Any Closer

Her eyes lit up. “Can I have a water wheel?”

“Yes, ma’am, we can put in an electric water wheel, no problem.”

She clapped her hands. “Oh, Charlie, you’re so brilliant!”

He was. And about a billion times more patient than I was.

“That was pretty good,” I told him as we were walking away from her house two hours later with a deposit of three grand. “The idea of spotlights in different places to create the feeling of being underwater was inspired. Of course, Mr. Lewis is gonna hate feeding the damn fish.”

“And leaving out the sugar water for the butterflies, because that’ll draw ants,” he apprised me with a snort. “And let’s not forget the heaters for the winter and the mister system for the summer. I mean, his electric bill is gonna go through the roof.”

“And when he sees the bill, he’s probably gonna have a stroke.”

“Probably.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “It’s just—”

“Can you drop me at the bank?” he cut me off.

“Sure.” I smiled at him. “You alright?”

“I’m great.”

I didn’t want to pry. I figured I had done enough deep-sea diving in his life for one day, so I let it go.

After I dropped him off, I drove back to the office to touch base with Paul and give him the check, which made him smile, then squint at the logistics of the “grotto.”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I assured him.

“Lucky Charlie was there to save the job for you.” Ali smirked at me from her desk on the other side of the room. “Oh you of limited vision.”

“I guess, huh?”

“Yeah, creative you’re not.” She smiled indulgently.

Paul nodded, smiling.

“Screw you both.”

“Hey.”

I looked back over at Paul.

“Has Charlie told you yes or no yet on the liaison job?”

“No, not yet.”

He grunted.

“You know he’s probably gonna take it,” I told him. “He just has to think everything through first. That’s how he is.”

“I know. I hate that about him. He never simply leaps; he always looks first.”

“Yeah, that’s so terrible.” I squinted at him as he flipped me off.

“I’m putting through payroll for this week,” Ali informed us, punching keys on her laptop. “Anyone getting a bonus besides Charlie and Dave?”

“Nope.” I yawned. “Charlie landed the Keller job, and Dave made sure we came in under budget and on time. It was just them two.”

“Alright, then.” She smiled over at me.

I liked her face. It was a good face. Big, wide, blue eyes, permanent smirk, and freckles across her little button nose. I liked her holier-than-thou attitude, the way she would slave away for hours to find out where thirty-seven cents had gone, and the stream of sound when she was typing. I was glad she had taken Tae Kwon Do classes with Charlie so she could put any guy who was stupid enough to put his hands on her without permission on the ground, and I enjoyed hearing her talk. I especially liked hearing her talk and seeing the reaction of others the first time.

“Christ, she talks fast,” strangers always said.

But I was used to it and followed it as effortlessly as I did her continually shifting train of thought. I pitied the man who ever thought he would win an argument with her or figure out what was going on in her brain. Not that there weren’t guys who wanted to. I would send her to the bank, and some stray would follow her back. Paul enjoyed scaring the crap out of her would-be suitors. We all enjoyed it. She worked in a construction office. Of course there was a gauntlet to be run if you wanted to date the girl.

“You know,” she began suddenly, and I looked back over at her. “You may be the most uncreative person I know.”

I scowled at her. “We’re still on this?”

She grunted.

“Can you be done?”

She laughed at me and then asked if Ethan had gotten a hold of me.

I squinted at her. “Ethan?”

“Yeah,” she said hesitantly. “You know, your ex, Ethan.”

I knew who Ethan Hill was. I just had no idea why Ali would be asking about him after six years. “As far as I know, he’s in New York doing his—”

“No, he’s back,” she corrected me, her auburn hair catching the light.

But I had no idea why Ethan Hill would be back from New York. He had been on the cusp of getting everything his heart desired the last time we had spoken.

Ethan Hill was an up-and-coming lawyer at his firm of Mercer and Gould when he had been tapped by one of the senior partners to take over the New York office. They wanted new blood there to shake things up, and the career-making promotion was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that he could not afford to give up.

He had run fast to catch his dream, and there was no time for anything else, especially love. Our relationship had already become a long-distance one when he had made the transition a year and a half earlier to work out of the office in Los Angeles, but we were still together, both of us working hard to stay that way. But the New York promotion had been the death of us. I understood why he left; he wanted to be lead corporate counsel for one of the largest real estate developers in the country. It made sense to me.