Emmy answered the door, wearing a pink floral dress and a kind smile prettier than a strand of pearls. Her vibrant red hair framed a clear, pale face with full lips and pronounced cheekbones. She welcomed me with a hug, dainty as a bone china teacup, then clapped her hands on her knees. “Hi, Avery! Are you ready to have fun?”
Emmy offered her hand. I expected Avery to recoil in shyness, but after briefly scrunching up her features like a wrinkled tomato, she accepted.
“Would you mind taking her to wash her hands while I clean her glasses?” I asked, working them off Avery’s dark curls. “I’ll need cotton balls and pure acetone, if you have it. Nail polish remover will work fine if you don’t.”
“Sure thing! Follow me.”
The entryway split into a hallway and a staircase, with the dining room where I’d made mums to the right. A den to the left displayed a family picture over the fireplace. The coffee table held all sorts of gorgeous books: nature photography, architecture and design, illustrated poetry. I read a few titles as we passed a bookshelf running the length of the hallway wall. It seemed no topic failed to tickle the family’s intellectual fancy. You could see the passion for learning in their home the way you could smell Tex-Mex cooking regularly in mine.
Sporadic clanking welcomed us into the airy, sunlit kitchen. Where our house was usually messy with laundry and junk mail, the clutter here was books and cups of drying paintbrushes.
A dirt-streaked white tee, six inches of solid midriff, and a long pair of legs in fitted jeans stuck out from the cabinet under the kitchen sink.
I felt a pinch behind my navel. How cruel of Levi to be handy with tools and look good wielding them when I already had the memory of his lips on mine to think about. This just seemed excessive.
“Levi, do we have any pure acetone?” Emmy asked. Levi paused in the middle of twisting something with a wrench to grope through the displaced cleaning products.
I was closest to him, so I took the bottle with a peppy, “Thanks!”
His face emerged from the shadows. “Oh hey, Nat. Thanks for helping Emmy get a job.”
“I was about to work at Country Catfish Buffet,” Emmy said.
“Refill girl?” I asked, depositing Avery’s backpack on the counter. Emmy nodded. “That job’s always open. I tried it for a week and nearly got clawed to death every time I rang the fresh catfish bell. Babysitting saved me from that dangerous lifestyle.”
“I know! And I don’t like that they only hire girls and make them wear tiny cutoff jean shorts.” Emmy made a face at Avery, who giggled in response. “Come on, we’ll go get the cotton balls.”
Emmy led Avery down the hall, leaving Levi and me alone in the kitchen.
“Would you mind turning on the faucet so I can check for leaks?” he asked.
“Sure.”
Tiptoeing through the bottles, I edged along his body. The easiest way to reach the faucet would be to plant one foot on either side of his torso, but I considered myself a lady. Instead, I reached diagonally across the counter to make an awkward grab for the gleaming new handle. “You weren’t kidding about your family putting you to work,” I said over the rushing water.
“Sadly, no,” he said, in a tone that betrayed how much he didn’t mind being needed. “But I should have been doing this stuff all year. It’s my fault. You can turn it off now. Thanks.”
I did as he requested and stepped away, giving him room to negotiate his way out of the cabinet. He stood, tugging the hem of his shirt back to his waistline. The “howdy” grin he gave me was a little cockeyed, as modest as it was self-assured. Turning his sweaty back to me, he scraped gray putty from around the edges of the new faucet. I studied Avery’s lenses, testing the paint with a scrape of my thumbnail just to have something to do.
Avery sped into the kitchen ahead of Emmy, as giddy as if she’d found a pile of presents waiting on her birthday.
“Somebody’s in a good mood today,” I teased. “But Miss Emmy’s about to see what it’ll take to earn her keep. It’s medicine time.”
Avery moaned as I dug out a package of cookies and the bubble-gum-flavored allergy medicine. “Do you want to give it to her?” I asked Emmy as I measured it out. “She gets a cookie if she doesn’t try to knock the cup out of your hands, two if she doesn’t whine at all. She rarely gets two cookies.”
Emmy took the cup of pink liquid and sniffed it. “Mmm, smells good,” she said exaggeratedly. Avery pursed her lips with the “you shall not pass” expression I knew well.
“I have to take medicine, too,” Emmy said. “But mine doesn’t taste nearly this yummy. If you don’t take it, I sure will.”
Like I hadn’t tried that one before. But Avery tilted her head back so Emmy could pour the syrup in her mouth. The little punk swallowed and licked her lips, conveniently deciding it might not be poisonous swamp muck. I surrendered the cookies. “I stand corrected.”
“Can I take her out to the tire swing?” Emmy asked.
“Tire swing!” Avery repeated, her mouth coated in wet cookie crumbles.
“Sure, I’ll bring her glasses out when I’m done. Just remember that she can’t see much.”
The back door banged shut behind Emmy and Avery as they crossed the green lawn. Levi leaned against the counter and wiped his hands on a rag, his pensive features directed at the floor.
The spray paint came off easily, and soon Avery’s glasses were so clean the lenses sparkled. Levi stood there, absentmindedly brushing the calluses on his hands.
“Guess I should bring these out,” I said. “I need to go get ready for the lake trip.”
“Do you want water or coffee before you go?” he asked, remembering his manners. “I just made a fresh pot.”
“Water would be great,” I said. Or a cold shower.
Levi filled a glass from the cabinet and handed it to me. I tried not to notice the tips of his warm fingers brushing mine.
“You know, your mom doesn’t seem like the type to display human sexuality books on the shelves in her entryway,” I said.
A laugh shook his chest. Something about the sound warmed me, like hearing the first Christmas song of the winter season on the radio. “Those were my dad’s. It would probably embarrass her that you noticed. You want to see something even more surprising?”
I couldn’t help but grin at the mischievous lift of his brow. “Of course.”
He jerked his head. I followed him back to the front of the house. As we passed the den with the family portrait, I stared at the image of Mr. Langford. The red hair had skipped a generation—Levi’s dad had had hickory brown hair and a beard of the same color—but his hazel eyes and height matched Levi’s exactly. The seniors at San Solano High had all adored Mr. Langford’s gregarious personality, poetic spirit, and participation-based grading system. Last year, I’d looked forward to being in his class.
Levi led me upstairs to a study with an oak desk and hundreds of books on the built-in shelves. The attic door on the far side of the room stood open, boxes scattered in front of it.
“I started cleaning out the attic and found some of my parents’ old stuff.” Weaving through the boxes, he reached behind the desk to retrieve a large canvas. “Imagine Jennifer Langford, small-town realtor, volunteer Baptist event coordinator, and”—he flipped it over—“painter of nudes.”