Page 4 of A Little Love

Everything that Nolan Anderson owned fit in the back of his pickup and the smallest cargo trailer that U-Haul offered for rent. Which was pretty much what a guy could expect when he tells his cheating ex of a best girl that he doesn’t care what she takes so long as she’s out of his base-provided housing by the time he gets back to the States. He had no excuse for the way he’d handled it, apart from his stung pride and the deep sense of loss and betrayal that had accompanied her confession. Via Skype, of all things. And she must have been equally stung, because she’d taken him at his word and emptied that house all the way down to the carpet and bare walls. She’d even taken his drums and she’d hated those things, refusing to let him practice on them if she was home.

Seven years had passed since that breakup, but since he’d spent most of that time on back-to-back tours, the sum andtotal of what personal possessions he’d bothered recouping amounted to almost nothing: a used couch and recliner, laptop, a few dishes, and his grandfather’s bedroom set, given to him last summer just before his mother passed away. Fortunately for him, in Oregon, thirteen thousand plus closing costs was enough to buy a fully furnished house so long as he wasn’t too picky about the condition of said furnishings.

Everything was older than he was, including the electric stove (enameled, of course; split pea soup green) and an ugly brown couch situated inside a bright yellow sun ball big enough to seat three people. At first glance, he thought the dining room table one stiff breeze away from total collapse, only to discover it was sturdy as hell; the creator had apparently meant for all six legs to stick out diagonally in different directions. Just like they’d meant to carpet the egg-style dining chair in purple shag. Obviously, clash was the prevailing style choice.

The first night in his new home, Nolan hung out the U.S. flag his aunt had sent him for a housewarming present and ate his supper—grilled ham and cheese and a beer—on a pink beanbag chair in front of a console television that didn’t work. Half an hour later, he took the flag down and stuffed it into the nearest half-unpacked box because the constant flapping kept sparking flashbacks of camouflage tents and the desert wind. The following morning, he took everything the previous owners had left behind to the county dump and when he arrived home, it was just in time to field his first emergency. Contrary to every belief right from the moment this house became non-refundably his, it wasn’t even his emergency, and it did not involve either the porch or the roof.

Moving methodically from room to empty room, Nolan was knocking down cobwebs and wasp nests and sweeping up the massive casualties that only forty dollars’ worth of bug spray could inflict when he heard a distant scream for help.Meandering his way to the front door for a look out, he reached it about the same time Tricia did. She must have run all the way from her house to his. Wide-eyed and breathless, she was also flushed and dripping wet from pink-striped bangs to halfway down her t-shirt.

“My sink blew up!” she exclaimed, gazing up at him with big eyes and fingers tapping out a Morse-code of concern. “There’s water gushing everywhere!”

“Did you shut off the valve?”

She blinked at him twice, big eyes growing even bigger. “I… shut off the faucet, but the water isn’t coming from there. It’s coming out the side.”

Nolan propped his broom in the corner behind the door. When she took off running back to her house, he jogged after her. The sound of spewing water falling like a hard rain on linoleum could be heard from the moment she opened the front door. Getting out of the way, she pointed down the far hall, where billows of steam poured from the open master bedroom.

Nolan quickened his step. He also grabbed the lap blanket off the back of her recliner to use as a shield against the hot spray, and once he was close enough, he threw it over both sink and malfunctioning faucet. It kept the worst of the burning water off him long enough for Nolan to dive under the sink and shut off both valves. The rest of the morning had him lying half under her bathroom cabinet, a pillow unsuccessfully attempting to soften where the wooden lip bit into the small of his back while he repaired her plumbing and wondered exactly how he’d volunteered to do this. He hated plumbing. Hated it with a passion, and heaven knew, he had a ton of repair work just waiting for him at home. Yet, here he was, with the old faucet and corroded copper pipes lying on the floor near his feet while he glued the new plastic pieces together and struggled to make everything fit.

“I really appreciate this,” Tricia said, and not for the first time. Looking back through his splayed knees, Nolan could just see her via her reflection in the dressing mirror that hung on the bedroom side of the bathroom door. She sat on the counter, ankles demurely crossed and holding onto the screwdriver and wrenches he hadn’t needed since disassembling the old faucet. It was just an ordinary summer Saturday and she was dressed the part in baggy pink coveralls, cut-off and rolled up just above the knee, white sports bra, and sneakers. On every pocket hem, yellow duckling and white bunny decals alternated with shovels, hoes, watering cans, and buckets of either vegetables or yellow, white and pink flowers. She looked ready for a day of grubbing in flower beds in an outfit that didn’t look entirely out of place and yet which any five-year-old would have loved. He loved it, too. Especially her hair, pulled back in twin ponytails now. A brunette version of Pippi Longstocking’s, all except for the pink stripe in her overlong bangs. That hung free. Parted to one side, it framed her eyes and her right cheek beautifully.

“Not a problem,” Nolan said, heaving himself out from under the sink. Having done all he could until she had a new faucet to replace the old one, he accepted the towel she handed him and wiped his hands. “I’m happy to help.”

And he was. Plumbing in her house was still plumbing, but standing in her bathroom, he found it almost pleasurable… when he wasn’t also wondering why ‘Daddy’ wasn’t here doing it himself. Maybe he was at work, although it didn’t take more than a casual glance around her bathroom to see there was no male influence anywhere in evidence. No razor or shaving cream on the counter by the misbehaving sink. No beard or moustache trimmer, and only one toothbrush—a bright pink one with dinosaurs on the handle—in the cup holder she’d moved to the towel shelf before clandestinely covering it with a washcloth (which he’d pretended not to notice).

“I think the kitchen sink’s still working,” she said, perking slightly. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

He shook his head. “No, that’s okay. I should probably get back to work before something happens.”

Tricia didn’t exactly un-perk, but her smile quirked a little crooked. “Something… like what?”

Shaking his head, Nolan tried not to think about her tattoos, but they’d pretty much been haunting his thoughts since the day he’d caught that brief glimpse up her skirt. He shook his head again, laughing softly, knowing better than to say anything and yet also knowing when it came down to self-preservation, saying something now might be the only thing that kept them both from doing something they’d regret.

She was going to throw him out of her house, he thought. The minute he said it, she was going to know exactly how he knew what was written on her thighs and she was going to send him home with blistered ears. And yet, even knowing how stupid this was, he still opened his mouth. “Like Daddy coming home and finding me in the middle of your bedroom. Trust me, ‘I’m only here to fix her pipes’ is not an excuse he’s going to accept gracefully.”

Tricia stared at him for almost a full minute in perfect silence, her mouth gradually rounding in an expressive ‘O’ that ran the gamut from surprised to instant understanding to immense embarrassment—all in the blink of her heavily mascaraed eyes.

“Oh,” she said, spots of pink staining high on her cheeks. “Thank you. Um… that’s a very nice way of saying I need to get a longer skirt.”

Nolan ran the towel between his fingers before clearing his throat. “I shouldn’t have looked, I’m sorry.”

“No, no. Um…” She cleared her throat. “Entirely my fault. Okay, well… Um, how about we start by saying you aren’t in my bedroom, you’re in my bathroom. And then we can go from therestraight into the fact that you wouldn’t be in either place if I had a Daddy at this point in time.”

“That’s almost worse,” Nolan said, not sure if he ought to feel foolish or relieved.

“How so?”

“Real Daddies don’t leave their marks and then just walk away.”

The color on her cheeks stained a little deeper. “And you know that because…”

His hands were as dry as they could possibly get, yet he was still wiping. He couldn’t believe he what he was about to admit. “Let’s just say, seeing that tattoo struck a little close to home for me.”

Her mouth rounded again. “Well, if that’s true where’s your Little?”

“Jesse was more of a Middle really. A few years back, she decided what she needed was a Daddy who was serving somewhat closer to Connecticut than Iraq. So…” He shrugged one shoulder before gesturing expansively. It was her bathroom, but his shrug stated clearly, ‘Here I am’.”

“I’m sorry,” Tricia said, sympathetically.

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