Page 51 of Her Favorite Fumble
“Fine. What does it look like?”
The growl that rumbled out of him would have driven bears back into hibernation. “It… I don’t know. It looks like a level. A long wooden tool with windows in it, and air bubbles that you set between the lines to see if something’s level when your helper’s head is crooked and she wouldn’t know straight if it bit her in the ass.”
“I should start a union and invite your brothers to join,” Lucy called over her shoulder as she walked around the cottage to Nick’s truck.
She had no trouble finding the level because of course she knew what it looked like. She just really liked the sounds Nick made when he was thoroughly exasperated with her.
It had been three weeks since the day Taylor sought her out at the Scuttlebutt, and so much had changed.
She was only working Friday through Sunday at the Keel now. Billy had been cleared to work the bar again, and though there were already tourists in town, it wouldn’t be busy enough for two of them until school let out. Of course, Nicole—the teacher—would be available by then, and it would be almost time for Gran to come home. But for now, she was working weekends at the Keel and helping Nick with the deck after his regular workday was over during the week.
And she might have a sister. Taylor had gotten a sibling DNA test with mail-in cheek swabs and stopped by the cottage on her lunch break. Now all they could do was wait for the results that would tell them if they were undeniably sisters. It would be a crushing blow if the results had been negative, since they’d already developed quite the text history by talking every day and learning everything they could about each other in a way that nobody could see.
She learned that, assuming the test was positive, she’d have a brother-in-law soon, and also—though it was early days to be talking about it—become an aunt. Taylor’s fiancé, Carson, managed the bank next to the post office, where Taylor worked. It was hard building a relationship in secret, but it was worth the effort.
Walking back around the house with the level, she chuckled when she remembered the last text message from Taylor.
If Carson and I have a Halloween wedding, you can come in a costume and my mother will never even know you were there.
“What’s so funny?” Nick asked when she handed him the level, so she told him about the text from her sister while he set the level along the railing and peered at the bubble.
“Not making any progress with Kim, I gather?”
“I’m not sure she’s even told her mom she talked to me yet, and I can’t really blame her. It’s going to be a mess, and she’s already got a wedding to plan and a baby on the way.”
When Nick’s head whipped around, Lucy realized her mistake and clapped her hand over her mouth. “Dammit. I’m not good at being a sister yet.”
“I won’t tell a soul,” he promised, and she believed him.
“I talked to Gran earlier,” she said, changing the subject.
“Come over here and hold the level, please. How’s Helen doing?”
“Great. She’s gotten a lot of sun. Or it could just be the joy radiating off of her. It’s hard to tell through a phone screen.” Lucy took over holding the level while Nick grabbed his drill and stuck a screw on the end of the magnetic tip. “She offered to cut her time in South Carolina short so she can be home by my birthday, but I know one of the reasons she was staying down there was her friend’s fiftieth wedding anniversary, and she was the maid of honor. I told her we’d grab a cake from Willow when she gets home.”
He pressed the tip of the screw against the wood. “Is that level?”
“Looks it.”
She was rewarded with another exasperated sigh. “Is the bubble in the center of the sight?”
“Yes.” She turned her face away while he put the first screw in. “Did I ever tell you my mother’s first husband—the one whose last name I got—made extra cash by stealing tools?”
“Um. No.”
“Yeah. One of them was a level—a small torpedo level if you want to get all builder technical vocab about it—and Iris said I spent an entire day seeing if anything in the apartment was level before he threw it back in the box to take to the pawn shop.”
He snorted. “So you’re tormenting mewhy?”
“For my own amusement, mostly. It’s fun when you’re grumpy.”
“Anyway, it was kind of you to delay your birthday for Helen, considering it’s a big milestone for you.”
“Thirty. Yay.” She laughed. “I don’t mind turning thirty, to be honest, but I think being married fifty years is a much bigger deal. And so many of her friends have moved south where it’s warmer—and who could blame them—but she must really miss them. Also, my birthday is in two days, and I’d rather she not be racing to get here in time.”
“Is that still level?” he asked as he prepped another screw.
“Dead center,” she confirmed.
