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“And how many do you have left?”
“Twenty.”
“Haven’t you been here for like three hours already?”
“Harper distracted me.” An insinuating smile crossed his face.
“Christening the new building?”
“Many times.”
Nolan shook his head and laughed. After everything Milo and Harper had been through, Nolan was happy they finally realized they were meant for each other.
Milo pointed east. “She went down to meet the girls at Greta’s for late day pancakes. I’m sure to gossip about you.”
“About me?” Nolan asked.
“The knight and shining armor who saved Isla from drowning in her own kitchen.”
“I turned the water off,” Nolan deadpanned. “You would’ve done the same thing if you were there.”
“True, but I wasn’t, and you were. How bad was the damage?”
“We needed to cut part of the pipe out and solder a new piece in. It’s fixed, but we had to put a nice-sized hole in the wall to get to it. So now we have to replace the sheetrock.”
Milo’s eyebrow arched. “We?”
“Do you honestly think she knows how to hang sheetrock?”
“Her dad does.”
“She said he has a lot on his plate, and since I don’t, I volunteered. It’ll take me no time.”
“You did learn from the best in the business.”
“That I did.” Milo’s dad owned a construction company, and whenever Nolan wanted to make a little extra cash, Mr. Amato always welcomed him on the job. The summer before he left, he’d picked up a lot of weekend shifts, hoping to save as much money as possible. He had plans, big plans, but they never came to fruition.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he slipped it out.What the…
“What is it?” Milo asked.
“My boss. I mean my old boss.”
“I thought you quit?”
“I did.”
“Are you going to answer it?”
A few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have even hesitated, but that was before he was passed up for the promotion he not only was promised, but earned. He silenced the phone and put it back in his pocket. “No.”
Milo slapped him on the back in a comforting gesture. “How about those easels?”
Sunny skies turned to inky nights by the time Nolan and Milo finished putting together the rest of the easels. Milo had said twenty, but Nolan counted and Milo had been off by at least ten. The five he managed to put together were really just three. Not that Nolan minded. He was grateful for the distraction from both Isla and the random call from George. George hadn’t left a message, so Nolan figured the call was an accident.
He pulled into the driveway and got out of the car, ready to plop on the couch and watch some TV. A muffled cry had him stopping in his tracks.
He knew he should ignore the sounds coming from the backyard, walk right into the house, and forget about Isla. But she was crying, which meant she was hurting, and he wasn’t the type of person to walk away.
