Page 65 of Mountain Grump
So I admit the truth. “Ifeelstupid. And I hate it. It’s the worst feeling.”
He furrows his brows again. “Because of the breaker box? Tilda, lots of people don’t know how those work.”
“Yeah, but this ismy house. I should?—”
He presses my chin up again.
“You should learn as you go. How long have you owned this house?”
He loosens his grip so I can reply.
“A couple days,” I sigh, knowing the point he’s trying to make.
“And did your parents teach you this stuff growing up?” He asks it like he knows the answer.
I think about my dad, who cowered around my mother, hardly a figure in our lives before he up and left when I was nine.
Then I think about my mother, who never did anything herself, always called maintenance when something neededfixing in our apartment, and who always told me togo to my roomwhen they came over, soI’m not in the way. Meaning I couldn’t even watch them fix stuff if I’d wanted to.
But in the decade since moving out, when I lived on my own in my own apartments, I couldn’t tell you if I had a breaker box.
And that makes me feel stupid too.
“My dad made me help with everything,” Ethan says, like I asked him the question he asked me. “Didn’t matter if I wanted to or not. He had me running power tools, chopping wood, holding the ladder, and flipping breakers on and off while he tinkered with shit he probably shouldn’t have been tinkering with.”
The start of a smile tugs on my lips. “He sounds fun.”
Ethan huffs, “He was a pain in the ass.”
Was.
My bit of a smile drops.
For a moment there, I forgot that Ethan had mentioned his parents were gone.
He’d said it so casually, when I’d called him a bastard one of the first times we met, that I almost didn’t believe him. And I have to stop myself from wondering which is worse—good parents who die too soon, or bad ones who stay forever.
“My parents didn’t teach me any of that stuff.” I don’t hide the sadness in my tone. “But I should?—”
He shakes his head. “Stop beating yourself up.”
“But—”
He takes a step into me, and I take a step back. “If you’d fixed it yourself, you wouldn’t have gone to the laundromat today. And then you wouldn’t’ve come into my gym.” He takes another step forward, and I step back again, bumping against the foot of the bed. “And if you hadn’t come into my gym…”
My eyes lower to his mouth. “You wouldn’t have kissed me.”
The edge of his mouth pulls up, just a little. “Correct.”
I watch his lips, and I think about all he’s done for me.
How he took down the ribbon that I was supposed to remove.
How he decided not to give me a ticket.
How he helped me with the pool.
How he fixed my washer and dryer.
