Falling into a Second Chance by Alie Garnett
Chapter Nine
Hanging up her phone,Agatha headed away from her drawing to find the serving dish Harper had described to her over the phone. Most of Harper’s stuff had been moved to her new place months before, when her husband, Kaine, had remodeled his kitchen into a commercial kitchen for her.
But it seemed there was still a pile of serving platters she’d left at the house that she needed next week for a big event. Agatha would no doubt be roped into helping out, but now that she was only helping out a day or two a week, she was okay with it. When she had worked an event nearly every night, she hadn’t been. Or when she had to hold down a job. Then add working for her sisters, and it got to be a lot.
Agatha turned on all the lights as she went through the house. It was a little spooky to be there alone, so sometimes she just pretended one of her sisters was in their room so that she wasn’t alone. In the kitchen, she dug out the pile of platters from the pantry, still mostly full of Lucy and Harper’s stuff. It was from this pantry that they produced their breakfast meals when they came over. Agatha didn’t go into it when they weren’t around. Since they usually dropped off leftovers when they came, she didn’t need anything from the pantry. What little food she had in the house was in a cabinet, leaving the pantry as storage for her sisters. She carried the platters to the table by the front door so that they could be grabbed if Harper had no time to talk or Agatha was sleeping when she stopped by.
The neighborhood was dark at two in the morning. She was the only mouse stirring that night. Setting the platter down by the front door, she nearly screamed when there was a sudden knock. Hand on heart, she looked out the side window and saw a large form standing on her front step. It knocked again as she watched. When the person ran a hand through his hair, she recognized the movement: Chris.
Chris, who had so far not recognized her at all. Either he had not remembered her from high school and had been so drunk eighteen months before, or she had changed that much over the years. Or maybe it was a combination of both.
Eighteen months ago, he hadn’t remembered who she was the morning after. She had realized that right away when she was hunting for her clothes. His knowing her was lost to the booze he had consumed. Sober, he hadn’t remembered her. He probably didn’t even remember their night of sex. Hot, wild sex that she couldn’t get out of her mind even all these months later.
Agatha slowly opened the door for him, secretly hoping he wanted to fuck her again. Over and over again.
“Hey, Agatha, I saw your light on. Could I borrow a flashlight? I’ll bring it right back,” he said with relief.
“Don’t you have a flashlight?” She leaned against the edge of the door, trying not to throw herself in his arms.
“No, I don’t. Nor do I have any lights in my house right now.” She could tell he was trying to hide his frustration.
“Hold on a minute,” she said and left him alone in the open doorway.
Finding the flashlights in the stairwell to the basement, she took two and headed back to Chris. She hoped she was only horny for him because she hadn’t gotten any in a while, not because she was back on Team Chris. She was too old and smart to join that team again.
“I brought two in case the batteries are low in one. What happened to your electricity?” She walked toward him. He had let himself in and was looking around the living room. His hands were stuffed in his jeans, and he was wearing a gray sweatshirt that hid all those awesome muscles.
He reached for one of the flashlights. “I don’t know. I was putting in a new light fixture and poof—all the lights went out.”
“Did the wires touch?” she asked, still holding the other flashlight.
“No,” he answered quickly, then added, “Maybe.”
“Do you have fuses or breakers?” She folded her arms, deciding that maybe he shouldn’t be dealing with electricity.
“Yes,” he answered and looked around the living room again.
“Do you have any idea what you are doing?” She pushed past him and headed over to his house.
He was close on her heels but let her lead. He was over a foot taller than her and an athlete. Agatha knew he could have carried her faster than she could walk over there.
“I have some idea,” he said as she opened the door on the old house.
“Where was the light?” she demanded as she turned on her flashlight.
Behind her, he turned on his as well and pointed it the center of the room. A ladder stood under a little black hole in the ceiling. Agatha climbed up the ladder and looked at the hole. She tried to ignore that Chris was watching her every move, that he was very close to her, too close for her liking.
Realizing that the wires were touching, she knew what had happened. She climbed down the ladder and went back to her house to grab the tools she needed. She knew better to ask him for anything; he didn’t even have a flashlight.
Chris was still standing in the middle of the floor with his flashlight beam on the hole when she returned. Climbing the ladder again, she put the caps on each of the wires and turned to him. With her on the ladder, she was taller than him for once, and she liked it. She enjoyed seeing his face turned up and looking at her, or the hole, it didn’t matter.
“Fuse box?” she asked as she climbed down.
“Basement.”
Chris grabbed Agatha around the waist and lifted her to the ground as if she weighed nothing from her perch on the third rung. His hands lingered for a moment too long until Agatha pulled away from him. No need to give him the idea that she was interested; she was smarter than that now.
He led her to the kitchen and then down the stairs to the basement, which was as dark as the rest of the house. Agatha hated basements; they were dark and smelly, and all the spiders lived there.
He pointed to the box on the wall. “Here.”
Agatha looked at it for a moment and flipped the biggest of the switches. The lights blazed on around them, and the hum of electronics and appliances filled the silence.
“Fixed.” She grinned at him. “But you have got to stop touching anything that you don’t know how to fix.”
“How am I going to learn if I don’t try?” His brown eyes were on her.
“Not by burning down your house, because that’s what would have happened if the circuit breaker hadn’t switched. Fire, Chris.” She folded her arms.
“How did you learn?”
“My mom taught me. I don’t know if she wants to teach you,” Agatha said. Sera had taught them all the basics for house and lawn care. She had single-mom’d like a pro.
“Maybe you could teach me.” He shot his killer grin at her.
Agatha pushed past him. His flirting reminding her of everything that had come before today, but his charm wasn’t going to work on her again. She was over Chris Lowell, had been for years.
“I don’t think so.” She headed back up the stairs to the brightly lit kitchen and stopped in her tracks. “Was it like this when you bought it? Did Hilda live like this?”
The floorboards were twisted and separating from each other. Many of the cabinet doors were gone, and the fridge was in the middle of the room. There was no stove, and the sink was full and overflowing with Styrofoam food containers and pop cans and bottles.
“No, I was working and had some issues,” he admitted from behind her.
“Holy fuck, do you have any idea what you are doing?” she questioned and walked through the kitchen into the dining room that was full of small bits of plaster.
“I’m learning, Agatha!” he said angrily.
Covering her mouth with her hand, she replied, “Have you had this checked for asbestos?”
“I never thought of that.”
“And lead, because there is lead for sure. It’s an old house.” Agatha couldn’t believe what she was seeing. He had only been here a week.
“No, I haven’t,” he admitted and ran his fingers through his hair.
She turned to him. “You should. You’re not living here, are you?”
“Yup, there are five bedrooms.” He shrugged as if the mess wouldn’t kill him.
“I think you should find another place to live.” She suggested looking around the place and wondered if his bedroom was in just as bad of shape as the rest of the house.
“I guess I could get a hotel.” He said the words, but there wasn’t any conviction behind them.
Agatha knew it was late, and by the time he got a hotel room, it would be morning. But she also had empty rooms, a lot of them. Though she hated being a good person, she was.
On a sigh, she said, “Get your stuff. You can stay with me tonight. You’re just lucky I have empty rooms, and I think you might kill yourself if you’re left alone.”
“Hey! I have yet to kill myself,” he said and folded his arms and grinned at her, not saying whether he was taking her up on her offer or not.
“‘Yet’ is the key word. Get your stuff and come over; I’ll make up a bedroom,” she said again and took the flashlight from his hand. She didn’t want to lose them in case he never came over.
Walking out of his house, she wondered what she was doing by letting him stay with her. Really? Christopher Lowell! She was a moron, and she knew it.
