I could hear two voices outside the guest bedroom window. I rolled out of bed and opened the white curtain. It was almost dawn, a pink sliver of sky at the bottom of the morning grayness, the street lights still flickering, and the sleeping cars foggy with moisture. Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Harrison were on the sidewalk across the street below, in their yoga pants and turtlenecks, arguing about the appropriate speed of their daily walk. They stopped when they noticed me in the window and waved.
I tried to fall back asleep, but then the birds started chirping and the trash truck made its way down the street, wheezing and sneezing with its mechanical start and stop. I listened to the whir of the air condition and watched the white curtains float in its breeze from the bed. The morning orchestra never used to bother me, the crowded city street outside my window filled with people and cars and horns. But now, in Windber, anything that sliced through the suburban silence, even two women arguing, could keep me awake.
Downstairs, the house was dark and quiet, patiently waiting for us to fill it with movement and noise in a few hours. I figured if I wasn't going to sleep, I could get a start on some work over a cup of tea on the back porch. My feet were cold on the wood floor and I considered going back upstairs to put a shirt on. From the foyer, I could see a dark shape on the couch in the living room. I wasn't sure if it was my sleepy imagination, still trying to separate dream from reality, until the shape moved.
"Jesus, Darren!" I yelled. "You scared me!"
It was then I realized that he had been sleeping. He stumbled to his feet, tangled in the blanket, knocking over pillows and a coffee table book. He looked around frantically, settling on my face in the darkness and exhaling with relief.
"Did you sleep here?" I asked.
I could tell his mouth was dry with sleep by the raspy way he spoke, his eyes still fighting to fully open. "Just in case," he said.
I touched the bandage on my neck and then crossed my arms in front of my naked chest. "Don't worry, I wasn't planning on carrying any wood panels in the middle of the night." I walked into the kitchen, shaking my head at the notion.
Darren wrapped himself in the blanket and slowly followed me, his bare feet heavy on the wood floor behind me. "Why are you up so early?"
"Couldn't sleep," I said. I filled the kettle with water and put it on the lit stove. Then, without asking Darren if he wanted a cup of coffee, I turned the machine on.
When I turned around, Darren was curled up into a ball on his chair at the dining room table. He was sitting on his feet and the blanket was draped over his head like a snuggly hood. "Are you nervous about your first solo estimate?" he asked.
"I thought you said it was going to be easy." I took two mugs from the cabinet next to the sink without searching for them, no longer a stranger in the kitchen. Then I poured the coffee for Darren and brought it over to him.
"It should be. I can go over it with you if you're nervous."
Just as I was about to sit down, the tea kettle began to sing. I ran over so the high-pitch ring wouldn't wake the baby. When I turned off the stove, we both looked at the monitor and waited for a sound, but it remained static. I poured the hot water into the mug with the teabag and joined Darren at the table. Steam warmed our faces and by inhaling the fumes of morning coffee and tea, we were already more awake.
I sorted through the files that were stacked on the table until I found the folder labeled Roberts. Inside were the notes from Darren's initial walkthrough of their master bathroom, including photos and measurements, and an itemized list of materials with the associated cost. Later that morning I would be on my own at their house two towns over to present the quote and collect a deposit. Darren had assigned the project to me after I tagged along for a few estimates, including Amelia's. Since the Roberts' project was small and I had been there from the beginning of the process, plus the customers had been fairly decisive, Darren thought it was the perfect trial estimate.
"Ok, I'll pretend to be Mrs. Roberts," Darren said.
"Why not Mr. Roberts?" I asked.
"We both know Mrs. Roberts makes all the decisions." We laughed.
Mrs. Roberts was a lawyer who had retired at the age of 45 to take care of her parents full time. They lived in the two-car garage that Phil and Darren had converted into an in-law suite with a private entrance a few years ago. Mrs. Roberts had become so jealous of the bathroom in the garage, that she had been fighting for a master update ever since. When we met with them the first two times, Darren did all the talking. He sparred with her whenever she rejected something that veered from her original vision. I pictured her in court, keeping even the judge on task with her jet-black hair, dark lipstick, and suit, that she still wore even though she was retired. "It's my entire wardrobe," she had declared.
I laughed at Darren's impersonation and he told me to be serious. So I shook it off and read the itemized list out loud like I would have to later. There was the vanity, the sink, the hardware, the tile, the paint, the tub, the toilet, the new linen closet. We were even replacing the small window.
"Next time," Darren said, " Don't read it. You also don't have to say the price of everything, that will probably scare them. Just say the total. They can see the breakdown."
I took mental notes as he continued to give feedback and then we tried it again. This time he was Mr. Roberts. As he was giving me notes, I wasn't paying attention to the mug and took a sip of my tea. I didn't realize that it was still steaming and I burned my mouth. I shivered a little and squealed at the surprise. Darren jumped to his feet, alarmed.
"I'm fine," I assured him. I could tell he was still tense from the urgent care visit the day before. "Let's just continue."
He sat back down, but he was no longer wrapped in the blanket. I lifted it from the floor and draped it over my shoulders. We tried to move on with the estimate and the day's schedule, but every time I raised the mug to my mouth, Darren watched me as if I was about to fall off a cliff. "I can't sit here with you staring at me like that," I said. "I'm going to get ready."
Upstairs, I went into Noah's room to check on him. He was tucked so far under the covers that I couldn't see his blond hair on the pillow or his toes sticking out the other end. I turned off the nightlight as the morning sun battled with the curtain like a bottle of soda ready to explode and sat on the edge of his bed. I went to lift the cover off of his face, but he wasn't there. I removed the cover completely and Noah was nowhere to be seen. "Noah!" I screamed. I looked under the bed and in the closet. "Noah!" I lifted the curtain and opened the toy box. "Noah!" I was loud, my voice bouncing off of the walls, fulfilling the promise of life far earlier than the house expected.
Darren appeared at the bedroom door. "What's going on?"
"I can't find Noah."
"What do you mean you can't find him?" Darren started searching the room.
"I mean he's not here. I tucked him in last night and now he's gone."
"He's not gone," Darren said, his head disappearing under the bed.
I searched the bathroom and the guest bedroom. Then I heard Darren call my name from the hallway. He tilted his head in the direction of the master bedroom and I followed him inside. Behind the boxes, Noah was asleep on the floor, curled up like a ball next to Theresa's side of the bed. His hand was hanging out of his open mouth.
I leaned against the wall, closed my eyes, and sighed with relief. I imagined Noah waking up in the middle of the night, searching for his parents after a bad dream, making his way into their room in the dark. With his thumb in his mouth, he must have soldiered through the unrecognizable room, boxes everywhere like tall shadows, bumping into the cardboard towers until he eventually found the king-size bed. Then he probably jumped a few times to get in it, calling their names, but it was too high for his little legs, and he exhausted himself. The only thing left to do was to wait by their bed because surely they would return at some point. It was the most natural thing in the world, tracing his steps to find the things he lost. His parents.
Darren scooped Noah up in his arms and carried him, still sound asleep. He approached me at the wall and touched my collar bone. "You're bleeding," he said.
I tried to tilt my head to see, but of course, it was impossible. I touched the bandage on my neck and felt the dampness in the middle. When I removed it, there was a dark red pool on the white bandage. "I must have done something to it when I was searching for him."
Darren left the room to put Noah back in his bed, the baby limp with sleep, his limbs hanging like icicles. I went into the bathroom to change the dressing. The bright bulbs above the mirror were too harsh, so I turned off the lights and opened the curtain on the window. By now, the sun was high enough in the sky for me to see what I was doing. I threw the used bandage in the garbage can next to the toilet and took the products from the pharmacy out of the vanity and placed them on the counter.
I was washing my hands when Darren appeared at the bathroom door. "The lost boy has been returned to his bed," he said. He was leaning against the door frame, smiling, pleased with himself.
"Should we talk about it?" I was dabbing the cut with a tiny ball of toilet paper.
"One crisis at a time." He walked into the bathroom and stood behind me in the mirror. "May I?" He took the ball of toilet paper from me and threw it away. He started dabbing the cut with a fresh piece. Then he covered another with peroxide. I closed my eyes in anticipation and he dragged it across my skin, lightly at first, so I could adapt to the sting. He pressed harder and I opened my eyes. I watched him as he cleaned it, his deep focus, the way he bit into his bottom lip for accuracy, the way I used to concentrate on a blank canvas, waiting for inspiration. When he was finished, he leaned in close, his lips an inch from my neck, and blew on the cut, lightly, his breath warm like the steam of his coffee, causing my skin to blush with goosebumps––down my neck and arms and back. Each one felt like an explosion and I couldn't stop it. I quickly turned around and knocked our heads together as I spun. We both held our own foreheads and he backed away.
"Thanks," I said. I held up my hand for the clean bandage and he gave it to me. "I guess it was a good thing you stayed after all." I turned around to the mirror again and covered the cut.
"Maybe one of us should stay in the master, in case he does it again." He was still rubbing his forehead and I tried not to look at him, to see what his eyes might be saying or not saying.
"I don't think I'm ready for that," I said. I started to put the products back in the vanity, first the box of bandages and then the bottle of peroxide, still avoiding his eyes as if keeping busy would distract him from the garden of goosebumps along my shirtless body. Why didn't I go back upstairs for a shirt when I had the chance?
"I guess I'm moving in," Darren said.
I could hear the first rumblings of car engines outside, reliable as a morning rooster, the neighbors starting their daily commute to work or school or both. With everything away and the wound covered, I turned around again to see Darren's goofy smile illuminated by the morning sun. The goosebump garden grew.
Author's Note: I'm so happy to be back at it! It was amazing to see all of your comments and votes while I was on vacation. I hope you liked the first new chapter!
Do you think Ryan and Darren are going to be good roommates?