The Absence of Olivia(34)
My smile froze a little when I saw the man standing on the porch.
“Hi, good morning,” he said, his voice deep. “I was sent here to look at some flooding damage.” He stood there, smiling at me, and I couldn’t find a way to make my mouth work. “Um, do I have the right house?” His smile broadened as if he were used to women being slack jawed around him. I managed to bring myself out of my stupor.
“Oh, yes. Please, come in.” I opened the door wider and stepped back, allowing him in to the foyer. Even though my mouth had started functioning, I couldn’t stop my eyes from taking him all in. It was almost unbelievable, the way he looked. Almost as if cheesy music was going to start playing and he would peel off his tool belt. He was, quite nearly, a perfect male specimen. I shook my head, trying to clear the images from my mind. I shut the door and tried to form a normal sentence. “The laundry room flooded yesterday. You can follow me.” I walked past him and started toward the kitchen, trying not to think about how hot the back of my neck felt with him behind me, how acutely aware I was of my body in that moment. I kept walking until I approached the laundry room door. I motioned into the room and he inched past me with a killer smile.
“I’m Nate, by the way,” he said as he passed me, holding out his hand. I took it, even though we were too close to actually shake hands comfortably. For a moment we stood, squeezed close to one another, just holding each other’s hand, smiling at each other. When he pulled away, I took my hand back and pushed it through my hair, trying to convince myself it hadn’t been a severely intense moment.
“My name’s Evelyn.”
“Evelyn, huh?” he asked as he knelt next to the washing machine, moving the handle of his hammer out of the way of his thigh like he did it one million times a day, without even looking. “Were you named after a relative or something?”
I laughed a little because it wasn’t the first time someone had insinuated I had an old-fashioned name. “Nope. My mom just thought it was pretty.”
“Well, she was right,” he said, reaching behind the machine, his smile making my face heat and heart flutter. “Looks like the line to your washer split.”
“Huh?” I asked, confused, then I caught on to the change of subject, now blushing from embarrassment. “Oh, yeah. Right. I came home and there was water spraying everywhere. It was a mess.”
“I can imagine.” He stood and moved around the room, then came back into the hallway, looking at the floor, then kneeling low again to look at the walls. “You’re gonna need new floors and new drywall.” He looked back at me without standing up. “You’re lucky you caught it when you did. If the water had gotten into the kitchen, it could have hit electrical and then you’d really be in a mess. This shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to fix.”
“A few weeks? That’s a good estimate?” I asked, laughing a little. “That seems like a long time.”
“That’s kind of how it works. We gotta tear it all out before we put the new stuff in. But we have to dry it out first.”
“Oh, right! The fans. Devon is out getting fans right now.”
He stood at my words and a little bit of light was gone from his eyes. “Fans’ll be good. Once it’s all dried out, we can start working.”
With impeccable timing, I heard the front door open and turned my head to see Devon walking through the kitchen with two strange looking contraptions in his arms. The two men saw each other and a frost came over the room. I watched as Devon eyed Nate, and even though I couldn’t see him, I knew Nate was doing the same thing. It was tense and strange, and I was painfully uncomfortable.
“Devon, this is the contractor the insurance company sent over to look at the damage.”
“I gathered that,” he said, catching me off guard by his short and sharp words. He put the things that I assumed were fans down, and then reached his hand out toward Nate. “Thanks for coming out on such short notice,” he said, his tone not any nicer. Nate grabbed his hand and I winced watching their forearm muscles bulge. It was obvious they were both squeezing the hell out of the other’s hand.
“That’s my job,” Nate replied, smiling at Devon, but not the friendly smile I‘d gotten. No, he gave Devon a smirk. They shook hands for way too long, neither one of them seeming to want to give up first, but when they finally let each other go, it was with a sharp thrust. “As I was telling Evelyn here, you’ll need new flooring and new drywall. It’ll take a few weeks. I can probably start once everything is dried out.”
“Well, are those the fans you needed?” asked Devon, motioning toward the ones he’d brought in with him. They looked kind of like snails, rounded with a lip at the bottom. I’d imagined the kind of fans you’d use in your window on a hot day.
“Those’ll work, if it’s all you’ve got,” Nate said to Devon.
“I don’t usually keep a supply of industrial strength fans on hand,” he replied.
“Well, why would you?”
“Okay, boys, let’s calm down a little. Let’s get the fans set up, and get the drying process started. I’m sure we all have places to be.” I’d never had to defuse testosterone before. I reached for one of the fans, surprised by its weight.
“Here, Evelyn, let me do that.” Nate took the fan from me and turned to walk back to the laundry room.