don’t remember anything?” I was disappointed by that. It felt like we’d shared some kind of moment of bonding, and as stupid and lame as it sounded, I didn’t want that to be gone.
“I remember everything. I was just trying to convince myself that I really wasn’t stupid enough to drink that much.”
“Oh. Hey, it happens.”
Riley poured himself a cup of coffee and basically drank it all in one gulp. “Shit, that’s good.” He shoved himself up off the counter. “So what are we doing today? You’re the brains behind this, I’m the brawn. Just tell me what to do.”
I wished.
But practically speaking, in terms of the house, I did have a plan. “I’m going to finish cleaning up the kitchen. I bought new knobs for the cabinets, and I have some things to hang. You’re going to hang them, because I have no clue how to do that. Then we’ll tear up the carpet in the living room.”
“Alright.” He closed his eyes for a second, like he was calling up fortification. Then he snapped them back open and stood up, slapping his hand on the counter. “Let’s do this. You get what you need, I’ll get my drill and a knife to cut the carpet.”
Apparently he kept his drill and a knife in his bedroom. That struck me as more than a little weird, but maybe it was a safety issue with Easton and Jayden around. “Why don’t you keep that in the garage?” I asked as I came out of my room with the bags from the store.
“Are you kidding me? It would be stolen in ten minutes. Have you been in the garage? The only thing in there is a lawn mower that doesn’t run because someone stole the starter off it, and those old busted plastic sleds.”
“There’s a broom in there, too.” I started opening the individual plastic bags with the new brushed-nickel knobs. The eighties colonial pulls were gross and needed to go. “I found it the other day.”
“I’m sure it was happy to see the light of day since no one has used that in about a decade.” Riley was cleaning up the glass from the broken bottle with his bare hands, squatting down in a way that made his jeans drag down.
I balled up the receipt from buying the knobs and threw it at him. My aim was surprisingly good, and it landed in his butt crack before bouncing back off. “Score,” I told him, amused. No matter how sexy the guy, plumber’s crack has a way of killing the heat level.
“Hey, are you objectifying my body?” he asked, not bothering to pull up his pants.
“Yes.” I started untwisting the existing knobs, surprised at how firmly they were on there. It took me five solid minutes to get one off.
“Try this,” Riley said, opening a cabinet and showing me the back of the screw. He held the drill up and pushed something and bam, like that, the screw retreated and the knob fall off the front of the cabinet.
“Tricky,” I told him. But when he handed me the drill I could barely hold it up, let alone line the tip up to the screw. When I finally got it, I pushed the button and the kickback startled me so that I jerked back, and nothing happened. “Hm.”
Riley just watched me attempt a second time, his eyebrows raised.
“Don’t judge me,” I said when the drill fell away again with zero effect on the screw. “I’ve never held a power tool in my life.”
“It’s not a table saw. It’s a hand drill.” But he took the drill back from me. “You do something else. I’ll take these off or we’ll still be here two hours from now.”
I started to stick my tongue out at him, then remembered what had happened the last time I’d done that. So while he made fast work of knob removal, I pulled out the Sharpie I’d bought, and I went to work on the kitchen table, covering up the swear words with paislies and curlicues. I didn’t want to destroy their odd message board of sorts, but I didn’t think the social worker wanted to read about dick sucking on the table where an eleven-year-old was eating his Cheerios. Then when I was done, I put a cookie jar in the shape of the Mystery Machine from
Riley tossed the old knobs in the trash and lifted the lid, swiping a cookie. “Seriously? A cookie jar? This is the tits, Jess.”
“I guess that’s a positive thing?” I asked. “By the way, when these cookies run out, make Rory bake some more. I don’t do that.”
“So you’ve said.” He kissed the top of my head, getting crumbs in my hair. “We all have our role, babe.”
Mine, apparently, was to be his sister/mother. How in the hell did I get myself into that position? It was about as foreign to me as celibacy.
Since the kitchen was now gray, I wanted blue and yellow accents, so I had bought yellow canisters to hold flour and sugar and coffee, and after clearing every random thing that was cluttering the counter off it and shoving them in a cabinet, I arranged the containers. Then I set a pump with soap next to the sink and hung the blue and yellow towels on silver hooks that I made Riley drill into the wall. I set up a little coffee station with blue mugs and a yellow sugar bowl. Just getting rid of the weird stuff they had laying around—I mean, who needs a phone book and seventeen lighters?—it already looked better. With my accessories, it looked like while the kitchen was old, someone who gave a shit used it.
“Over a little. To the right. The right, Riley,” I said in exasperation as he shifted the art I’d bought to the left, not the right. “Show me which hand is your right.”
“Fuck you,” was his opinion. But he did shift the piece to the right. He had already given his thoughts on the peace sign made out of license plates by calling it “weirdo hippie shit” but I actually thought it gave a cool pop of color to the room. Pop of color was to design what protein was to food—it was one of the basic food groups.
It was actually mine, something I’d bought at an art festival when I was thirteen and feeling the peace symbol. My mother had thought it was a hideous piece of trash, so I had boldly displayed it in my room all through high school and had brought it to school with me knowing if I left it behind, she would toss it in the trash. I didn’t want to hang it in my dorm room, but I wanted to keep it for sentimental reasons. When I looked at it, I felt thirteen again, in love with rainbow colors and glitter and patriotism. I had a plan then to visit all fifty states with my peace symbol and blog about it.
What happened to that kid? I wondered. When did I get cynical?
But then again, maybe I hadn’t, because here I was, hanging that peace sign on the wall of a house that was Easton’s safe haven.
“This is mine, you know,” I told him. “I bought this at an art festival for twenty bucks when I was thirteen. I’m letting you borrow it, gallery style. Some day I might want to take it back.”
“Mark where you want it hung,” he said. “My arms are killing me.”
Exasperated, I took a pencil and made a mark at the top where I wanted it hung. I was sorry I’d told him anything personal. “Fine. Here.”
“Jesus, thank you,” he sighed. He set it on the floor and reached for his drill. “You have good taste, you know. It looks awesome in here, I’m not going to lie.”
“What was that?” I asked, cupping my hand to my ear, pleased with the compliment. “I didn’t hear you over the sound of the drill and your large ego.”
He efficiently drilled a screw into the wall and hung the peace sign. “I said, you have good taste. See, I can admit it. No one would guess this is the same kitchen.”
“Thank you.” I was preening. I could feel it. I couldn’t help it. I was craving his appreciation. How completely pathetic was that?
He turned and hit the button on the drill in my direction.
I shrieked. Which of course made him grin and step even closer to me.
“Stop it,” I said, unnerved by the sound and that spiraling tip pointing at me. I could lose an eye or something.
“What?” He shoved it toward my face. “What’s the matter?”
I darted away, laughing, and tripped over the garbage can. I fell against the wall and the peace sign fell. Riley caught it and hung it back up.
“Way to go, Jess. You almost killed peace.”
Before I could retort something nasty, there was a knock on the back door. Riley went and opened it, and I
