He began passing me whichever tool I needed at the time.
"Was your dad handy?" I asked him.
He shook his head. "No, not the word I would have used."
"That's okay. I'll teach you."
He smiled. "Somehow it feels like a threat when you say it."
I grinned.
Thirty minutes later, we had a new—working—faucet in my bathroom.
"You know, now I feel kind of guilty about using the master suite when you’ve been on this end of the house by yourself with a leaky faucet."
"No leaky faucets anymore!" I waved the wrench. "Besides, now you know I can fix it if there's an issue, and now I know I need to teach you some basic plumbing skills."
"It's a date." He winked, my stomach fluttered, and I promptly dropped the wrench on my foot.
I lay on the couch with a pack of ice on top of my foot.
Bane refused to let me move. He threatened to drag me to the emergency room to get an x-ray of my foot. He was convinced I’d broken it. After telling him I would scream ‘kidnapper’ at the top of my lungs if he took me there, he picked me up and carried me to the couch where he ordered me to stay put.
Bane brought me ice for the foot, lemonade to drink, and the entire pantry of snacks. Oh, and he sliced a grapefruit for me. Now he was in my bathroom cleaning up all the tools and any puddles of water we might have missed.
My phone chimed.
Nate: You need to talk to Dad.
Nola: What? What’s going on?
Terminal diagnosis. It had to be. Nate understood my feelings towards dad. He’d been upset when Riley disappeared, and dad didn’t do anything to help. He didn’t even use his connection in the police force to help.
Despite all of that, if something serious was going on, I would go see him immediately. I wanted no regrets in my life. If he was sick, I was going to say goodbye. As a matter of fact, I didn’t want to say goodbye. If he weren’t here, I couldn’t be mad at him anymore. And if I couldn’t be mad at him, then I would have to address my own failing of Riley.
I couldn’t help her. She was gone.
But I could help my relationship with my dad.
Nate: You need to ask dad about Riley.
Nola: Dad’s not dying?
Nate: NO! Why would you think that???
Nola: Nvm. Why should I talk to him about Riley?
Nate: Everything isn’t like it seems, and you and I have been jerks.
My heart dropped to my stomach, and my foot started thumping in pain. Maybe I should go to the hospital after all. They could pump my stomach.
I texted him back.
Nola: What did you find out?
Nate: You need to hear it from him.
Trying to decide what to do wasn’t easy. Would it be better to call Nate and demand the truth? Or did I call my dad? How would I ever bridge that chasm? I probably couldn’t. Besides, there was too much evidence against him. He really had turned into the ruthless, unreachable man I thought him as.
A pounding on the door halted my decision making.
Tossing the ice to the side, I leaned up on my elbows, getting ready to hobble to the door.
A large hand landed gently but firmly against the top of my head, pushing me back down.
"I’ll answer the door," Bane said as he hurried past me.
He opened the door and I could see a flash of purple past his shoulder.
"Hi Bane, sorry to stop by like this, but I swear I don’t know what else to do. I keep going in my backyard and finding Tinker there. Tinker is sweet, don’t get me wrong, but man he can be a pain in the butt. Carol drops him off anytime she’s gone for the day! She never asks, she just leaves him and expects me to take care of him. I retired as dog walker! I don’t have time for any of that anymore. Now can you please tell her to take care of her own dog?"
I had to cover my mouth with my hand to keep from laughing. I could practically see Bane’s overwhelmed expression by looking at the back of his head.
"Huh. Well, I guess I could have a talk with her."
Bane did not want to have a talk with scary Carol, and I didn’t blame him, so I saved him. I called, "Tori! Come in here!"
"Nola’s home!" Tori exclaimed happily. She charged past Bane and sat down on the end of the couch next to my swollen foot. "What happened to you?"
"I dropped a wrench on my foot."
"Ouch. That sounds painful. Shouldn’t you get that looked at?" She asked.
"Not you too. I had to talk down Fretful Fred over there—"
"Fretful Fred?" She asked with a frown.
"Bane." I pointed at the man in question, who had his arms folded across his chest and was scowling in my direction.
"What are we going to do about my dog problem?" Tori asked.
I marveled at how quickly she traveled from subject to subject. As if topics of conversation were meant to be skimmed over like a stone skipping across a lake. She wouldn’t sink into a depth of conversation because she needed the quantity of it.
"Send her a bill for dog sitting. Make it atrocious."
Tori leaned back against the couch and smiled. "That’s a great idea. I wonder if five hundred dollars an hour is too much?"
"I would say that’s on the cheap side."
We laughed together and then laughed louder when Bane shook his head and left the room.
Tori stayed for another hour, chatting with me about this and that.
When she stood up to leave, she stopped and turned around. "Oh, I forgot I was going to ask Bane something. Do you think he’s here still?"
Bane popped around the corner at that, and I had a sneaking suspicion he’d been hiding there for a while. "Yes?"
"Do you know what’s going on at The Market Street Apartment Complex? I drove by there
