Page 13 of About Yesterday (Foothills #5)
Hit the nail on the head
O ver the next few weeks, the dizziness gradually faded as Cole’s “acute blood loss anemia” resolved. He still hurt everywhere, but the bruises had faded, the headaches and fucking brain fog started to ease. Mostly.
Trace didn’t mention blowjobs again, but that could have been because he avoided her like the plague. Sleeping in late and taking Finn and Asher up on hanging out had helped reduce his time around her.
Not that he could avoid her in his imagination, the idea of playing around flooding his thoughts with wicked new fantasies that he couldn’t help but indulge in.
Which only made it harder to be around her.
Literally. Like, every time she even looked at him, fuck, especially when she wore that pink sparkly lip gloss, he…
well, yeah, she’d planted the seed that didn’t need a drop of water to take root.
After years of her residing in his imagination as his default fantasy partner, it hadn’t taken much for his waking and sleeping dreams to explode with renewed enthusiasm.
Friday morning, Trace was already at work, and Cole ducked his head under the shower. Trace’s soap all over his body. Steamy lavender filled his senses, soothing in scent and soft on his skin. Leaned back against the shower wall, he eased the pressure, regret filling him the second he finished.
Definitely time to get his own place. Some sort of life.
As he dried off, irrevocably saturated in her lavender scent, he held his breath. He poured through the head-throbbing calculations of how long he could comfortably live before he had to look for work.
Jeremy bounced up the stairs. Before coming into view, he called out, “Cole? You up yet?”
“Yeah,” he said as he came out of the bathroom, running a hand through drenched hair.
After his shower, he’d stolen one of Trace’s hairbands, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t manage a ponytail.
It wasn’t the skill, he knew how, but his physical therapist had told him to not push the arm beyond his comfort, and to listen to his body.
Tying his hair back with one hand wasn’t happening, and lifting his arm above ninety degrees in any direction for any reason for any amount of time wasn’t happening yet, so he stuck to the loose scruff.
“Morning,” he said as he held the towel secure at his waist and opened the door.
Fuck, what would Jeremy say, if he knew even a fraction of the extent of Cole’s imaginings?
“No appointments today, not to worry,” Jeremy said brightly.
Cole laughed and rolled his eyes playfully. “That’s a relief.”
“I was hoping you could help me with a project,” Jeremy said, beaming as he loved roping Cole in for projects.
Not a bad thing, as Cole had seen him try to manage a hammer, and had been glad to be the one driving instead of riding to the ER for once.
Ellen hadn’t lifted a hammer once in her life, claiming it was not in her skill-set.
“Sure thing,” he answered. “I’ll, uh, get dressed and meet you downstairs?”
“Perfect. I’ll get the garage all set up.”
He’d have to ask Trace if she’d stepped up when he left and saved her father from projects, or if she’d inherited the Perry trait.
Judging by the updated furniture and wall décor—including the gallery wall with pictures aligned neatly without gaping nail holes everywhere—either Trace had stepped in, or they’d hired someone.
Sewing was another story. Ellen and Jeremy were both remarkably crafty, and got a little competitive about it. Trace mentioned the quilt on his bed was Jeremy’s latest masterpiece, and Ellen was working on a one-upper currently, and no, he couldn’t dibs it, because Trace had already claimed it.
He pulled open his dresser and snagged a pair of old-man jeans and oversized white t-shirt. Thankful for Ellen’s quick drive to the store to stock up on basics for him, he was definitely not complaining. But, well, he was going to need to update and upgrade his wardrobe sooner than later.
He set the crutch on the bed and used the improved strategies for getting dressed that his physical therapist had shown him, and carefully eased the denim on, one foot at a time.
The pain wasn’t so bad when he pictured Trace delicately easing the jeans over his massively swollen ankle.
Better, the absurdity, the laugh, the shock of arousal when she’d looked up and noticed where she was.
Nail in his coffin, the way she’d traced her fingers over his other foot while talking about blowing him, yet fascinated by such a simple, unremarkable part of him when she was too drunk to realize the effect she had on him.
Probably a good thing the jeans were huge; any tighter and he’d have to rearrange his ankle to get his pantleg on. It had been a while since he’d lived in the states, and apparently, jeans were a lot baggier on men here than overseas.
For the trek down the stairs and riskiness of whatever Jeremy had planned in the garage, he pulled his regular boot—all one of them—onto his good foot, and wore the smelly walking boot on the other. Crutch tucked under his good arm, he hobbled out of his bedroom and halted at the top of the stairs.
Humiliating. He slid down the stairs on his butt.
But, it was a hell of a lot safer than the other strategies he’d attempted.
On a stroke of luck, Jeremy was already in the garage when he made it to the bottom of the steps and hoisted himself back to his feet.
This fucking sucked. Doesn’t matter how fat the paycheck had been, it wasn’t worth it.
The crutch squeaking and creaking with each step as he awkwardly leaned into it, the boot clunking onto the tile floor as he hobbled and minimized his weight on it, he followed the sounds of Jeremy’s hums into the garage.
Hammer hit wood.
Fuck. He moved faster, wincing at the pain that spliced through his entire body at the rushed pace.
At the door to the garage, he quickly turned the handle, assessing the danger as he moved.
Yup. Shit. “Hey, Jeremy,” he said brightly, urgently, shuffling fast while his foster dad held a tiny nail pinched between two fingers, a sledgehammer ready to pound it into a finely finished length of wood. “What are we building?” he asked as he crossed the first bay.
Jeremy’s hum quieted, and he beamed as he turned and proudly stood tall in the middle of the heap of chaos.
“Now, I know carpentry isn’t my forte, but Trace’s favorite bookcase broke in the move here, the one her grandpa made for her when she was a little girl.
So, I picked up this beauty and wanted to have it all ready for when she finds a new place.
” He patted the pile of prefabricated pieces piled erratically on the floor. And this man quilted?
“Great idea,” Cole said, smiling as he gently took the oversized hammer and perused the heap.
It was quality wood and would make a nice bookshelf, as long as nothing had been too badly scratched in the awkward stack.
He checked through the pieces, between the larger panels, and scowled as he realized what was missing.
“Have you, uh, seen the instructions anywhere?”
Jeremy flushed and scratched his head, scrunching his nose as he looked up from the pile. “About that. I’m beginning to suspect they were tossed out with the box.”
Cole bit his lips together as he scanned the pieces again, resting his hand on his hip. “Do you, uh, remember what brand it was? Where you bought it? What it… looked like?”
“Well, I picked it up after she left for Paris, thinking I’d have it up and ready in her bedroom by the time she got back. Time sort of snuck away from me, and… no. No, I don’t remember.”
“That’s okay,” Cole said quickly, hobbling closer and assessing what he had to work with. There was a little sealed package filled with dowels and screws. At least he had that going for him. “We got this.”
One of the long pieces was dented, presumably one of the sides, and he suspected Jeremy had bumped it with his car.
Bookshelf. Not that complicated. He could improvise.
One arm trapped in the sling, one foot contained in the boot, he hoisted a side panel up, balancing it precariously on his thigh. He nodded toward the sawhorses—dusty and untouched. “Mind sliding those over?”
Jeremy hopped to and brought both over. “You look like you’ve got a plan.”
“Yeah,” Cole answered, sliding the board on the elevated workspace.
He looked at the pile, and saw another side piece, and hoped to find more, but some of the pieces…
well, they didn’t look even remotely related to the set.
Leaving the first board, he shuffled over to the pile.
The stack was going to topple if he didn’t remove each piece with precision.
He glanced up to Jeremy. “Mind grabbing one end?”
“On it,” Jeremy answered quickly, dashing to assist.
S hit. Shit shit shit. Trace hopped out of the car and moved fast when she heard a power saw going in her dad’s garage bay. As the saw revved and stopped and revved again, he was probably still alive, but who knew for how much longer.
She punched in the code, and the door began to rise.
“Shit. Is that Trace?” she heard Cole ask, a sharp urgency in his tone. She breathed a sigh of relief and stepped back, breath flowing much smoother now that she knew her dad wasn’t alone with power tools.
“Trace, wait,” her dad called out, hopping across the garage toward her. “Don’t look.”
Uh oh. What damage were they frantically trying to repair? She ducked under the rising door to take it all in, needing to see for herself that there wasn’t a growing puddle of blood somewhere.
Folding her arms over her chest, she thumbed her bottom lip, her smile growing to oozy gooey adoration. Safety goggles on the pair of them, power saw disengaged but nearby, drill in his hand, Cole was bent over a pile of finished lumber, standing slowly as she rushed in.