backyard. That wasn’t exactly going to boost the home’s curb appeal unless he found buyers as cat crazy as he’d become.
His ugly duckling hadn’t just turned into a swan. It washisswan, and he wasn’t ready to let her go.
“You know…” his father paused and pulled off his hat. He kneaded the brim. “You did some really good work, son. Maybe you should keep it.”
“You think so?” Sully finally glanced away from the picture to his dad.
“Yeah. That place, it seems…” John struggled again for the right word. “Special.”
“It is special.” What Sully didn’t say is that one thing that made his swan so unique was that he’d also designed it with Alanna in the back of his mind. Sure, it was utterly crazy to plan a house for a woman he’d only been on two dates with, but that hadn’t stopped his heart from picking paint colors and furniture he thought she’d like.
But it would never betheirhouse.
“I didn’t get it at first, you quitting your job and all,” his father said. “But it looks like you know what you’re doing. And it seems like you’re happy.” John kept his eyes firmly on his ball cap.
Those words should have made Sully’s day. Hell, he should have been as giddy as if he’d won a ticket to slide down a rainbow. But that last sentence snagged on the broken edges of his heart.It seems like you’re happy.
Not so much. Not when he knew he’d been a total dick to the woman he cared about and wasn’t sure how to make it up to her. Hell, if he evencouldmake it up to her.
