Page 23 of Rebound With Me
I wish that didn’t make me smile like an idiot.
I like the tree-lined street she lives on. It’s not fancy, but it feels safe. I’m sure that’s why she picked it. She doesn’t answer after I’ve buzzed her from the front door twice. I walk down the stoop and look up at the top floor windows. The curtains are open. Guess she’s not home. Guess I shouldn’t have just assumed she’d wait around for me all day.
“Hey,” she says, her voice behind me. I turn to see her coming in through the low metal gate, carrying a grocery bag, wearing jean shorts and a thin white blouse over a tank top, her hair up in a ponytail and nothing on her feet but a pair of flip-flops.
I should have parked farther away so I had longer to prepare myself for seeing her again, in the light of day.
I can see golden strands in her brown hair in the sunlight. No make-up, skin glowing in the way that surely only the truly happy and innocent can. Looking up at me through her eyelashes, blushing. She is so fucking hot and cute, I want to spend the rest of the day slowly kissing every inch of her and then make her scream my name all night.
I shouldn’t have come back.
I instantly feel jealous that anyone else got to see her like this, but I’ve got no right to feel this way.
“Sorry, have you been waiting long? I just popped out to grab a few things.”
“No, I just got here. Is now a good time for me to…deal with the drywall situation?”
“Now is an excellent time. Thanks for coming back. I wasn’t sure if you would.”
“I’m a man of my word.”
“What a pleasant surprise.”
I get a whiff of her shampoo or something when she walks by me to unlock the front door. I want to grab hold of that ponytail so bad and hear her make that gasping sound from her pillowy pink lips. I shift the bag of hardware stuff and my cordless screwdriver kit into one hand and take her grocery bag from her.
“Oh thank you.”
“Sure.”
I gesture for her to walk up the stairs ahead of me, which I’m hoping she’ll consider to be gentlemanly, but obviously I just want to enjoy the view.
By the time we get to the second floor, I have to keep my eyes glued to the stairs and run Brooklyn zip codes through my head so I can maintain my dignity.
When we get to her apartment, it smells like she lit incense. She doesn’t seem like the incense-lighting type, but I guess everyone in Brooklyn is that type.
She takes the grocery bag to the kitchen, opens a window in the living room, and leans against the window ledge instead of coming back over to where I’m standing, by the hole in the drywall. I still can’t believe I did that.
“Can I get you anything?”
“Actually, I forgot to get a drop cloth. Do you have an old towel or something I can spread on the floor so I don’t mess it up?”
“I have a drop cloth, actually. For my art projects.”
“You an artist?”
“No. I’m a first grade teacher. I just fool around with paint sometimes, and take my paintings to show the class. So they can feel better about their own work.” She giggles.
I want to ask her so many questions about being a first grade teacher, but I also don’t want to know too much or I’ll just want to know more and more, I’ll just want more and more.
She places the drop cloth on the floor under the wall that I’ll be working on, while I set out the stuff I brought. I can tell she’s uncomfortable because I didn’t ask her more about her job, but we’re both going to have to live with that.
Her toes look so cute in those flip-flops. They’re the prettiest little toes. I don’t have a toe thing or anything but those are some dainty fucking toes. Light pink polish, clean and flawless. Shit. I’m staring at her toes. I can’t stop.
She wiggles them, shifts her weight from one foot to another and back again. “Um.” She bites her lower lip and sticks her hands into the front pockets of her jean shorts.
Now I’m going to stare at her thumbs like an idiot. They’re such pretty thumbs. What is wrong with me?
“Yeah, I’ll get to work.”
