Page 12 of Finders Keepers

I glance out the window to check the day’s weather as another high-pitched buzz cuts through the air and draws my attention downward and to the left, into Quentin’s backyard.

Which is where I find him meticulously running a circular saw over a piece of what appears to be laminate flooring.

He’s wearing a raggedy Modest Mouse T-shirt with athletic shorts, and even from up here I can see the sweat rolling down his forehead.

I kneel and lean against the sill, watching him work.

Just so I know when it’s safe to open the window and holler down without the risk of startling him and making him slip and cut off a finger or something.

Not at all because I’m enjoying the view of a hot, sweaty Quentin Bell using power tools.

Okay, I can admit, it’s extremely attractive, but it feels wrong to be thinking about Quentin that way.

Just because we’ve made a deal to continue our search for Fountain’s treasure doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what happened.

It just means I’m willing to bury it back down in the deep, dark underbrush of my heart where it dwelled quite contently before Quentin’s sudden reappearance so rudely flushed it out from its hiding place.

I watch as he tosses the cut piece of flooring atop a small pile beside the sawhorse.

He takes a step back and wipes his forehead with his arm.

Now that he’s standing at a safe distance from things that could maim him, I hoist the window to declare my presence so I’m no longer covertly staring like a creep.

The screeching draws his attention upward, and he squints against the powerful near-midday sun.

“Well, ho there, howdy, and good morning to you,” he says, bringing his hand up to provide some shade and, presumably, get a look at me.

Perhaps I should have changed out of my cats-with-yarn-balls nightshirt and fixed my hair before getting his attention.

Not that it really matters. He can’t see much of me while I’m crouched.

And it’s not like I’m trying to impress him.

I ignore his teasing and respond with a simple, sharp “Hi” like I intended to the other day before I got all flustered. Maybe I can somehow resummon Badass Nina, now that I haven’t been taken by surprise. I prop my chin on my hand, trying to look as uninterested in him as possible.

Yet something must give me away, because he says, “Been watching me long?”

“No,” I retort, realizing too late that I’ve fallen into a trap. “I mean, I wasn’t watching you at all, really, so much as thinking about how every time I see you, you’re dressed more and more casually. What’s next? Swim trunks? A strategically placed fig leaf?”

Why on earth did those words just come out of my mouth?! If Badass Nina were coming back to life, that’s definitely killed her again.

Quentin flashes that too-charming smile in my direction.

It really gets under my skin, for some reason.

And not in the way that Sabrina would tease me about.

It legitimately irks me, and I can’t figure out why.

Maybe because it doesn’t look fake, but it does look practiced.

Like a trick he picked up somewhere. A third-party add-on to the genuine, original Quentin Bell experience.

It reminds me of all the time I missed. All the things I no longer know about him.

How he chose not to let me keep knowing him.

“Would you like that?” he asks. “The fig leaf?”

“Absolutely not.”

It doesn’t come out very convincingly, though, and that vexing smile of his grows as he steps closer to the house, into the thin band of shadow on the patio so he can continue looking up at me without needing to use his hand as a visor.

I scramble for something else to say to change the topic to something safer and land on, “So, what’s all this, then?”

“You sound like the police in a Monty Python sketch. ‘Wot’s all this, then?’?” he quotes. His next smile is smaller, but easier, more natural—more him . This one I like a lot. I always have. “I’m replacing the floors on the main level.”

I didn’t spend nearly as much time at Quentin’s house when we were kids as he did at mine.

My mom—who worked as a secretary in the high school’s front office—was home in the afternoon, while Quentin’s parents, a lawyer and a scientist, often worked long hours.

So it made sense for him to come over after school most days, sometimes staying through dinner.

And, to be quite honest, the vibes at Quentin’s were just bad .

I didn’t understand it at the time but felt the tension nonetheless.

Mr. and Dr. Bell’s marriage was like a Jenga tower of resentment and bitterness sitting right out on the coffee table.

Even while it was still standing, everyone seemed aware that it would only take one small move to topple.

It was all very uncomfortable. Not the kind of place kids wanted to hang out.

(Also, my house always had baked goods. So it was really no contest.)

Still, I think back to the few hours I did spend inside 304 West Dill.

I recall the pale green linoleum squeaking beneath my cheap Old Navy flip-flops as we crossed through the kitchen on the way to the backyard, and I imagine it replaced with the dark gray faux wood on the sawhorse.

It feels a bit like a renovation of old memories, and I wonder if that’s what Quentin is out to do—both with his childhood home and with me. “I didn’t know you were handy,” I say.

He throws his arms out in an enormous, sloppy shrug as he flashes another one of those stupid smiles. “Probably lots you don’t know about me.”

“And whose fault is that?” I intend it as a joke but realize too late that it isn’t.

“Ah. Touché,” he says, bowing his head for a moment. A more neutral expression is in place when he raises it again. “I’ll be finished here in another hour or so. Want to grab lunch?”

“Lunch?”

“Yeah, you heard of it? Been all the rage for a couple centuries now.”

“Are you always this annoying?” I ask.

He wipes his forehead with the bottom of his shirt this time, obscuring his face but revealing a pale, strong stomach bisected by an auburn line of hair.

My eyes instinctively follow it down to where it disappears behind the waistband of his shorts.

“Depends who you ask,” he counters, reappearing as his shirt falls back into place.

“I’ll get cleaned up and meet you at that new café by the toy store at twelve thirty.

Unless you’re in the mood for something else? ”

He almost definitely means in the mood for something else food-wise, but my brain takes the prompt and runs with it in the uncomfortable direction of the fig leaf again.

Okay. I really need to stop thinking about Quentin naked, because it’s only making things weird.

Or, rather, it’s making me weird. That’s really the only explanation I have for why it seems perfectly normal and reasonable to shout, “Sure. I desire a large salad!” before slamming the window shut.