Page 39 of Before Forever
Oh god, he knows.I whined and dragged my hand down my face as I walked over to the window to stare at his house across the lake.
Of course, he knew everything. They were brothers. Maybe they even planned the whole thing together. To not tell me about how long work on the house would really take so Derek could ask me out and pretend it was all one big accident.
* * *
For the first few days,Derek was back on the job; I didn’t greet him at the door in the morning or make him coffee. I left the door unlocked and texted Keith to ask him to tell the crew they could let themselves in. Maybe it was a little petty, but I didn’t care.
We stayed out of each other’s way, with me locked up in one of the spare rooms that no one seemed to be doing any work on. I did my best to pretend to do my own work, even though the internet at the lake house was even worse than at the coffee shop. I called my boss and let him know that I would be stuck in Silver Point a while longer and cringed when he replied, “Don’t worry. Jeffery has it all under control. Take all the time you need.”
By the second week he was back, I was going stir crazy. I ventured into town and explored all of the shops I hadn’t been to yet. It’s not like there were blocks and blocks of them, so that got old by the third or fourth day.
Finally, the third week rolled around, and I was growing weak. I started opening the door for them in the mornings again but made a point to avoid eye contact with Derek and didn’t answer when he said ‘good morning.’ I did, however, start offering them pots of coffee. And by Friday, I was putting out a plate of sandwiches for everyone again.
“Thanks. I’ll just take a little break with the guys out on the porch,” Derek said sheepishly with his sandwich in hand.
“No, it’s okay,” I uttered as he turned to leave. “Stay.”
He froze and slowly walked back to the kitchen island, where we spent so many mornings and afternoons convening before everything got so complicated.
“Can I apologize again, or is it just going to piss you off?” he asked bluntly.
I hung my head and laughed. “You’ll just have to try and see.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry. Sorry for not being upfront about the work on the house and for all the stupid things I said. I can fix up a house. I can put out a fire. Hell, I can even build a barn.”
“And you can fish,” I added. “It even runs in your family, from what I hear.”
It was nice to see the familiar slow smirk spread from the corner of his lips up to the creases of his sparkling blue eyes.
“But I sure am awful at words and women,” he sighed.
I rolled my shoulders. “I don’t know. You’re not so bad with them. You sure did have me hooked, up until….”
“Yeah. You see? If you were a fish, you wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
We laughed, and that was it. Everything went back to normal from there. I said ‘good morning,’ let them in every day, and hung out with Derek for morning coffee and lunches. We’d make small talk when he gave his report before leaving every afternoon. All the while, I worked hard to fight off the longing to have him around more. I didn’t ask him out to any more dinners, and he reported home dutifully every afternoon at exactly three o’clock.
I had plenty to distract me, no matter how strong my urges about him were growing. I realized if I was going to be spending fall and potentially part of winter in the house, I had to really start making myself at home. Derek warned that the renovations might slow down with the holidays coming up and could very well stretch past Thanksgiving. Maybe even Christmas.
But he promised me the end result would be worth it. I could see a sadness in his eyes when he said it, and I wasn’t sure if it was over the thought of me leaving or the house being sold off. Now that I knew how much this lake and the whole area meant to him and his family, it made more sense why he was so insistent about the historic registry and everything on the house being done right.
I refocused on sorting through my mom’s things, packing up what was left deciding between what I wanted to keep to remember her by and what things I wanted to give away. One night I stumbled on an old box of letters and papers. I sifted through them carefully to make sure I didn’t accidentally throw away anything important.
But the deeper I got into them, tears started streaming down my face. There was bundle after bundle packed with drawings I did as a little girl, every Mother’s Day card I had ever given her, and letters I wrote to her.
I had grown strong about that kind of thing, but at that moment, I missed her so much that all I could do was clutch a batch of the papers to my chest and sob.
“Melody?” Derek’s voice shot through the room, startling me.
“What are you doing here?” I gasped, rushing to wipe the tears from my eyes. It was dark outside. Way later than he usually stayed. “I thought you’d be gone by now.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” His heavy boots pounded against the old wood floors as he came closer. “I made some arrangements to stay late to finish up what I was working on.” He kneeled down beside me and softly asked, “You okay?”
I laughed through my tears, holding out the bundle of cards for him to see. “It’s so silly. I don’t know why the smallest things always pull me apart at the seams when it comes to my mom.”
He took the papers from my hands and flipped through a few of them, smiling. “It’s funny how that works. I know how it feels.”
“Do you?” I rasped. “You always seem to know so much about grief and what it’s like to lose someone you love. Keith said you inherited your house from your grandfather. I guess that’s how you know?”