And she groaned and said, “You’re a slave driver.”
“I am, but it will also take our minds off of everything else happening.”
“As long as we don’t lose focus,” she said.
He looked at her, smiled, and said, “Never.”
As they walked back into the kitchen, she said, “I don’t know that we have any food though.”
“If it is sandwiches, it’s sandwiches,” he said. He pulled out some sliced meat from the fridge and said, “It looks like sandwiches.”
“Since that’s ham,” she said, “we can do grilled ham and cheese.”
And, with that, they set about making enough food for both of them, sat down and ate, then fed the dogs and put on yet more coffee. However, they couldn’t sit still and enjoy their coffees.
“I want to get started. And I’m good to drink my coffee cold.” He nodded, so they took a few sips and brought their cups upstairs.
She asked, “Same deal as last time? You sand, and I put down the finish?”
“I’ve got about an hour, an hour and a half left in me,” he said, “and then I don’t think I can do more.”
“Got it. After that, a hot bath for you.”
“We are likely not going to have access to the upstairs bathroom for baths. Or just muscle relaxants, maybe even pain pills tonight,” he admitted quietly.
She winced, looked at him, and asked, “That bad?”
“Well, it’s definitely not good, but I will survive.”
With that, they got down to work. He was done within his hour-and-a-half time frame, and, for that, she was grateful. He was looking pretty damn sore, as he slowly moved all the tools back downstairs again. She was in the second bedroom, working away on the coat, when she heard him outside.
She frowned, wondering what she heard, but she had none of the dogs with her—because there was just no way to keep them off the wet finish. As she worked on the upstairs hallway, she couldn’t wait for when these upper floors were done. By the time she stopped at the top of the stairs, she sat here, wondering how she kept biting off more than she could chew. It was almost as if her DIY home projects kept her exhausted, so she didn’t have to do anything else or maybe not even think about anything else.
And yet she had turned the corner on that too, thinking about her future with Caleb, which was huge for her right now, and it was enough to keep her going. Even if he did go back temporarily to New Mexico, she knew he wouldn’t stay there. The more job opportunities there were for him here in El Paso, the better she felt about it all. It was just a matter of him feeling good about it too.
As she walked slowly downstairs, her energy sagging, she saw no sign of him. She looked around, realizing she saw no signs of her dogs either. She then stepped out on the back porch to find him running her four dogs through drills and basically playing and doing training.
He looked up at her, smiled, and walked over.
“I figured you’d be crashed in bed.”
“I took some medication,” he admitted. “I wanted to give it some time to work. So I took the dogs out to just see how good their training was.”
“And how are they?” she murmured, looking down at the happy dogs at his feet.
“Well, a little untrained, a little undisciplined, but obviously happy with their lot in life here,” he said with a bright smile.
She looked at him and returned his smile. “It’s late,” she murmured. “You should be resting.”
“That’s what I was thinking, but I can’t crash if you are still working. I wanted to come up, and, indeed, I called out to see if you were okay, but you were too busy to hear me.”
“Well, I’m done now,” she said, “and I’m so glad this job is over.”
“And it looks amazing,” he said. “So proud of you.”
“I know. I’m really happy with it. It’s just really shitty timing to redo the second story.”
“Again, there’s never a good time to redo a floor,” he said. “It’s an inconvenience to everybody living in the house. If you don’t live there, haven’t moved in yet, then that’s a whole different story, but we’ve got furniture and all kinds of people and dogs traipsing up and down.”
“Which reminds me, I didn’t put up the barrier at the top of the stairs,” she said, “and I’ve gotta do that. So the dogs don’t go up there before it dries.”
“We can do that on our way back in,” he said, calling the dogs as they headed inside.
She replaced the doggie gate, quickly washed up for the night, wishing that she’d had access to the upstairs bathroom tonight. She would get a shower in the morning hopefully. “I feel sticky,” she murmured.
“I hear you,” he said, yawning, sleeping beside her on her temporary bed set up in the living room.
“Go to sleep,” she whispered. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
He closed his eyes, and she just waited, as he slipped into a deep sleep. With the dogs arrayed all around him on the bed and on the floor, she slowly drifted in and out of sleep herself. When she thought she heard a sound, she opened her eyes and slowly sat up. She looked at Graynor, but he was relaxed and calm, and, with that, she trusted that he would keep her safe, and she rolled over and went to sleep.
Caleb woke early in the morning, rested. Although a little sore, he felt decent. He rolled over to check out what was happening and saw all three small dogs were on the bed beside Laysha. Graynor was stretched out and sound asleep between the two of them. Graynor was completely undisturbed by anything, and that was a good sign. Caleb looked at his watch to find it was seven in the morning. He smiled, reached over, gently pulled the hair off her face, dropped
