HUNTER
H unter met the generator, lovingly named Diva. “It was the last one that was big enough at Lowe’s,” Trixie said. “But she’s kind of finicky.” She showed Hunter how to start it, and talked him through the shut down and basic maintenance as well.
Then she gave him an orientation to the chop saw.
“This is electric because a saw isn’t such an impact instrument.
You want that blade spinning at full speed through the entire cut.
Here’s the trigger. It’s like a gun, don’t put your finger on it until you want it to go and don’t let go until you’ve withdrawn it from your work or you can bind the blade.
All the way down. All the way back up. Release the trigger.
Make sure your material is against the backstop on both sides before you start.
Last thing you want to do is waste a stick cutting crooked. ”
“Check it again,” she cautioned, just as he was about to pull down the blade. Sure enough, the board had shifted. He snugged the wood up against the backboard again and made the cut.
“Good,” she said, and to Hunter’s chagrin, he felt like he’d just been patted on the head. If he’d been a dog, his tail would be wagging.
I’m not a dog , his bear said, offended.
“Measure it,” Trixie said, handing him the piece he’d cut.
Hunter did. “It’s…about a thirty-second off. Is that close enough?”
“For rough framing yes, for trim, it would show. Why do you think it happened?”
Hunter frowned, considering. He appreciated that she didn’t just blindly give him a list of rules to follow. She was invested in him understanding how things worked. “My mark was at the edge of the board.”
“Right. What does the edge of the board do?”
“It curves.”
“Never put your measurements right at the edges. Also notice where the blade is coming down on the board. It lands in the middle here. That’s where you want to put your measurements, so you’re lining right up to it, not trying to eye it from the edge.”
After she declared him proficient with the chop saw, she ran through the operation of a nail gun and the basic rules of air tools, showing him how to use the quick connections.
At first, the heavy tail of the hose was a constant hassle and trip hazard, but Hunter quickly became accustomed to looping it over an arm and anticipating its heavy swing .
She walked him around inside the building. “Sheathing is the stuff on the outside. This is pre-primed OSB, a kind of heavy-duty particle board. Siding will be attached to it on the outside. Studs are the boards in the frame that go up.”
Hunter watched the tips of her ears turn red and wondered if she was as affected by his presence as he was by hers.
She was not exactly flirting with him, but Hunter caught her gaze lingering on his bare arms. It was a little chilly for short sleeves, but the two of them kept moving and the rising sun warmed things quickly.
“Sill plates go across at the top and bottom. Over doors and windows we have headers. Eight foot ceilings, what’s a stud-length 2x4 going to be?”
Hunter was still thinking about studs and he smiled slyly at her. “A sill top and bottom add up to 3 inches so it’s 93 inches.”
Trixie grinned. “Close. There’s 3/8 of an inch to account for ceiling and floor. Commercial stud length is 92 and 5/8.”
“Commercial studs are properly papered, I imagine,” Hunter said in a deadpan. “For breeding purposes.”
Trixie stared at him a moment and then burst out laughing. “You’re going to fit right in,” she said. Were her cheeks a little redder than her laughter accounted for?
She talked about how the exterior walls had been built on the floor, tipped up, and nailed into place. “The cross bracing is temporary, until the sheathing is fully connected to keep it from moving laterally. For these interior walls, we’ll be building in place. Can you think of why?”
Hunter looked around thoughtfully, eyeing the joists above them. “When you tip up the wall, you’re taller than the final wall, by geometry. You’re going to run into the joists above. ”
“Because the wall has thickness ,” Trixie said, her eyes glowing happily. “Good job! I would have also accepted the reasoning that the temporary cross-bracing is crowding up the floorspace in here right now.”
She showed him the tricks for measuring the placement of the interior walls, double-checking every number off of her plans and by measuring again from another source.
“There are going to be little errors everywhere. Don’t let them compound.
” She showed him how to run a chalk line and snap the mark down, and then they were laying first a bottom sill and using a plumb bob to site the top sill exactly above it.
They had six studs and a door framed in by the time they stopped for lunch, and Hunter felt a remarkable sense of pride when he stepped back and looked it over.
His first few nails were sloppy; too deep or too shallow and had to be hammered in by hand, but by the end, he understood his tool and had a solid rhythm and good technique.
He was also starving.
Then Trixie took off her hard hat and Hunter had a whole new kind of hunger.
“Can I take you to lunch?” she asked.
The words caught Hunter by surprise because he’d been turning them over in his own head, trying to decide if Trixie would insist on keeping their relationship professional for the time he was working to catch her thief.
She seemed like the kind who would be firm about boundaries, even if she was interested.
He was already sure she would be worth the wait.
With every word, he was more convinced that this was a smart, intriguing woman.
She was a patient teacher and clearly invested in her topic.
She didn’t mind that Hunter was starting from scratch and she was willing to challenge him and give him tasks of increasing complexity as they worked.
She didn’t pretend that she was stronger than he was or feel threatened when he could reach or wrangle something that she couldn’t.
Was this falling in love? This slightly dizzy feeling that everything was settling perfectly into place? He’d never enjoyed working with someone so much before. She was cheerful and challenging to keep up with, not so much as pausing for breath between tasks.
Hunter could not imagine someone more perfect.