“You talk about me?” she asked.
“Oh, uh…I mean, Leah mentioned you the other day when I went over to her house for dinner. But I didn’t ask about you,” I said. Ouch, that hadn’t come out the way I meant it to.
Judging from the way her eyes widened and dodged mine for a moment, I gathered she had taken it exactly how it had come out.
This was going fan-fucking-tastic.
“Look, do you want help or not?” I asked in frustration.
“No, I’m fine. Thank you.” Her arms were crossed, and she looked pissed.
Well, that made two of us.
The never-ending stream of curse words started up in my head again, and I was seriously ready to just say, Fuck it, and leave. But then, she turned slightly, and I saw the bruise on her leg along with the Band-Aids on her hands and arms. Mia was never one for grace. She could trip over her own two feet.
“I’m not leaving. Get your ass back inside.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but I stopped her, placing my finger on her lips. It was the first contact we’d had since she walked away from me all those years ago. The heat from her soft lips seared my skin, and I heard her gasp from the contact.
Our eyes locked as I said, punctuating each word, “I’m. Not. Leaving. Understand?”
She nodded her head in agreement, and we both turned to make our way inside. I rubbed my hands together, trying to savor the warmth I’d felt from her mouth, but it quickly disappeared—just like her.
There wasn’t much in the way of furniture. A red couch was tucked in the corner, still covered in plastic. It was obviously new. A table that looked like it had seen quite a number of years and a couple of chairs sat in the kitchen.
“There isn’t much yet. I’m waiting to get more furniture until the floors down here are done,” she said before turning around.
“Why did you get such a big house in the first place?” I asked, giving an appraising glare.
This was supposed to be our thing—buying an old house and fixing it up. We had planned to do this together. While on the phone or cuddled up together on the hood of my car as we looked up to the stars, we used to talk for hours about what kind of house we wanted and what we’d do to it.
This was our dream, not hers.
“Uh…I don’t know. It was all I could afford.”
Bullshit.
“So, where do you want me?”
“What?” she asked, suddenly flustered.
“Put me to work, Mia. That’s why I’m here.” I tried not to laugh at her reaction to my words. It was good to know I could still ruffle those stuck-up little feathers of hers. God knows I’d spent a good part of my teenage years doing so.
“Hey,” I whispered, leaning forward in my desk chair.
Nothing.
“Hey,” I muttered softly. This time, I took a piece of binder paper, wadded it up, and tossed it at her head.
That had gotten her attention as she let out an audible gasp and turned around in her seat to face me.
“What do you want?” she asked coldly.
Brr…
“Your name. I want your name.”
“Why?”
“So, I know what to call you on our date,” I answered with a sly grin.
I’d been watching this girl in my homeroom class ever since the first day of school two weeks ago. She’d come from a different middle school, so I had no idea who she was, but the second I’d seen her, I’d wanted to know her.
“We are not going on a date!” she scoffed.
“Of course we are, and I can’t ask you out on a second one if we don’t go on a first. See where I’m going with this?” I replied back.
“And why would I go on a date with you?”
“Because you’re already falling madly in love with me. It’s hopeless.”
I was honestly waiting for her to smack me. When I saw just a hint of a smile appear at the corner of her mouth, I knew I’d gotten to her.
“Amelia,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Amelia—that’s my name, stupid.” She giggled.
“That’s kind of a stuck-up name, Amelia. I’m picking something else.”
“You’re renaming me?” She laughed.
She was now completely caught in my trap.
“Yep. From now on, you will be known as…Mia.”
“Oh, um…are you good with a crowbar?” she asked, pointing to the large tool propped up against the far wall.
“Better than you, I’d wager.” I pointed to her leg.
She gave me a sour look before showing me what still needed to be ripped up.
“You know these are original floors that you are tearing out, right? They’re probably over a hundred years old,” I said as I started pulling up the oak in the dining room.
“Yes, I know that, but they can’t be rescued. Apparently, the owners before me didn’t care so much about the historical value of them because they were trashed. They looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to them and then left an entire litter of cats to urinate on every board for a month.”
“Is that what smells in here?”
“Did you think it was me?”
“Well, I mean—”
“Garrett!” she shrieked, leaning over to playfully hit my arm.
She realized what she had done a second after she did it, and she stepped back. It was scary how easily we had just fallen back into our normal banter. It made me wonder just how little effort it would take to tumble back into everything else.
Rather than suffer through the impending awkwardness, I started my job of taking up the wood floors. She busied herself by sweeping the four-thousand nails that were being thrown all over the place from each board being pried out of place. We worked through the afternoon.
In the evening, Mia asked, “Hey, do you want to order a pizza or something?”
“Uh…actually, I have to go to my sister’s for dinner tonight.” I didn’t really, but I’d reached my threshold for the day. The silence was getting to me, and if I had to spend one more hour in here watching Mia bend down in those shorts, trying not to see her ass cheeks peek out from the bottom, I would go crazy.
“Oh, okay. Well, you better get going then.” Dodging my gaze, she became very interested in a spot on the wall that needed to be patched.
“Yeah, I guess I should.”
I walked to the door and stopped. I swung around on my heels, finding a surprised Mia behind me.
“What time tomorrow?”