Page 13 of The Handyman

5

MASON

Iwake before Katy does. The sun cuts through the bedroom windows at an angle that tells me it's past seven, maybe closer to eight.

Storm's over.

The rain stopped hours ago, and now there's just the steady drip from gutters and eaves.

Yesterday’s clothes are scattered across her floor—jeans, gray t-shirt, boots kicked off beside the bed, her panties. The shirt's wrinkled but dry enough. Katy's still curled under the blanket, hair sprawled across the pillow, breathing soft and even.

I don't wake her. Let her sleep.

Downstairs, the house looks different in daylight. Last night, everything was dark corners and flickering phone screens. Now the sun shows me the details I missed—the view through the windows of Phil's landscaped lawn dotted with storm debris. Branches down everywhere. Standing water in the driveway where the drainage can't keep up.

My truck sits in the same spot where I parked it yesterday afternoon. Feels like a week ago. I came here to fix a leak. One bathroom. In and out.

My phone vibrates. I look down at it, just imagining the backlog of messages, urgent and trivial, awaiting me. I just want to throw it as far as possible. Crush it. Destroy it. I feel like I am living in a new world. It’s odd; I feel like I am not the same man I was just a few short hours and one mighty storm ago. One fixed bathroom leak ago.

Now I'm standing in Phil's kitchen at eight in the morning wearing yesterday's clothes, and every room I look at in his house has a memory attached. A new significant memory.

The hallway where I carried her. The stairs where she kissed me. The kitchen where we ate dinner, and I couldn't figure out how to hold a conversation because my brain kept short-circuiting every time she looked at me.

Footsteps on the stairs. Katy appears in the doorway wearing jeans and a soft blue sweater that makes her eyes look more green than brown. Hair down, no makeup, bare feet. She looks at me and smiles, and that same vision from yesterday hits me again—opening a door for me, waiting, home—except now it's not a vision.

She's standing right here smiling at me, and it's real.

And I'm fucked. Welcome to my new reality.

Completely, thoroughly fucked. And, you know what, I wouldn't have it any other way.

"Morning," she says, padding over to the coffee maker. "Sleep okay?"

"Yeah. You?"

She glances at me over her shoulder, and her cheeks go pink. "Yeah. Really well."

The coffee maker gurgles. Outside, a branch creaks and falls from one of the oak trees, landing on the lawn with a wet thud. Normal morning sounds. Normal conversation. Nothing about this feels normal.

Banging on the front door cuts through the quiet. Not knocking but banging. Fist on wood, loud and insistent and wrong.

What the fuck?

Katy's head snaps toward the sound. "Who could that be?"

More banging. Whoever it is, they're not going away.

"I'll get it." I head for the foyer, Katy right behind me.

The front door is heavy wood with a brass handle that reflects the morning light coming through the glass panels on either side. I turn the deadbolt and pull it open.

A guy pushes past me into the foyer. Medium height—the top of his head hits my shoulder—and built like he spends serious time in a gym, wearing a fitted shirt that shows off his arms and chest. Clean-cut, good-looking in a manufactured way. His face is flushed, breathing fast, and he's talking before the door is fully open.

"Katy, oh my God, I came as soon as the roads cleared. I went to the airport last night, and when you weren't there, I was freaking out. Then the flight got canceled. I tried calling you, but the service was down, and the roads weren't passable until this morning, so I drove straight here."

He doesn't look at me. Doesn't register that I exist. His focus goes straight to Katy like I'm furniture.

Katy's brow furrows. She takes half a step back, and her arms come up and cross over her chest.