Chapter 27

Okay, so now they were going to play this game? “You’ll think it’s stupid.”

He slapped the Velcro tabs on his boot over, pressed them into place. “Leaving you was stupid, but necessary. And by the way—a caveat. Anything you did, after, dear God, I hope it was stupid. Stupid and full of life and silliness and trust in what’s to come. Please, dear god, tell me it was stupid.”

She stood back, stunned. Hadn’t she said those very words, or something like them to him once?

“Don’t ask me where I learned that, okay? So…what was it? Money? Deed to a chunk of land? Answers, Missy!”

She shook her head. “Okay, if you must know. The very first night we were here, after we paid the bank the first bit of cash, I hid something up here.”

His eyes widened into a get on with it already query.

“A time capsule. Of our lives.”

He tilted his head, thoroughly into it. “You did?”

“I did. It was like a remembrance of our lives to date, you know? Here we are now…where will we be in three years, type of thing. Little girl stuff.”

“You said…three years?”

“I did.” She shrugged. “What does it matter now? Everything’s changed. So even though it’s 3 years now, tonight actually…nothing’s the same. Everything’s different. We didn’t have a life together, didn’t build anything. Together. So it really doesn’t apply anymore. And the worst of it is…”

“How the hell doesn’t it apply? You’ve lived, I’ve lived.”

She shook her head from side to side, as if balancing the thoughts. “Yeah, but we’re not together. I mean, we are for these few short hours…but we won’t be, soon. So, I don’t even care about seeing it. I really don’t.”

He crooked his head to the side, an irritated look washing over his face, nodding to the jumble of blankets that still lay in a heap where they’d just made love. “You don’t call that together?”

Her face registered a flush of heat. “Well yeah, but…”

“And the fact that we thought about each other, wanted the best for each other, hell, wished we could be together if everything was different…and neither of us really replaced the other—that doesn’t count?” He pulled on the other boot almost angrily, slapped his foot into it, yanked the press tabs, smacked them with his palm. “None of that counts?”

So now she was getting chewed out by the guy that had loved her, pledged his life to her forever, then left her abruptly, and stayed away without a word for three years.

Interesting turn of affairs.

“I know I have to leave, but shit. When you consider this time capsule thing, I think you should view it as…viable. Important. Even though we’ve only got a short time left together.”

He had to remind her. The tears started to peek out.

Damnit.

She wanted to hide it all from him, be a good trooper, but it didn’t work. The tears welled and slid, despite her internal demand to them to stay put, bury themselves.

Evaporate. Be gone.

They covered her cheeks, ran jubilantly down her face. He wasn’t actually looking at her now, was looking for his jacket, it seemed. Quickly smearing them away, she spoke. “Sorry. I’m such a mess. I’m really on board with all of this stuff you have to do…and with the time capsule thingy too.”

“Where’d you hide it?”

She sniffed, a little incredulous he hadn’t come over and hugged her, with the weepy thing going in her voice. His actions were jerky though, as if his muscles had tightened.

“In the wall, just over to the side of the air register that had been in this room. Over there. But it’s gone. There’s only one register now, and it wasn’t that one. I know it was there. Even though it was three years ago, I know where I hid the darn thing.”

“Is that what you were slamming on about, up here, earlier?”

“That? No, that was just when you’d ticked me off. I got it out of my system.”

He gave her a quick, on-purpose fake smile, then moved on. “Ha ha. How were you planning to get it out?”

“I brought some basic tools to pry it out of the wall if it was stubborn. In my bag. I thought I’d mark it out with a pencil, the spot it might be, then take the crowbar and pry that baseboard off the wall, carefully. Tap around on the drywall to where it sounds hollow, then…”

He knelt, started tapping on the wall. Investigative, just like when he was hunting down a code discrepancy. And as she searched his face, she saw it. The shine in his eyes.

He was having fun.

Eli, pre-mess Eli, was back. If only for this short time.

And the damn house knew it.

Something stirred in her.

Eli spoke. “It’s tight here. I think we have to use the stuff you brought.”

“But won’t that cause more issues?”

“I checked things over earlier. The reason that happened…” He apparently saw the glaze in her eyes. “Okay, shutting up now. But it’s all good. Safe. Can take whatever is dished out.”

“So if we’re super careful…”

But he wasn’t listening to her anymore. Didn’t stop, didn’t even glance at her. “Darn ticking. Again,” he muttered. “I know it’s here. Give me just a sec…”

He walked over to her bag, grabbed the sledgehammer out of it. Hefting it in his grip, he stalked over to the wall, eye-balled it for a second, then swung at the middle of it. The room shook as the wall imploded, a big bruise on it, with additional marks on it where the wall was weakening. “Like this?”

She stalked over beside him, her arm in front of her mouth, coughing. “What are you doing? You’re wrecking the wall. Worse than I did. This gorgeous old house…”

He stopped for a second in mid-swing, widened his eyes. Let her watch the path his gaze took, as he performed it. To the hole in the ceiling, the jumbled-up crap from the upstairs pseudo-attic hanging through into the room. “You were saying?”

He pursed his lips, watching her, his fingers still curled around the block hammer. “Here.” He shoved it at her, and her fingers gripped the wooden handle as if they had a life of its own. “Use this, and put some muscle into it.”

So she did.

Eli grabbed the crowbar, and they got to work. They bashed and smashed, and dust swirled around them. For an old house slated possibly for demolition, it was built strong. He pulled out big chunks of the dry wall, bare-handed, whooping. She started whooping too as the hole grew larger, and together they pulled out a substantial part of the wall. When they got to the bottom, Eli stopped her. “Careful now. Let me.”

He maneuvered some of the bigger pieces out, then the smaller ones. And lo and behold, the vent appeared.

“I knew there’d been a register there!”

“You were right.” He nodded, working to give them full access around it.

“Let me!” Fiddling around the side of it, she pushed her fingers in, felt something. Got a tentative hold around it, and sucked in a deep breath. “Here. It’s here.” She was so excited she just about dropped it, her fingers sliding on it.

But it came out, obstacles overcome. She drew out a small box, with trembling hands.

They stared at it quietly for a moment, and Eli whistled. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” she breathed. She went to unlatch it, then open the cover, but suddenly, something occurred to her. “How did you know I’d buried this in the wall?”

He smiled. “I came up here that night, cause I couldn’t figure out how to get that stupid tea-kettle thing to work. I got to the doorway, and you were…awesome.”

Darn it all if she didn’t blush again. “Sans clothes.”

“Naked. Back to me. Bare, everywhere. Bent over. Just the way I like you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

The lecherous grin pleased her.

“Okay, enough stalling. Open it!”