Page 33 of The Two of Us

“Like I said, we really appreciate it but we’re all good here.”

Ambrose gives me a tight smile before turning on his heels. “I’ll be working on the back patio if you have any questions about these stairs. Otso, come, boy.”

Otso rushes after him, pulling me forward, causing me to face-plant with the doorframe.

“Ow, fuck,” I mutter.

Not only has Ambrose disregarded everything I’ve said, he’s stolen my damn dog too.

***

By a quarter past five, I’m drenched with sweat after slaving away over the porch stairs. I want to have a very long discussion with whoever thought it was a good idea to construct stairs out of a material prone to rot. The sun still scorches overhead and my brown skin has deepened significantly just after a few hours outside. I’m terrible about wearing sunscreen, but it’s nearly impossible to remember such a thing when you never get sunburned. I blame my Caribbean roots. I wipe the sweat from my upper lip and examine my progress.

Planks of wood surround me on the ground and I give myself a mental pat on the back. Ambrose underestimated my ability to remove these wooden bastards. He’s still in the backyard working. I only saw him a handful of times in the last couple of hours when he’d walked into the house for a bathroom break or a glass of water. He said nothing but constantly looked at my progress, laughing under his breath. Bastard. He probably thinks my time in New York has stripped me of all my handiwork skills, which were minimal to begin with, but he can’t be more wrong.

I brush my hands on the coveralls I borrowed from my dad’s closet and begin sorting the wood into discard piles. I’m debating whether I should treat myself to a milkshake or cookies or both when Ambrose appears around the corner. He stops, staring at the empty space that used to consist of porch stairs, his hands propped on his hips. My skills have stunned him into silence. Go me.

My smile is smug. “Took a while, but nothing a determined woman can’t handle.”

Ambrose scratches at the scruff on his chin and the act sends a chill up my spine.

“When are you putting the new stairs in?” he asks, looking around.

I pause. “Come again?”

He tilts his head in my direction, squinting his eyes away from the sun. “You got all the stairs out, but when are you installing the new ones?”

I look back to the empty space where stairs should be in order to access the front door.

I still need to install the new stairs.

How has that thought not crossed my mind? I’ve been so focused on removing them, I forgot about replacing them entirely. The little pride I had drains from my body into the ground beneath my toes. I inhale a few deep breaths, but the hours spent in the heat make my blood simmer beneath the surface.

I rarely let my emotions get the best of me, if ever, but I explode like a defective pressure cooker. “Motherfuckingbitch!” I stomp my feet. “Ayúdame, Santa Maria,” I groan, throwing my head back.

Lost in my anger, I walk over to one of the piles of discarded wood and begin stuffing it into a garbage bag, forgetting to use gloves. A sliver of wood buries itself deep beneath the skin of my palm and I cry out in pain.

Ambrose, suddenly at my side, grabs my hand and when I try to tug it away, he yanks me closer. “Stop squirming and I can fix it,” he grinds out.

He closes the space between us and I’m almost flush with his chest. He prods the splinter with his thumb and I yelp.

“Ow!”

“Don’t be such a baby,” he whispers and I can smell the mint on his breath.

Heat pools in my core from his nearness and I begin counting down from one hundred to distract me from what his touch is doing to my body.

“I can’t get it,” he grunts.

“Just leave it,” I beg. “It’s not that bad—ow!”

Ambrose tilts my palm to get a better view before lowering his hot mouth onto my skin. He starts sucking and when a small gasp escapes me, I see his shoulders visibly tense but he doesn’t stop.

He sucks at the meaty part of my palm and the sight of his full lips around my flesh…

Kill me now.

A second later, Ambrose raises his head and there between his teeth is the piece of wood.

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