Marriage For One

When I looked up, Jack was already standing across from me, grabbing the edge of the table and helping me lift it. “What do you mean what else?” I asked as we put the table down where I wanted and then moved the chairs.

“What else needs to be done?”

We went to the other table and repeated our actions. “You don—”

“If you say I don’t have to help one more time—”

“As a matter of fact, I was not going to say that.” I actually was. “You should listen first before accusing someone. You’d think, as a lawyer, you’d know that.” When he looked at me, I gave him a sweet smile without teeth. He didn’t return it, of course. He wasn’t a fan of sarcastic comments; I had discovered that much on my own, which was probably why I enjoyed making them in the first place.

“I want to get this up.” I walked behind the counter and stood directly in front of where I wanted the floating shelf to be. “I drilled the holes, and the brackets are secured and everything, but it’s a pretty damn big wooden shelf, almost two feet I think, so I couldn’t lift it on my own.”

He joined me, and I moved to the side to give him space. It was a big enough area for four people to work comfortably, but still. After looking at his hands that much, I couldn’t trust myself.

“You drilled these?” he asked, inspecting the brackets.

My feet were starting to kill me again, so I leaned against the counter and waited for his disapproving comments to start. I had some comebacks still. “Yeah. I borrowed a drill from the chair guy and got them done quickly. Go ahead, tell me how bad of a job I did. I’m ready for it.”

He sighed and glanced at me over his shoulder. “Where is the shelf, Rose?”

I straightened and squatted. There was a lot of pain involved in that process. “Here.” I pulled just one side of the wood from under the counter so he could see it. He held on to the other side and we lifted it up with a small grunt from me then placed it on the counter. The damn thing was extremely heavy, not to mention expensive, but it was going to look perfect with the dark green walls.

There were a few seconds of inspection on his side then he grabbed his end again. “Ready?”

I released a long breath, nodded, and gripped the edge tighter.

He paused and gave me a new look I couldn’t interpret.

“On three. You ready?”

My exhaustion was coming back in full force so I simply nodded again, heaving it up when he said three. I was pretty sure he was taking most of the weight because my arms didn’t hurt as much as I expected them to, and in a few seconds, he’d slid the shelf onto the brackets and we were done.

Facing me, he studied my face. “Can we leave now?”

Again, I just nodded.

He strolled out into the open area in front of the counter.

I went into the kitchen and grabbed my things from the big island. Coming out of the kitchen with one arm in my jacket, I struggled to get the other one in.

Jack was rolling down his sleeves. “You don’t have anything else heavy that needs to be moved, do you?”

Frowning and trying to think as I watched him, I shook my head. “No. That was the last one, I believe.”

Then he put his suit jacket back on, and he looked just as he had when he’d showed up earlier, minus the tie.

“You look like you’re about to crash.”

He wasn’t even looking at me—how did he know?

“I think I can make that happen.” Feeling a little silly after his comment and about the fact that I was still struggling with the other jacket arm, I cleared my throat. “The crashing, I mean.” He came forward and, with a long-suffering sigh, pulled the jacket off, freeing my arm. Then he held it up for me and I felt myself blush as I successfully got both arms in.

“Thank you,” I muttered quietly.

“I’ll call Raymond so he can park out front.” He was looking down at his phone, but then his eyes met mine for a brief second. “You look worse than you did last week.”

I opened my mouth then decided to close it. I looked down and noticed that my knees were covered in dust. Nice touch, Rose. Really nice touch. I gently dusted myself off, all the while thinking who knew what other substances I had on my face or what said face actually looked like. Jack apparently did know, and it so happened to look worse than it had the week before. No biggie. Every husband made comments like that to their wives…I thought. Essentially, we were settling into married life. I thought he was broody male perfection, and he thought I was…well, to be honest, I was too scared to ask and hear his answer.