Chapter 43
“What are you doing?” Mikey asked, as she sat down on the bench seat that she’d declared was rightfully hers the other night when Sara had dropped her off and he’d resigned himself to sneaking into her mother’s room late at night and sneaking out early in the morning.
“Getting your mother’s bill together,” he said, staring down at the list that he’d compiled with all the receipts he’d collected over the past few months.
It was a small fortune, but he’d been able to cover it with the large settlement the judge had awarded to him after his brother had wiped the floor with Missy. She’d been forced to pay him everything she had and been placed on five years probation for grand larceny all because of that letter that she couldn’t help but share online simply because she’d thought it was funny.
“How much is it?” she asked, worrying her bottom lip as she helped herself to one of the large apple streusel muffins that her mother had whipped up this morning after he’d snuck out.
“Enough,” he said, chuckling as he looked at the total amount and sighed.
Between the appliances, wood, materials, windows, and all the other shit that he’d needed to complete this job she was looking at a nineteen thousand dollar bill. That didn’t include the money that he owed his cousins for helping, but he’d take care of that himself.
“You made mom cry, you know,” she said matter-of-factly as she nibbled on the streusel muffin.
“What?” he asked, looking up to find the little girl shrugging.
“She doesn’t know that I saw her,” Mikey said, giving him a look that he couldn’t quite make sense of.
“Do you know why she was crying?” he asked, already pushing his chair back to go check on Kasey.
“You made her happy,” she said, popping the last bite of streusel in her mouth before she jumped up and headed for the front door only to stop halfway there, run back and throw her arms around him and give him a bear hug. “The kitchen’s amazing, Reese. I gotta go! Uncle Eric is here! I’ll see you at my game tonight!”
And with that, she was gone.
He stood there for another minute, taking in the kitchen that he’d created for Kasey and looking for things that he could fix or change and for the first time in his life, he couldn’t come up with a single one.
It was perfect.
Absolutely fucking perfect, he thought chuckling as he walked out of the kitchen to do the same with the living room only to sigh when he glanced down the hallway to the rest of the house that didn’t match his perfect kitchen and living room. He walked down the hallway that needed to be gutted of the old horsehair plaster, warped floors and glanced into the bathroom he’d like to work on next before he continued the rest of the way to Kasey’s door only to find himself locked out.
Frowning, he knocked. “Kasey?”
“Just a minute!”
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” he asked, leaning against the door.
“Yeah, I just need a minute.”
When a minute passed and she still hadn’t opened the door, he decided to take a look at the bathroom to see if it would be possible to expand it by taking out the hallway closet, something that he could do later when he came back during his days off. With that in mind, he went to find his measuring tape.
*-*-*-*
“Why did you tell me to get my ass over here if you were going to lock your door?” came the curious question that had her jumping off the bed and rushing over to her locked bedroom door.
“Is Reese with you?” she whispered.
“Uh, no? Why are we whispering?” Sara asked, as Kasey decided to make sure the coast was clear.
She knelt down in front of the door, closed one eye and looked through the keyhole to-
Get the crap scared out of her when she spotted a familiar brown eye staring back at her.
“Are you going to open the door or not?” Sara asked, sounding amused as Kasey muttered under her breath about hateful bitches and threw the lock before opening the door, reaching out and dragging her best friend inside so that she could shut and lock the door before Reese saw them.
“Where’s Reese?” she asked, double-checking the lock before returning to her messy bed and the laptop that she’d been working on all morning.
“No clue,” Sara said, climbing onto the bed so that she could join her. “What are we hiding from him?” she asked, as she helped herself to Kasey’s bottle of apple juice.
“This,” she said with a smile as she opened her laptop and pulled up the file that she’d been working on and didn’t want Reese to see until it was ready.
Sara passed the juice back over to her and pulled the laptop onto her lap so that she could get a better look. “Holy crap, does he know about this yet?”
“Nope,” she said, worrying her bottom lip as she waited for Sara to finish looking at the website that she’d created for Reese on a whim.
“You did this?” Sara asked, shooting her a curious look.
“Mmmhmm,” she said, shifting nervously.
“It’s amazing,” Sara said, shaking her head in wonder as she went through the “Before” and “After” pictures of Kasey’s living room and kitchen. “He’s going to love it.”
“You think?” she asked, throwing the closed bedroom door another nervous glance.
“Yeah,” Sara said, nodding with a chuckle. “It looks amazing. The color scheme, fonts, and layout look great, but I do have one question.”
“And that is?”
“Is Officer Yummy planning on leaving the force to open his own business?”
She snorted at that as she took back the computer. “What? No! This is just so that he could have a website if he decides to do this on the side and he should definitely keep doing this,” she said, still unable to stop smiling when she thought about the beautiful kitchen and living room that he’d created for her.
“I agree, but if he’s doing this on the side then when is he going to be able to come see you?” Sara said, as she leaned back and helped herself to the rest of Kasey’s juice.
Sighing, she rubbed her hands down her face and shook her head as she admitted, “I honestly don’t know.”
“Kasey,” Sara said, sighing heavily, “please tell me that you’re not already trying to find a way out of this.”
“Oh, you mean now that I’ve found a great guy that I love spending time with and can’t seem to get enough of that I’m freaking out and trying to come up with a way to push him away before he breaks my heart,” she said, blinking. “Is that what you mean?” she asked, laughing when Sara flipped her off with a glare.
“I hate you,” Sara said before chuckling.
“You love and adore everything about me,” she said, returning her attention to the website that she was hoping to surprise Reese with.
“Only because I don’t know any better,” Sara said, grabbing the remote and turning the television on. “Where’s Mikey?”
Glancing at the right hand corner of her computer screen and checking the time, she said, “With Eric.”
“Is he still giving you the silent treatment?”
“Yup.”
“Any idea what that’s about?”
“Nope,” she said, pissed that he was acting this way.
He was one of her best friends and to have him suddenly just drop out of her life like this made her feel sick to her stomach. She didn’t know what happened or why it happened, but she wasn’t going to waste the last few weeks that she had with Reese on it. She’d give him his space, let him figure out why he was so pissed and when Reese left, she’d slap the shit out of him.
“And Reese?”
“Was out in the hall the last time I knew,” she said, wondering if he’d be willing to pose for a picture for this website.
Probably not, she thought with a smile as she scrolled down the page and-
“Son of a bitch!”
-scrambled off the bed when the sounds of glass shattering followed that loud declaration.
Shoving Sara out of the way, she raced over to the door, fumbled with the lock and finally managed to get it open so that she could run down the hall, shove the bathroom door open and stumble to a halt when she saw Reese, standing there, holding what remained of her medicine cabinet, the one that she was pretty sure had been attached to the wall this morning, and looking incredibly guilty.
Clearing his throat, Reese carefully placed the ruined medicine cabinet on the floor, shoved it aside with his foot as he stood up and cleared his throat again as she took in the large hole in her wall where the medicine cabinet had once been and the cracked sink before looking back at the large man that was definitely making her dinner tonight.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he nodded as he slowly exhaled. “So, I’ll just get started on this today,” he said with a nod as he headed towards the door, pausing long enough so that he could kiss her cheek and mumble, “Sorry.”
“You might want to get a picture of this before he gets back here if you want a ‘Before’ picture,” Sara pointed out as Kasey turned around with a sigh and headed back to her room, resigned to spend the night over at Reese’s, which meant that she was going to have to put off finishing his website for another night.