Laina jumped up from her drool covered sleeping position at the kitchen table when the movers knocked on the door. She ran to the door wiping off her face with the sleeve of her t-shirt and quickly opened it. A man and a lady stood there in baseball caps. Each hat had a rather ugly giant U embroidered on it.
"Laina Colwell?" The stumpy lady asked. She nodded, signing a pad and walking with them to the back of their truck. It was a chilly morning and the buds growing recklessly on her porch had bloomed beautiful dewy purple flowers.
The man walked next to her and gave her a smile. He was tall and kinda mousy. He had messy dust-colored hair and wore thin metal glasses. Laina smiled back and looked up at the girl.
"Teddy told me to tell you hi when we got here." He said crossing his arms.
"Tell her I said thank you. I know you guys don't typically drive, but I would've crashed that thing." The big guy just laughed. She pushed her hair back and rubbed her arms.
"It's nothing. It puts a bonus in our checks and that'll help around the kids."
She wouldn't be seeing Teddy soon with the job loss and moving hours away. She wouldn't be seeing anyone from her life in the city for a long time. Teddy was the only one in her friend group that understood why she wanted to move back.
"You guys can just help me set everything over here and you can get home. At least get part ways home before the traffic hits." Laina grabbed a handle and hopped up into the truck.
One by one she slid boxes to the end and watched them sit them down in a line that inched towards the house. The two didn't talk much. It was a quick and quiet job and they left before the sun had even peaked over the trees. She waved them goodbye, and the man waved back.
She picked up a big cardboard box and slowly walked over the porch and sat it right inside the house. It looked completely different in the morning than it did in the afternoon. She could see the warm sunlight over the floor and the green bushy backyard through the glass doors.
She paused looking at the doors and nodded. She needed to go ask Weston for a hammer. In a moment of haste, she made it to the sidewalk before whipping around and jogging back up to the line of boxes. She couldn't go over there still wearing the same thing she had on yesterday.
Laina stood between the curtainless window and the open door and pulled on a clean pair of clothes throwing her old ones off in the corner. She pulled up her jeans and bounced pulling them up over her hips buttoning them without sucking in. It took a few boxes, but she found her hairbrush and combed it back into submission.
"Well well, you don't look like a hobo today." She whispered to herself doing a dance of approval. She slipped on her sandals again and made it around the hedge when she stopped.
Weston's house was beautiful. The siding was clean and white and there were perfectly groomed bushes across the front. They were covered in soft pastel flowers and had mulch under them. The yard was freshly mowed. It made her heart sink. There was no way she could keep her place looking this good.
She made her way up the stone steps and took a deep breath when the door opened and a bundle of fur pounced out upon her. She squeaked before being taken down harshly on her ass by Monty. He barked assaulting her face with wet stinky kisses.
"Mon-Oh." Weston stepped out holding a leash wrapped around his hand. The end was swinging unattached from her attacker. She leaned back stunned and glanced at him.
He got Monty to sit and pulled Laina back up to her feet with a strong-built arm. The heavenly golden glow of morning haloed around his head. She smiled feeling the smallest amount of redness touch her face. Weston stared at her softly, slowly running his hand down her arm till the let it go. He had the slightest bit of dimple when he smiled.
"I'm sorry 'bout that." He smiled harder trying to keep the laughter down. He glanced to Monty and looked back at her with a gleam in his eyes.
A wave of goosebumps ran down her arms. Monty pressed his head against her leg and she sucked in her lower lip thinking. The sting in her backside had seeped into her ego. Weston slowly shut the door behind him and stepped towards her holding his hands behind him.
"Last night, I found out Mrs. Hammings nailed the backdoors shut." She shifted her weight to her other leg. "I was wondering if you would let me borrow a hammer."
Weston's smile shrunk and flashed back like it had never shifted. The gleam in his eyes changed, though, and Laina could feel it. He laughed shaking his head lightly as if it was something quirky that Mrs. Hammings might've done all the time.
"Why do you think she would've done that?" He chuckled, placing his hand ever so softly on Laina's back and guiding her down the steps and towards the side of the house. Monty gave a simple whine before laying down and letting out a puff of air from his nose.
"There's not another way into the backyard. She has blocks of wood stopping the door with a ridiculous amount of nails sticking out of every angle. And when I first got there it was covered with a blanket too!" She rambled trying to describe the strangeness of it all.
"She seems like a kook." Laina finished realizing she might have said too much. She had only just met Weston and probably seemed like a kook herself.
Weston opened the gate to the backyard, and it locked in place behind them. Their backyard was gaudy compared to the front. There was an inset pool surrounded by a few chairs with floaties pushed to one corner, brass lanterns filled with candles hang up every so often across the top of the porch, a stone bird feeder filled with water, large budding bushes, and strings of lights strung from poles heading back to the porch. It was hard to take in.
"My wife likes to decorate," Weston says, sliding his hand further over her shoulder, pulling her closer as they got closer to the shed. It was a matching mint green like the one on her side of the fence and had a heavy padlock dangling from the door.
"You a decorator?" He asked slowly enunciating every word, but hitting the last 't' as a 'd'. She shook her head and looked at him. The heat from his hand warmed her through as did the blush building on her cheeks.
"There's a point where decorating turns into filling." She thinks about how the yard would have looked without all the furniture and statues. How open it would have been. She couldn't imagine how Monty ran around without running into anything.
"I wholeheartedly agree." He pulled a set of keys from a box on the side of the shed and winked before unlocking it. The door opened wide, and he stepped up helping her in.
There were tools hung up on every wall. They were spaced out and lined up in order of size and shape. It must have taken him months to order everything up like this. He had shelves and boxes and buckets of paint. She looked around at some of the tools and couldn't even think of their name.
"Do you build a lot of stuff?" She asked drumming her fingers over a counter.
"No, actually. My dad gave these to me when he died. I don't even know what some of these are for." He dropped his hand from her back and grabbed one of several hammers from a hook and they stepped out. He didn't even bother locking it back.
"Do you think you can pull them out yourself?" He teased, handing her the hammer. She tapped her palm with it and started walking backwards towards the gate.
"I don't know. I'll cry out for help if I can't." She grinned. "You could come see and let Monty run around in the back when I get it open." She put up her arm showing absolutely no muscle and tapped it. Weston faked praise and nodded obviously impressed.
Weston called Monty and walked with Laina to her house. When they rounded the hedge and Laina could see the boxes again, she bit her cheek. After all the internal grievances about Weston's over decorated backyard, she had forgotten about how her house had looked. It looked abandoned with its overgrown bushes and plants growing up the siding. She jogged up the walk and opened the door kicking her box of clothes out of the way.
"It's a disaster in here." She said watching him walk in.
"A catastrophe." He replied laughing looking at the mess.
"A major cataclysm." She scrunched up her nose and grinned. He laughed at her and shook his head not able to come up with another word that'd make sense.
Weston looked down at the doors and the smile he had was replaced with the smallest grin. He arched his eyebrows and squats holding out his hand for the hammer. Laina drops it in his palm and he works on the outer edge pulling nails out. She gasped and picked one up. It was as long as her hand. She rolled the bent nail back and forth between her fingers and laid it on the table.
"What the hell was she trying to keep out?" Laina muttered. Weston looked down and bit his lip. He couldn't help but shake his head every so often. Nail after nail clinked to the floor as he pried the board from the doors and held it up, still covered in them.
"Maybe they wouldn't stay closed." Weston said unconvincingly. When he started on the top board, he just wedged the back end of the hammer underneath and ripped it away from the wood. It came off leaving holes littered all over the place.
She rubbed her hand over the holes and gave Weston a look of concern. She gripped both handles and gave the door a push. They glided open smoothly. The doors themselves were actually very heavy and even had locks overhead to keep them open.
Weston tested the steps and walked down them into the yard. It was completely empty. No chairs or stones. No trash to be picked up. Just an average-sized backyard with a few leafy bushes.
"It looks fine to me." She says facing him. He stands there and looks over everything, only moving his eyes.
Laina stares admiring the way the light hits his hair and his arms. He looked absolutely ripped in his skin-tight shirt and jeans. There was a moment of silence and he smiled turning back towards her. He caught her eyes and her face turned pink. There was no confusing the stare for timing and he knew it. Instead of commenting on it he just ran his hand through his hair.
"Do you do a lot outside?" He asks filling what was feeling like an awkward moment. Laina stood there quietly. Inside she was screaming, berating herself with the word 'married'. It left whelps of shame.
"I garden. Does your wife?" She cleared her throat and pushed her hair behind her ear. She could suddenly notice the space between them. There was an overwhelming desire to make space smaller. Weston opened his mouth slightly biting his tongue before making a face.
"Um, no." He moved towards the stairs and looked down at her. "I love gardening, but she doesn't like getting dirty." She nodded, and they stood there quietly. His green eyes darted up and squinted with his smile.
"Have you had time to get food yet?" Weston's eyes pulled her in.
"No."
"Gina's making lunch when she gets back. C'mon." He bit his lip and when she said yes and started up the steps, he put his open hand back on her back.
ns 15.158.61.23da2
