Page 15 of Stuck with the Grump

“We better get this tree out of here and the wall sealed before it starts raining again,” I said, heading to my room to get dressed.

After gathering an axe and a chainsaw, I got to work breaking apart the tree. Clarke finished his coffee and changed into a pair of shorts before joining me. I could feel his eyes on me as we worked, but I was determined not to look at him.

Before long, sweat was pouring down my body and my hair was piled on top of my head. Clarke hadn’t said anything to me, and I wasn’t saying anything to him. Though there was tension between us, it felt like more of a comfortable silence than an awkward one. When the last piece of the tree was tossed out of the house, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Clarke hauled in more of the wooden panels from the garage and we started nailing them over the remainder of the hole. It wasn’t a perfect patch job, but it would keep enough rain out for now.

“We didn’t do too bad,” Clarke said, his chest glistening with sweat as he looked at the wall. “It looks like a mess, but I’ll spend some time after the storms have passed and get it fixed.”

“Don’t you mean you’ll pay to have someone fix it?”

“If I meant that, I would have said it,” he said, his tone cutting as he turned away from me. “I don’t know where the hell this attitude is coming from, but I thought I was giving you what you wanted.”

“Yes, Clarke, because I said please dick me down and then drop me like a fucking rag.”

His jaw twitched as he tossed the hammer onto the couch. “You wanted me to leave.”

“I can change my mind.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose before tilting his head back and staring at the ceiling. When he finally looked back down at me, lines creased the corners of his eyes. The frown he wore turned into a grin as he started laughing and shook his head.

“Dicked you down? Really?” He shook his head, the grin still plastered to his face. “You have to be the least classy woman that I have ever met.”

“We come from literally the same backyard. Don’t pretend that you haven’t had sex with someone and haven’t said something like that.”

Clarke’s grin stayed in place as he shook his head and walked away. “I’m going to shower. Try not to say anything too vulgar while I’m gone.”

I raised both middle fingers to his back. His eyes met mine in a mirror at the end of the hall, and he started laughing again before disappearing into his room. When he came back out, he was still barely dressed, but he had at least showered.

“You should probably shower,” Clarke said, eyeing my disheveled self as I sat on the damp couch and scrolled through my phone. “The flies might start gathering soon.”

“Once again, you are an asshole.”

Still, I got up and headed to my room, turning on the shower as hot as it would go. Scalding my skin off seemed like a good way to wash the sweat away and warm myself from the outside in. Clearing away the tree had left me impossibly cold and the autumn wind seeping through the cracks of the fixed hole did nothing to help.

When I walked into the kitchen after my shower, a frying pan was on fire in the sink and Clarke’s cursing would have put a seasoned sailor to shame.

“What the actual hell is going on in here?” I asked as I grabbed the box of salt from inside the pantry and rushed to the sink.

“Fucking frying pan is on fire.”

“Yeah,” I said as I dumped the salt on the fire, quickly smothering it. “I can see that. What was in the pan?”

“Pancakes.”

I looked at the scorched mess in the pan, my nose wrinkling at the acrid smell. “Clarke, I don’t think pancakes are supposed to have chunks in them.”

He swore again and grabbed a glass bowl, setting it in front of me. I peered inside and tried to smother the laughter that threatened to bubble out of me. I patted him on the shoulder before grabbing the spoon and stirring what was supposed to be pancakes.

“Clarke, pancakes definitely don’t have these huge brown chunks in them. What the hell did you put in here?”

“I saw some dried apricots in the pantry.”

I pressed my lips together, still trying to control the laughter. “Alright,” I said slowly. “Dried apricot pancakes.”

He groaned and glowered at the bowl of pancake mix like it had personally offended him. “This is why I don’t cook.”

“Why don’t we just grab a couple of drinks and go test out that hot tub instead of getting food poisoning?” I said, opening the cupboards until I found a bottle of whiskey. “We can make something else later.”

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