Page 109 of Fall Over You

“And you’re doing a good job.” It’s a lie, but I love her cussing-less initiative. I kiss her forehead. “Sorry I scared you. Can I help you finish this up? What’s wrong with the sink?”

She huffs. “I dropped my ring in the sink and I was running the Disposall. I’m so sorry, Ty. I heard it get all chopped around. I turned it off and I tried to put my hand in there but a piece of something cut me,” she holds up a fingertip covered in a Band-aid, “and now I’m just trying to get the damn thing back before it goes out into the septic. Because I’ll do a lot of things, but digging through shit to get an $80 ring is where I draw the line.”

When she’s done ranting, I kiss her injured finger and her forehead again. “You don’t have to dig through shit to get your ring back. Want me to take over?”

“No, I got it,” she sighs. “I’m almost there. I can see the thing. You look exhausted anyway.”

I chuckle. “What gave it away? The bloodshot eyes?”

She studies me. “You know, you don’t have to go a million percent on the cottage. You don’t have to work on it every day.”

“I made you a promise.” I shrug. “Plus, you want to open it before the Pumpkin Smash, right?”

She tosses her head from side to side. “Ideally, but⁠—”

“Then I have to keep grinding.”

“Every day?” She puffs out her lip. “I hardly see you.”

I lean in to kiss that lip. “Don’t act like you’re not just as busy.” I rise and cup her chin in my hand where she kneels. She nuzzles into it, looking up at me with those bright blue eyes. “I have an idea that might help with your ring problem. Be good and get it out of the pipe, huh?”

“Do I get a prize?” she hums.

“You’ll just have to wait and see.” I skate my thumb over her chin one more time before I head for her tool collection in the basement.

I hear her cussing through the floor above me, chuckling as I find the tools I need. I’ll eventually get all mine over here, but the moving in process has been slow. At first, that was out of fear that this would all fall to pieces, but now it’s just a matter of not enough hours in the day. I can’t move my shit and run the shop and be a good dad and work on the cottage and love on my wife. One of those things has to give, and for now, it’s moving.

But hey, I have a wife to love on, and it’s Becca Martin. It still makes my stomach tingle to think about it. All these years, I’ve had all these feelings for her with nowhere to put them. But now we’re both adults. The air is clear between us. I finally have room to let my feelings be what they are, to let them stretch and grow in her sunshine.

Love. Fragile little vines, getting a little thicker and stronger every day, wrapping around everything inside me.

I close the door to the basement stairs and find Becca on her back, flinching as her fingers dig into the pipe. When she looks at me, I rev the power drill in my hand and she cracks a smile.

“You gonna drill me, Big Daddy?”

“What have I said about calling me that?”

She plants me with a look. “You don’t have to say anything. Your dick does the talking.”

I roll my eyes but laugh. She could call me Asshole Bell Grande and I’d probably feel some kind of way about it because it’s her addressing me. I prop myself over her and pick out the tiny drillbit I need. I drill into the window frame, then grab the hook and start screwing it in.

“Ha! I got it!” Becca sits up, pulling her t-shirt out the side of her overalls to clean the ring. “Oh, no.”

I finish my project and sit on the floor next to her. “What’s up?”

She pouts. “Some of the stone chipped off.”

I look over the ring, and indeed, a chunk of the stone is missing. “Aw, damn. I’m sorry, baby.”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m the one who dropped it.”

“You don’t have to apologize. And anyway, I think I made a solution.” I gesture behind us and she rises on her knees to look at my completed project: a little hook drilled into the window frame.

“A hook?”

“My grandpa drilled one for my grandma. My dad set one up for my mom. Now I made one for you.”

Becca lifts a quizzical brow.