A Many Splintered Thing / Day 23: In the dark of night...

We cracked 30K today. Can you believe that shit? I can't. 30,000+ words less than a month in. On that note, I'll tell you I'm taking tomorrow off. Next post should arrive on Monday. Just in time for the week to start kicking everyone's ass ;) Or maybe it just kicks mine. Who knows.
XOXOSommer
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Caleb had no idea how the hell this much shit could get in a gutter when there weren’t really any trees by the house. Just large shrubs that grew up high enough to appear to be trees from a distance. Half the stuff he was pulling from the gutters was bougainvillea which made him laugh thanks to Harrison’s strange love affair with the flowers.
Clean the gutters had been on the list. The list, in Jasmine’s tight controlling script, that had been tacked the front door when they’d opened it to head out to work. After a shower (together) and eggs and juice and coffee strong enough to stand a spoon up in they’d reluctantly parted ways.
Part of him had been tempted to ask her to get in the Wagoneer with him and they could hit the road together. The three of them could wander the countryside stopping at scenic points to let Alice out to run. It wasn’t lost on him how bizarre his reaction to her was.
It also wasn’t lost on him that had they had the time, he’d have lured her back to bed, pulled her close and told her his story. He’d have explained himself a little as she’d done for him.
Rarer than hen’s teeth as his grandmother used to say.
He dropped sticks and debris into the bag he’d slung across his chest. It wasn’t so bad. The shit he was scooping out of the gutters. It was a hell of a lot better than what he’d have encountered back east where he’d lived before. Tons of leaves, squirrels nuts, bird nests, you name it. But here with just some cast offs from overzealous bushes and other odds and ends it was a good way to pass an afternoon in the California sun. And think.
“Now you’re a thinker. Less than twenty-four hours in sun-city and you’re a thinker. Well, la-dee-dah,” he snorted.
Below him, Alice lifted her head to the sky and looked at him. She’d heard him and ever faithful to the man who’d saved her from a shit-kicking bumpkin with a bad attitude, she was alert.
“I love you,” he said to the dog. Though he doubted she actually heard him beyond a murmur. He couldn’t remember saying that to anyone for a very long time.
“More oddness,” he said.
Out by the main house he saw Dahlia. A tiny speck of a person in faded jeans and a white top with some sort of needlepoint or embroidery around the neck. It looked like a sun rising over a mountain range. He’d found himself strangely fascinated with the blouse when she’d put it on.
She’d found that amusing.
“Get your ass out there and work,” she’d whispered in the kitchen. She’d taken his plate almost before he was done the final bite and stacked their dishes in the sink. “We need to pretend we are not getting along for Jasmine and that we are over the moon happy for Harrison.”
She’d put her head down and started to laugh.
“Hey, I have brought mystery and intrigue to your home,” he said, gulping the last of his coffee.
“I’ll say.”
He’d cocked an eyebrow and said, “And some good sex. I think it was good. It was good for me. Was it—“
“Stop. Where’s the gruff, smart-ass, barely talking guy who walked in here yesterday?”
“You prefer him?” He’d actually been worried.
“Well…” She couldn’t hold a straight fact. “Not necessarily. To be honest, very quickly, I’ve developed a soft spot for both of you.”
Caleb had risen and caught her around the waist with one arm. “You changed that asshole into a lesser asshole,” he said. He’d kissed her neck. “Overnight, no less. You’re the asshole whisperer.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” Dahlia said, unable to repress a snort.
Through an open window they heard the radio up at the pavilion turn on. The painters were back.
 “Good point. It sounds off somehow.”
“Somehow?”
He kissed her. “You’re the asshole tamer?”
“Nope.”
“Asshole fixer?”
“Try again.”
He’d pushed his hand up under that top of hers and was instantly mesmerized by her soft, smooth skin. She groaned and he echoed it. “You have to stop,” she said. “Or we’ll both be in trouble.”
He’d kissed her neck then. “How about you can take any gruff, grumpy asshole and make an almost decent man out of him? Is that better?”
“It’s rather long for a title, don’t you think?”
He pushed her to the counter, pinning her between his arms as he kissed her for real. “I’m a manual laborer, sweetheart, not a poet.”
She stared at him straight on and he felt his heart quicken. Those eyes. Jesus. There was so much in a single glance he couldn’t begin to comprehend. “I think you could do the poet thing if you wanted,” she said.
He leaned in for another kiss because, fuck him, he didn’t know what to say to that, but she stiff armed him for the second time since they met.
“Work. Now. Before we’re both fucking unemployed. Which we might be if Jas ever finds out that we consummated our fake relationship last night.”
When she smiled at him something inside him buckled. Something else inside him stirred to life. He couldn’t help feeling that least twenty-four hours of his life had been important—monumental—which he knew was star-struck and silly, but it was what he felt. Way down in himself where the truth lived.
Like a puzzle piece popping into place. There was an almost an audible click in his mind when she’d shown up in his doorway in the dark of night. He’d thought that just as they’d walked out of the guest house together to get to the day of work ahead.
As if the Universe was laughing at him, the radio up at the pavilion began to play and he picked up the words and Michael Hutchence’s haunting voice. In the dark of night, those small hours…
Caleb watched her for another moment, far off on the property, a blot of color in the green landscape. She turned his way, shielded her eyes from the sun and then raised her arm and waved to him. Still clutching a handful of debris, Caleb waved back and that thing in his chest stirred again.
photo credit: Sommer Marsden 2014 Music Reference: