Parker’s eyebrows dip as he registers my response. He does that sometimes—frowns at compliments and smiles. Acts of kindness. At first I thought he was just an asshole, but now I’m wondering if he’s genuinely not accustomed to those things.
“I like staying busy.”
I flash him my teeth. “I get that. That’s why I went a little crazy with my baking business. It keeps me focused. Distracted.”
“They were good.”
His reply takes me off guard, and my smile wanes. Did he just say something… nice? To me? “Oh… the cupcakes?”
“Yeah.” Parker clears his throat, dipping his head towards the kitchen. “This way?”
I blindly nod, watching as he moves around me and shuffles toward the scene of the crime with his toolbox. Wringing my hands together, I follow, wondering if I should incite more conversation. More nice words. “So, um, do you live around here?”
Absolutely gripping, Melody. Great job.
“Ten minutes, give or take,” he says, peering up at the gaping hole when we enter the kitchen area. “Jesus.”
I wince as I follow his gaze. “I wish I had a cool story—a meteor shower, maybe a mysterious transient living in my ceilings. But my brother says it’s just a leaky pipe.”
Parker spares me a curious glance. “Leaky pipe sounds less life-threatening.”
“Not a cool story, though,” I breeze, flicking my finger at him.
He presses his lips together, and I choose to believe he’s holding back a smile.
“I’ll go grab the ladder from my truck,” he murmurs, his toolbox clanking against the countertop. “I can measure and shit today, then I’ll be back tomorrow to finish. I have another job during the day, so it’ll probably be early evening.”
“That sounds great. Thank you.”
Parker gives me a little nod, averting his eyes and moving around me to head out to his truck. His arm grazes mine as he passes, and I’m zapped with a shot of warmth that turns my skin flush. The fleeting over-the-shoulder look he sends me has me wondering if he felt it, too.
I wrap my arms around myself, trying to scrub the goosebumps away. They are physical evidence of this feeling—this nagging curiosity that is quickly blossoming into something else. And maybe I should be happy about it. Relieved. It’s proof that I’m still alive, that I’m capable of feeling something other than overwhelming numbness.
But truthfully, it angers me.
How dare my body react in this way, how dare it feel.
How dare it feel roused by a man who isn’t Charlie.
My eyes trail to our wedding canvas, hanging on the far wall, the one I’ve debated taking down at least fifty-thousand times. It hurts to look at it. It hurts to see his smile, so blissful, so in love—so unaware of how swiftly our love story would be snuffed out, ending in bitter tragedy.
Tears burn my eyes, my throat stinging, so I distract myself in the kitchen and begin to bake. I try my best to ignore Parker’s presence as he sets up the ladder, carrying tools and measuring equipment between his teeth. I try to ignore the way the muscles in his back pull and stretch against the fabric of his light gray t-shirt, and the way a faint whiff of his shampoo or deodorant mingles with the chocolate brownie batter—something clean and outdoorsy. Organic, like the way a gentle breeze might smell way up in the mountains.
A smile pulls at my lips—a zephyr.
“Fucking hell.”
I snap my head up from the bowl of batter, watching as Parker grumbles through the tape measurer in his mouth and examines his finger. My face goes ashen when I spot the blood. “Oh, my God… you’re bleeding.”
“I’ll live.” He climbs back down one-handed, holding his injured finger up to keep the blood from dripping. Plucking the tape measurer from his mouth, he tosses it to the counter and moves around to the sink, mumbling, “Got a Band-Aid?”
Swallowing down the queasy feeling roiling my chest, I meet him at the sink and snatch his hand before he dips it under the running water. “Parker, this looks terrible.”
He tries to pull away. “I got it. It’s not a big deal.”
“Let me help, will you?” Reaching for a clean dish towel, I wrap it around his index finger and hold tight in an attempt to control the bleeding.
“I told you I don’t like to be touched.”
Our eyes meet, my breath sounding choppy when I inhale. “And I’ve been known to faint at the sight of blood.”
“Sounds like you should go back to being Betty Crocker while I deal with this.” His Adam’s apple bobs, his entire body tensing at my nearness. “Both problems solved.”
“Or you can let me help, and we’ll face our fears together.” I force a mega-watt grin despite my nervous belly and wobbly knees, causing his gaze to dip down to my mouth with that trademark glower. When his eyes lift back up, they look darker somehow. More ablaze.
“You and your smiles…” he says in a low voice.
He’s trying to project his annoyance, but I don’t buy it. Applying deeper pressure to the towel, I tease, “I know they’re growing on you.”
“Like fungus, maybe.”
“But the good kind of fungus.”
“No, like ringworm.”
My smile lingers as I unravel the towel to inspect his wound, noting the cloth is saturated in blood. “What the heck did you do? Does my ceiling have teeth? Maybe I’ll have a cool story, after all.”
“Got myself on a nail. Amateur move.” Parker finally tugs his hand free of my grip and spins around to the faucet. “I’ll take a bandage if you have one.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a ride to the hospital?”
“I’m really fucking sure.”
Stubborn.
After sifting through my linen closet for bandages, I find a First Aid kit with antiseptic and gauze and carry it back to the kitchen. Parker is applying pressure with a new towel, looking massively ticked off. I hesitate for a moment before approaching, swallowing my pride and closing in on him. “Let me see.”
“Will you stop?” he barks, trying to dodge me as I reach for his hand.
“I used to be a nurse.”
“Really?”
Holding him steady in my left hand, I rummage through the kit for the antiseptic with my right. “No. But I’ve seen three or four episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.”
My eyes flick up, and I swear to God I think I see a smile begin to surface. But he squashes any trace of it and grunts his irritation instead. “So damn intrusive.”
“Like the sun, right?”
My tone is gentle and unoffended as Parker’s jaw tightens, and he whispers back, “That’s right.”
I nod slowly, watching as the blood flow finally ebbs, and I dab the antibiotic cream onto the wound with a fresh gauze. Parker hisses through his teeth, trying to pull back, but I hold firm, knowing he could push me away if he really wanted to.
I don’t think he wants to.
“My husband used to compare me to the sun,” I tell him softly, still working, still fixing him. “It was kind of our thing. I was the sun, and he was the sky, and for the longest time, I didn’t know how to survive without him. When you build your entire life around another person and that person just disappears… what’s left?” I don’t dare glance up at him as I peel open a bandage, too afraid his deep stare will eclipse the rest of my words. “I’ve spent over a year trying to figure how to build a new life around me. But as you probably know, given your line of work, with building comes the occasional collapse. The inevitable downfall. Pieces don’t always fit the way you want them to, and then… starting over again sounds so overwhelming. I’ve had my share of downfalls, and I’m sorry you had to witness one of them.”