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“What should I do?” she asked. Nate stepped forward and went over her smiley face with the black can, but gave it Xs for eyes and made a tongue sticking out.
“Better?” he asked.
She giggled. “It’s perfect.” She stepped over to the other window. The board wasn’t as big, but she was able to paint “Go Away” in big block letters.
“Excellent,” he said. “I kind of wish we had more windows.”
“This was actually fun. And I can’t thank you enough.”
Even though they were doing hard work and Colby was sweating through her T-shirt, this was the best afternoon she could remember in a long time. Nate made her smile more in those two hours than she had in the last month. Or six months. He simply had that effect on her. Through the day, the old Nate had returned, so different than the closed-up guy he seemed the first day she saw him on the front porch with the mail.
He made jokes as they fastened the plywood up against the brick of the house, teasing her and smiling the full smile she remembered. Whenever their hands brushed as she handed him screws or as they moved the patio furniture into the garage, she felt warm tingles moving up her arms. The way he smiled at her made her insides feel warm too. His kindness, his attention to her, his flirting—it melted the iciness she’d felt toward him.
And he said he was trying to apologize. She didn’t really know what that meant and couldn’t imagine what was so hard to say. Something about the way he looked when he said that made her trust him. Even though for years now it felt like she had been shutting people out, refusing to trust. Of all the people she shouldn’t extend this to, Nate was top of the list. Yet here she was. Maybe she would realize later that she had been an idiot. Again. Or just maybe this was the beginning of a new chapter.
The thought thrilled her. She glanced over at his handsome face, cheeks red from working outside and eyes bright. This could be dangerous. For a moment in the kitchen, she had been so overcome with the desire to kiss him that she had forgotten why she was supposed to be mad. But he wasn’t looking at her now. His gaze was trained on the gutters.
“I’m not done yet,” he said. “You can’t help with this part. I’m going to get up on the ladder and clean out the gutters. They’ll need it again after the storm, but it would be better to start with them empty. Plus, I can see leaves gathering in some of the eaves up there. Water can get trapped and run up under the shingles, causing leaks.”
“Oh,” Colby said. She knew so little about home maintenance. “Have you already done all this for your place?”
Nate waved a hand dismissively. “I don’t really need to do anything for mine. I’m in an apartment and I don’t care about any of my stuff.”
Honestly, Colby didn’t care so much about the house. She would feel bad if things got damaged, but it’s not like the hurricane was her fault. With Nate’s help, she had already gone above and beyond what Liz and her husband expected. They probably had great insurance anyway, so they’d be fine no matter what happened.
After he shooed her inside so he could clear out the gutters with the leaf blower, Colby realized with a flash of guilt that she hadn’t thought once that day about Napper. Her phone didn’t show any notifications, but she opened the app anyway, seeing the familiar broken-heart image. Still broken. She considered deleting the app altogether and her finger hovered over the screen. Did she need Napper? He could be an ax murderer or a pervert.
Nate was right here in front of her. But it’s not like he said he was interested. Was he? Though she hated to admit it, Colby wanted him to be. Even though she wouldn’t be fully open without an explanation. He said to be patient. She had been waiting for four years—what was a little more time?
She closed her phone and went to the kitchen. Her stomach was growling. Nate was probably hungry too.
Looking through the fridge, she found some things that needed to be cooked, just in case there was a power outage. She put some fully marinated fajita chicken in the cast-iron skillet and tossed together a big salad. There were some tortillas in the back of the fridge that still looked okay and she shredded some cheddar cheese.
It was only when everything was done that she realized she hadn’t asked Nate to stay for dinner. What if he didn’t want to? Hesitating, she stared at all the food she made, more than enough for two people.
“Colby?”
Startled, she turned to see Nate in the doorway. His hair looked askew and there was dirt smudged on his cheek. He looked adorable.
“Hey,” she said, feeling suddenly shy. “I don’t know if you wanted to stay, but I found some things that needed cooking and I made dinner. Nothing fancy. And you don’t have to stay.”
A grin spread over his face. “Really? I’m starved. Thank you! I should probably clean up. I’m a bit of a mess.”
Colby couldn’t help but giggle. He had a leaf in his hair. “There’s a bathroom down the hall.”
She stared after him as he disappeared into the hallway. A noise startled her outside the kitchen window. The wind was beginning to pick up as the sky darkened, whistling between the house and the wooden fence outside. She checked the time. It was almost seven o’clock.
Glancing at the TV, still on silent, she saw the banner running along the bottom of the news screen announcing that Manual was expected to make landfall near Galveston around two o’clock in the morning. Colby shuddered.
Her phone vibrated on the counter. It was her mother, the last person she wanted to talk to right now. Honestly, though, she was surprised she had been able to put it off so long. “Hey, mom.”
“Colby, I’m so worried! I wish you would have come home like last time. Are you okay? This one looks worse than the last hurricane that hit Houston. You really should move somewhere safer. We don’t have hurricanes here. At least, not like that.”
“You guys have had bad remnants of storms, too. It’s not like Virginia’s immune. Plus, I’m not moving just because of hurricanes. I’ll be fine.”
Her mom sighed into the phone. Colby was used to the sound. Her mother had been sighing at her choices for as long as she could remember.
Colby had flitted between activities, never settling on anything for longer than a season. She’d tried dancing—both ballet and jazz—as well as cheerleading, soccer, softball, and track. After eighth grade she stopped trying at sports since she mostly was uncoordinated and lost excitement by the second or third week in anything. She always liked art, but her mom didn’t really encourage it. Her mother was a biologist and worked in a lab at MCV, the Medical College of Virginia. Art was tolerated, but it wasn’t seen as a career choice. When Colby had quit her job to try to make Quork work full time, her mother had urged her to move back home.
