Chapter 10
Delilah
“Learnin’ to roll with the punches makes the fight a lot easier.”
~ Grant Turner
“Oh, come on! Seriously?!”
I flipped the switch on the hair dryer again as panic rose up inside of me. I’d already reset the breaker and tried several other outlets, so I knew the problem wasn’t with my electricity. My hairdryer had picked the worst time ever to stop working.
Taking a deep breath through my nose and blowing it out through my mouth, I resisted the urge to throw it through the window. Just like the night of the fundraiser, nothing was going according to my plan this morning. Last night when I’d gone to bed, I’d been so nervous, and my mind wouldn’t stop playing out possible scenarios of what this weekend would be like that I hadn’t fallen asleep until four a.m. My alarm that was programmed to go off at six never did because my phone died. I’d been so preoccupied I’d forgotten to charge it.
I’d woken up at seven fifty-nine. One minute before Sawyer was due to show up at eight a.m. After a few seconds of sheer horror, I quickly recovered and jumped in the shower in the hall bathroom with the door wide open so that I could hear if Sawyer knocked or rang the bell. I’d taken what had to go down as the fastest shower in history and jumped out, dried off and pulled on my favorite pair of jeans—the ones that emphasized my assets and deemphasized my gut—only to find that there was a hole that had worn in the inner thigh.
I knew they were just pants, but I still had to fight back the tears. I wanted everything to go perfectly and feeling good was half the battle. The logical side of my brain knew that my self-worth shouldn’t be pinned on a pair of jeans, but the emotional side was devastated.
After pulling myself together and getting dressed, I noticed that I’d missed a call from Briggs Construction. I’d been sure that he was calling to cancel. My heart had dropped like a lead balloon but I’d forced myself to face it, even if that was the case. To my great relief it wasn’t. He was running late. Just like me. It was the one silver lining in the entire morning.
But he would be here literally any moment, and I looked like a drowned rat. Improvising, I quickly parted my hair and braided first the right then the left side. Then grabbed the Longhorns hat I’d had since freshman year of college and put it on. I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I was wearing a white tank-top, blue jeans with a flannel tied around my waist, and an orange baseball cap. At least it didn’t look like I was trying too hard.
I didn’t have much time to worry about the fact that I didn’t have any makeup on because there was a loud knock on the door. I froze for a moment, not sure if I’d be able to make my feet move. But then I used my countdown tool from the book Five Second Rule by Mel Robbins and my feet started moving. As I walked down the hallway I felt as out of breath as I was after half an hour on the elliptical. Nerves and excitement blended in a large pot that was boiling over.
This was it. Over a year of planning came down to the next forty-eight hours.
“I am enough. I am present. I am happy.”
I repeated my mantra under my breath as I stared down and watched myself put one foot in front of the other until I reached the door. I turned the knob and pulled it open as I lifted my head. My lips parted, and my brain told me to speak, but no words came out.
I’d thought I’d known what to expect the first time I saw Sawyer standing on my front porch. I’d fantasized about this moment since I bought this house. But my imagination hadn’t prepared me for the reality.
He was tall, standing at six foot six, but it wasn’t just his height that was so impressive. It was his mass. He filled my entire doorway. I couldn’t even see the walkway that led up to my porch.
My mind blanked as my brain tried to process the sexiness that was in front of me. He wore a blue Briggs Construction T-shirt, jeans, a tool belt, and tan work boots. His strong jaw, which was normally clean shaven now had a sprinkling of stubble on it, making me think he hadn’t shaved this morning. The peppering of dark hairs caused his lips to stand out even more than they normally did. I’d always had a thing for his mouth.
I loved kissing. I could spend hours making out with someone that was a good kisser. I’d stayed with my first boyfriend for months longer than I should have just because he could kiss me and make me forget my name. We broke up six years ago, and he was still the best kiss I’d ever had. But, I had a feeling Sawyer would take his title if I were ever lucky enough to liplock with him. I thought I was going to find out when we were dancing, but my stomach had killed the mood and embarrassed the heck out of me. It was a multi-tasker.
The sound of Sawyer clearing his throat caused me to blink. I realized that I’d left him standing on my porch while I drooled over him. This was perhaps more embarrassing than my stomach had been.
“Sorry, I spaced there for a minute.” I shook my head as I opened the door wider and stepped back to give him room. “Come on in.”
He did, and just like I hadn’t been ready to see him at my door, I hadn’t been prepared to see him standing in my foyer. The grown woman in me that had plans to seduce the only man that had ever made her heart flutter was trying to play it cool. But the little girl whose life had been saved twice was staring at her hero and was having a total meltdown.
“Is it this way?” he asked as he looked down the hall.
“Oh right, yes.” I nodded as I led him down the short hallway and through the swinging door and had a quick “come to Jesus” moment with myself.
Stop it.
Get yourself together.
You have a plan, stick to it.
Stop getting distracted by his hotness.
When we were both in the kitchen, I spun around in a slow circle. “Well, this is it. I don’t think it’s been upgraded since the eighties. I’ve given us a head start on the project and replaced the floors. So, my thinking was, we could demo and hopefully get the uppers installed today and then lowers, counters, and backsplash tomorrow.”
Since buying this house a year ago, this kitchen had been driving me crazy. I’d redone both bathrooms and put down hardwood floors in the front room and bedroom. But renovating a kitchen was a two-person job. I could’ve asked my dad to help me, but I’d saved it because I’d wanted to do this project with Sawyer and now I was.
He was here. With his tool belt. In my kitchen. Surreal didn’t even begin to describe how this felt.
“Did those come assembled?” He asked looking past me at the cabinets that were lined up on the screened in porch that sat off of the kitchen and dining area.
“No.” I’d spent last weekend putting them together.
He walked past me and pulled open the glass slider, stepping out to inspect them. I watched him squat down and slide his hands along the edges as if he was a human level. I didn’t mind. Sawyer was a perfectionist, that was common knowledge. I waited as he made his way around the other cabinets, looking at each one from several different angles.
My next project after the kitchen was tearing down the screened in and building a pergola complete with a fan and an outdoor dining table. I’d always been a fan of indoor/outdoor living, and now that I had my own house, I wanted to incorporate that as much as possible. I could see the finished product clearly in my mind and now that Sawyer was in the space, I saw him sitting across the table from me as we enjoyed a sunset dinner.
“Good job.” His encouragement pulled me back into the here and now.
“Thanks.” I grabbed the sledgehammer that I’d left resting beside my dining room table and lifted it up, so it rested on my shoulder.
I had a plan, and I needed to stick to it. It wasn’t just the kitchen that I needed to tear down and rebuild, it was Sawyer, too. I needed to take an emotional sledgehammer to his walls and replace them with intimacy. I had three sets of twelve questions that I had to get through in the next thirty-six hours and even though, technically, he had to answer my questions, it was still going to be like pulling teeth. I had no time to waste.
“You ready to break some stuff?” I asked cheerily.
The corners of his mouth twitched. It wasn’t a full blown smile, but I would take it. With a single nod he stepped back up into the kitchen, and we went to work.
We started with the uppers. They came down easily mainly due to Sawyer’s strength and expert removal technique. He was more of a show not tell kinda teacher. But he had pointed out that whacking away with my eyes closed and hoping for the best was not really the safest or most effective way to demo. After a brief demonstration of how to use my own body weight when swinging the sledgehammer, my form and efficacy was greatly improved. Next came the Formica countertops and then the lowers. After collecting a decent sized pile of debris in the center of the kitchen, we made trips back and forth to the dumpster that I’d rented. I’d even managed to accidently brush up against him as we’d passed in the hallway.
Most of the work was done in silence, the only noise coming from the music that I was playing through a speaker that was connected to my iPhone. Our verbal interactions were as I had expected them to be, short and to the point. His were limited to warnings of what I was doing wrong or guidance of how to do things the right way and mine were limited to me saying okay.
When I’d suggested the apprenticeship to Mrs. Higgins, my motivation was simple, force Sawyer to answer questions. I hadn’t even considered that I’d be taking Construction 101 from a master level craftsman. It turned out to be an unexpected bonus.
Another thing that surprised me was how easily we fell into a natural rhythm like we’d been working together for years instead of hours without any spoken communication. We even started anticipating each other’s next move, just like on the dance floor, we were perfectly in sync.
Once the debris was cleared we began chipping away on the old tile backsplash that had pictures of roosters and fruit baskets on it. I figured that now was as good a time as any to ask my first question.
I opened my mouth, but just like at the door no sound came out. I noticed that the pry bar and hammer I was holding were both shaking. I was nervous, and my mind started telling me all the reasons that I should just keep my mouth shut and not rock the boat. Things were going fine, why do something that could embarrass me?
Because, I don’t want fine. I want more than fine. I reminded myself.
Taking a deep breath, as casually as possible, I asked, “If you could have dinner with anyone in the world who would it be?”
He stopped mid chip and looked over his shoulder at me with an expression that landed somewhere between utter confusion and intent to figure me out.
When he didn’t answer, I repeated the question with a new spin of giving my answer first. “I think I would want to have dinner with Oprah. What about you? Alive or dead, who would you want to have dinner with?”
He still didn’t answer, and I held my breath under the heated intensity of his gaze. I suddenly had the urge to confess my plan, to come clean and tell him everything, or to jump ship and abort my mission. Somehow I managed to stay the course, and I was rewarded with an answer.
“Clint Eastwood.” He turned back and continued working.
I exhaled, smiling with satisfaction as I watched the muscles on his back flex while he worked. This wasn’t going to be easy, but I had a feeling it was going to be worth it.