All of Me (All Series Book 2) (6 page)

All of Me

Settling down on her couch and crossing her bare feet in front of her on the coffee table, Sophia breathed a sigh of relief. Tax season was officially over. Well, at least the deadline had passed over a week ago, but in her mind that week after the deadline was still considered tax season. There was still work to do, but the mad rush had stopped.

Content to relax, she was ready to catch up on the rest of her life that she lost during those first few months of every year. Starting with a glass of wine.

Taking a sip and savoring the taste on the tip of her tongue, then swallowing, she immediately took another. This was the best part of tax season for her. The end.

The loud bang caused her to sit upright, spilling half her glass on her jeans. Before she could stand up, more thumping followed.

“Crap,” she screeched, placed the glass down—losing more of the wine in the process—and took off running for the laundry room. Grabbing the glass lid of the washing machine, she went to lift it up, only to find it locked shut. The machine was clanging even louder and shifting on the floor.

Frantically she searched for the button, found the right one and pressed it. The thumping stopped, and once her towels stopped spinning, the lid unlocked.

Lifting it up, she reached in and found all the towels had somehow bunched up on one side, causing the machine to be off balance. Struggling, she pulled up the heavy cotton pieces, trying to separate them as best she could, and rearranged them evenly.

Positive she had done a good enough job, she put the lid back down, hit the start button again and watched the machine start to spin, then congratulated herself.

The minute she picked up her glass of wine, the thumping started again, only this time louder than before.

Dashing back to the laundry room, she saw the machine had moved a good three inches away from the wall. Swiftly, she pushed the button again—she knew where it was now—and watched the machine slow down and the lid unlock.

Seeing no way out of it, she pulled every single dripping wet towel out, dropped them in the basket—cursing at the sheer number there were—then one by one put them in as best she could to allow an equal weight distribution.

Once satisfied, she put the lid back down, pressed the button and stood there to make sure it wouldn’t start thumping again. After a minute or two, the machine was back to spinning quietly.

A little shove here and a tiny push there and the machine was back to its original spot.

Twenty minutes later, towels washed, rinsed and spun free of all the water, she went back into the laundry room, only to find water on the floor and a nice steady drip coming out of the ring around the hose connected to the faucet.

Mopping up the mess—hoping it was a one-time thing—she quickly threw her towels in the dryer and started a second load of laundry. Learning her lesson, she only put in half the amount she originally planned.

Unfortunately, the minute the water started to fill into the machine, equal amounts were dripping out of the hose. No way around it, she had to make a call.

***

“How long are you going to be?” Alec asked Phil.

“Why, do you have a hot date?” Phil knew that Alec hated working in the office on a Saturday, but it was unpreventable. They were way behind and needed to finalize blueprints for the ten new houses that would be breaking ground on Monday. It was the biggest number of projects they’d ever had going at once and Phil didn’t want any errors.

“As a matter of fact I do.” Alec looked at his watch. “I need to run home and shower before I pick her up in two hours. So I can only give you another hour, tops.”

“We should be done soon. I want to go over the foundation adjustments we made to four of the houses last week and make sure there are no issues.”

“Phil, we still have time before the concrete is poured. We’re just digging for the foundations this week,” Alec explained.

“Yes, and before you know it we will be pouring foundations and I wouldn’t have seen you for more than ten minutes with all the work we’ve got to do,” Phil argued.

“Point taken. Fine, let’s hurry up then.”

Forty-five minutes later as Phil was shutting down his computer, Alec’s phone rang. “Hey, shorty.”

Phil came to full alert and moved closer. More so when Alec started to frown, then added, “That’s odd. I checked everything personally before you moved in. I can’t believe it’s leaking. I’ll try to get ahold of one of the guys and send someone over to take care of it for you. I would do it myself, but I’m running late for my date right now.”

Another minute went by while Alec listened to Sophia on the other end. “No, it’s not a problem. I don’t want it leaking all night. Really, that is what we’re here for. We’ll get it taken care of. Someone should be there within an hour.”

Alec hung up the phone and turned to address Phil. “The washing machine hose is leaking water. Those appliances are brand new. I can’t imagine what’s going on, but someone’s ass is going to get chewed out if they didn’t install everything properly.”

“How bad is it?”

“She said not bad, but apologized and said that she didn’t know it was leaking until the load was done and the wood floor got pretty wet. She cleaned it up fast and shut the washer down. The drip seems to be done, but I don’t want her to be inconvenienced either. I’ll see if I can track someone down. Though it might not be easy on a Saturday close to five.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Phil found himself offering.

“You? You’re going to go take care of a leak?” Alec said, astonished.

“What, you think I can’t handle a leaky hose?”

“No, that isn’t it. It’s you volunteering to do it. I know it’s not your thing, and I appreciate all the help you put in when I’m doing flips, but this is what we pay the guys for.”

“True, but like you said, it will be hard to find someone. Unlike you, I don’t have anything going on tonight and it’s on my way home.”

“If you’re sure?” Alec hedged.

Oh, he was sure. More than sure. This couldn’t have fallen in his lap any better.

***

Sophia jumped up and answered the doorbell. Her face immediately flooded with embarrassment to see Phil standing on the other side holding a tool bag.

Seeing him shouldn’t have brought images of construction workers modeling for a calendar. But as luck would have it, she had no control over that thought, causing her to flush an even deeper shade of red.

“Are you okay?” he asked, brushing past her.

Damn him for noticing. Of course with the amount of heat rushing through her body, she wouldn’t be surprised if she were flame-red right now. “Sure. What are you doing here?” She turned and shut the door behind him.

“You have a leak,” he reminded her.

“True, but Alec said he was sending one of the guys over.”

“I told him not to bother. We were at the office—just leaving actually—and it was on my way home.”

She followed him to the laundry room, mortification mixing in with embarrassment that he would witness
and
somehow figure out what happened. As if it wasn’t her lucky day already, Phil
would
happen to be with Alec when she called. “Sorry you got pulled away from your night.”

“No problem. I didn’t have plans anyway. I was going to go home, have a beer, and grab some dinner.” He set his tool bag down and eyed the washing machine suspiciously. “Looks like the machine has been moved. You didn’t move it to clean up the water did you? It’s too heavy to move around on your own.”

Yeah, that’s what happened. She moved it to clean up the water. “I didn’t want water to stay on the wood floors.” Too bad she didn’t think about that before, now realizing there was still water under the machine. “I might not have gotten it all, though.”

“I’ll take care of it.” He extended his hand and turned the machine on. Waiting while the water started to fill the load she already started, he eyed the leak, then shut the machine back off.

She moved back to give him room, and he pushed the machine to the side to get closer to the faucet. “Looks like it’s stripped for some reason. That’s strange.”

Looking away guiltily, she decided to fold her towels. Big mistake, because once she opened the dryer, the overloaded towels started to spill out onto the floor. She lifted her eyes to his and saw his knowing grin. Caught. “I can explain.”

He removed the washer ring that had been stripped. “Go ahead.”

“I’m used to the industrial-sized machines at my old building.”

“Plausible,” he said without missing a beat and tightened the new ring, then reattached the hose. “But I figured you were smarter than that. I mean didn’t you tell me it wasn’t that hard to figure out the appliances?”

She didn’t miss the twitching of his lips and didn’t appreciate it at all. He was right, but she wouldn’t admit it. So she tried another approach. “It’s been a crazy week, and I’ve fallen behind on my laundry.”

“Is that the best you can do?” he asked, his eyes crinkling.

Sliding back into their old ways, the bantering and the flirting, she cocked her hip and rested against the dryer door. “You would be surprised at the number of people who call me last minute begging me to get their taxes filed before the April fifteenth deadline.”

“Ouch,” he said, grinning wide. Replacing his wrench back into his bag, he looked around and found her mop against the wall, cleaned up the remaining water, and pushed the machine back in place. “In my defense, Sean is pretty anal about deadlines. I would have been fine if we filed the extension.”

Her eyes softened. She bet he would have been fine with it. But she didn’t want him to feel guilty. “It’s part of my job. I’m used to it. And so you know, Sean is pretty good at his job. It didn’t take me nearly as long as it might have.” She reached over and patted his hand lightly, realized what she did and yanked it back. “If it wasn’t you calling, it would have been another company.”

Picking up his bag, he walked out of the room. “Either way, we appreciated it.” Then he ruined his apology by adding, “Especially since it put you behind in your laundry.”

“Sure, rub it in,” she replied, but laughed just the same. “Since you went out of your way to fix the mess I made, the least I can do is offer you dinner.”

“That would be nice. What are you going to make me?” he asked with the boyish charm he’d always shown her before, enjoying their old ways.

“A nice big salad.”

His smile faded immediately. She figured as much. Too bad she wasn’t joking. But he surprised her and said, “I wasn’t that hungry anyway, so a salad sounds good.”

“Okay. Now I know you are trying to get on my good side,” she said, teasing him. Watching the light bounce back into his eyes warmed her immensely.

“What if I am?” he asked quietly.

She reminded herself to tread lightly. They were getting on dangerous ground here. She wasn’t ready for anything serious, and she didn’t want to lead him on. “Phil,” she started to warn him.

“No. Don’t put any walls up. Just be yourself. Like you used to be.”

Processing what he said, she nodded. What could it hurt? “Well, in that case, I will clarify my dinner plans.” She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a marinated London broil. “I was going to have a grilled steak salad, with plenty of leftover steak. So since you went out of your way to help me tonight, the least I can do is throw a potato on the grill to go with your steak.”

Cheered instantly, he added, “Maybe a tiny salad on the side.”

“Deal.”

After dinner was cleaned up and they each had a cup of coffee in front of them, with the last of another batch of Kaitlin’s biscotti, Sophia said, gesturing to them together at the table with her hand, “I miss this.”

“Why did it stop?”

“You weren’t safe anymore.”

“What?” he said sitting upright. “What does that mean?”

She clearly offended him. “Not that way. I meant it was safe when you were with Linda. It’s easy to be carefree with someone when you know it can’t go anywhere. Safe.”

“Great, just what every guy wants to hear. They’re
safe,
” he said, disgruntled.

“You’re taking it wrong. You
were
safe. You aren’t anymore. So don’t get your panties in a twist.”

He snorted, then looked at her deeply. She knew he understood what she was saying. She didn’t need to explain further. She never seemed to have to explain much to him before. He always knew what she meant, even when she didn’t say all the words. “There is no reason why we can’t go back to the way it was. Minus me being safe.”

She shook her head. “Too much has changed. We can never go back to the way it was,” she explained.

“Not as much has changed as you think. And I don’t really want to go back to the way it was. I want to move on to something more.”

“Phil, I don’t think that’s smart. Not right now,” she said patiently. She hadn’t figured it all out in her mind yet. And she needed to. She had to find the perfect time to move forward. Make sure all the stars were lined up and know that nothing could stand in their way.