Page 28 of Lucky Strike

“No! Let me guess.” The kid scrunched her face in thought. “Sammiches?” A hand covered her mouth as she giggled and threw a humored glance in Luna’s direction.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Who would name their baby Sammiches?” Luna said. “I know. It’s probably Samderland Sunderland.” Now they were snort laughing at his expense.

“Samuel Oscar Sunderland. I was my parents’ first kid and they were terrified. They thought if they gave me the initials S.O.S. the nurses would pick up on it and give them extra help.”

“What’s S.O.S.?” Zabe asked.

“It’s a distress signal. If a ship is in trouble, they used to tap out S.O.S. in Morse code to let people know they needed help.” He tapped the code on the vent hood.

“Wow, Sam! It’s like your parents gave you your own bat signal,” she replied. “If Luna needs you, she can just tap on the floor, and you’ll come running, right?” Zabe demonstrated this by tapping three quick taps followed by three slower taps and then another three quick taps on the laminate flooring. “Oh, Sam, please come rescue me,” she said in a high, breathless, damsel-in-distress voice before getting the giggles.

Luna rolled her eyes, which saved him the trouble of having to do it himself.

“Calling me on the phone would work faster and I can probably only help if it’s a clogged drain or something,” he replied. Sam could remember her retort from earlier in the afternoon.I may need a lot of things, but I don’t need them from you.Exactly. He got the message loud and clear.

Soon after, Zabe was called to dinner by her dad and silence descended on apartment seven once again. He missed the buffering Zabe had provided and how she drew out a different side of Luna, one that gave the exact type of attention the kid needed. She treated Zabe’s wants with importance and as if they were not at all silly.

“I’m ordering a pizza. What kind of toppings do you like?” she said, breaking through the quietness.

“I’m fine.”

“That’s not what your stomach says.”

Dammit.He was hoping she hadn’t noticed the embarrassing grumbles running rampant through his belly for the last hour.

“I’m also hungry and need a break. Besides, you’re helping me do all this work and it’s taking a lot longer than I thought, so I can at least spring for some food.”

Was she showing appreciation? He was shocked. “Whatever you want is fine.”

“In that case, I’m getting the gut buster deluxe because I’m starving.” She busied herself, tapping on her phone and putting in an order.

Thirty minutes later, the pizza arrived. “Break time,” Luna said as she put the box on the small two-person dining table and grabbed a couple bottles of water.

Sam slowly ambled down the ladder. His arms were tired, and his back was sore, but it was nothing compared to the nerves he was hit with at the thought of sharing a meal with her. After he took a seat in one of the mustard yellow chairs, a new awkwardness filled the space between them.

“Pizza has to be the most perfect food in the world.” Luna had one leg bent and propped on her chair. Her slice of pizza was held at eye level and she studied it as if it was topped with jewels instead of a large variety of meat and veggies. “Can you think of any other food where it’s basically, let’s just throw every ingredient together? All toppings are welcomed. And, even if we disagree about a certain tropical fruit, well, that’s what personal pizzas are for. As the unofficial queen, here is my royal decree for today. Pizza is the United Nations of food. It could probably bring about world peace if we let it.”

“I can’t find anything wrong with your pizza philosophy, so you might be onto something.”

She lifted the remaining half of her slice like a glass of champagne. “To a piece of pizza peace and to my beautiful new kitchen. Amen.” Luna took an enormous bite following her elegant toast, appearing quite pleased with herself.

He looked over his shoulder to inspect their progress. While he’d been staring at the cabinets most of the day, he had yet to really see what they were accomplishing. The countertops were still cheap, white laminate, same as before, but with the faux tiled backsplash and the surrounding cabinets now painted a light gray, it was different. Better.

He returned his attention to the woman behind the improvements. “Can I ask you a question and still maintain pizza peace?”

“I guess you’re about to find out.” Her tone made it hard to detect if she was warning him or daring him. Either way he couldn’t resist.

Sam held his hands in a surrender pose. “I’m just curious why you’re doing all this. Why not save your money for an actual house and then you can do all the improvements you want without any restrictions?” He wasn’t trying to anger her. Sam was genuinely curious. It didn’t matter if apartment seven was suddenly more inviting than the crap shack it had been before, he still considered the improvements to be a waste.

Luna took a deep breath. “I’m an accountant. I deal with numbers. A few months ago, I decided to do the math and see how long it would take for me to save for a house deposit. The answer? Twenty years. And this isn’t some wild exaggeration. I think the exact number was twenty years and seven months. And that’s if I’m lucky, and house prices don’t skyrocket, which they probably will. Of course, I could continue to live in my tiny childhood bedroom, in the same house my cousin lives in, but you saw Mia. She’s going to need a nursery soon. Besides, I don’t want to wait. After spending all day working in a tiny office, I just want to come home to some kind of sanctuary. So maybe it is a waste of time and money, but it gives me one tiny happy thing to enjoy. I can look forward to coming homenowinstead of in twenty years. Maybe that makes me ridiculous and frivolous, but I also don’t care.”

Luna’s sharp chin lifted, her eyes determined as though daring him to fight her, to call her ridiculous to her face. He couldn’t though because it made sense to him. Her words made him think about his mother and how she wanted that tiny cabin in the woods. The current house hadn’t been a sanctuary for anyone for a long time and, even if it was hard on him, he wanted that for her.

Sam cleared his throat. “No, you’re right. It isn’t ridiculous. So does this mean you’re going to be my upstairs neighbor for at least twenty years?” Knowing she might be sticking around for the long term gave him a warm, floaty feeling inside.

She ate some pizza while considering his question, leaning her cheek into the palm of her hand. “Well, at least until I find another charming duplex rental that fits within my budget. Those don’t come up too often. I want some place that’s bright and cozy and has built-in shelves, a brick fireplace, and an adorable kitchen.” Her eyes dropped to her dinner, and she picked at the crust on her pizza. “I found a place like that, but I didn’t get it. It had a green door and everything. All I want is a cute little place with a green door.”

The doors at Schnell Ridge had always been dirt-streaked white. Although Luna appeared to have put some elbow grease into cleaning hers and it was now a brighter shade than the surrounding ones.

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