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CHAPTER TWO: HUNGER MOON - PART THREE
God damnit! Dawn climbed the stairs to her apartment, all the tension she’d gone down to the garden to get rid of back with a vengeance. Instead of joining Russ to deal with the dryer, Tucker had lingered by her willow tree, hovering over her shoulder and asking questions about what she was reading.
She’d tried to tell him it was a book for class — some teaching manual or something — but she knew he hadn’t believed her, sensing her caginess and pouncing on it. Of course, he would have to catch her reading a fucking sex scene. The memory was humiliating, hearing him teasingly ask what kind of teaching manual talked about rippling abs or thrusting hips.
This was why it ought to be illegal for people to read over people’s shoulders! It’d sucked all the joy out of what had been a lovely afternoon. Not to mention turning an absolutely thrilling chapter into an awkward mess that had completely killed the mood.
As she dug out her keys, she wondered why it hadn’t bothered her to have Russ around, like it did with Tucker. Probably because Russ always gave her space, never crowding her. Never looked at her with expectations in his eyes. Never talked to her with words that seemed to wait and want for answers or actions she didn’t want to give.
Oh, Russ desired her. There was no mistaking that hot, roving look in his eyes, whenever he thought she wasn’t watching him. But he never made wanting her feel like he wanted, like he expected, something from her. Which, oddly — maybe foolishly — pulled her in. As if the more he made her staying not feel like a big deal, the less she wanted to leave.
Truth was, she liked being around him. Liked watching him work. She enjoyed the way his broad back and shoulders flexed when he pruned, visible even in his loose-fitting clothes. Was intrigued by the way the muscles in his thighs moved when he crouched over bushes or knelt on the ground. There was a grace and savage elegance in the fine lines of his arms and hands and fingers. And the competent, confident way he touched things made her mind wander in… interesting, if thoroughly inappropriate, directions. It made her want to know what else he touched like that.
Which was just more fanciful mind fluff. Probably from reading too much. She really needed to stop that. Shaking her head, she stuck her key in her door with a bit too much effort.
She frowned as the door budged, even before she turned her key. That was odd. She pushed the still locked door, feeling it give, the door not quite open but definitely not shut. Curious, she gave it a hard shove and, while it still didn’t open fully, she was almost certain it would with two or three more good tries. That wasn’t good. She should tell someone. Call someone.
She imagined Tucker, waiting by his phone for her call, and wanted to groan. He was her building’s caretaker. He was the person she was supposed to call.
“You should call Russ.”
Dawn looked up, hearing her own thoughts echoed. Grace, her neighbor across the hall, nodded at Dawn’s door, while her teenage son moved past her into the other apartment. “That’s not safe,” Grace said with a motherly tut that was pure no-nonsense with a healthy dose of care. “And I wouldn’t trust…” she pointed down at their feet with a whisper, her gold-tipped nails a perfect complement to her teak-toned skin. “I don’t care how much he hangs around or how much he smiles at you or how many promises he makes, he’s not the one you call if you actually need work done.” She shook her head. “Swore up and down for months to fix my window, when the wood rotted the frame. One call to Russ and that boy fixed it right up.”
Dawn smiled at the idea of Russ being a boy but, looking at the fiftyish black woman, Dawn supposed it was all relative.
“Strictly speaking, he’s not supposed to do work on our side of the complex,” Grace said with a dismissive wave. “But he will, if you ask, since he knows Tucker too often can’t or, at least, can’t be bothered.” She smiled fondly. “Bless him.”
Dawn nodded and thanked Grace, glad at least someone else in this place appreciated Russ. But she didn’t really like the idea of bothering him. She didn’t want to get him in any kind of trouble. Not over a door. It seemed like something she should be able to fix herself. Maybe by tightening the bolts or realigning the hinges. Sure, she was perfectly capable. She’d worked on a farm, for crying out loud! She could fix one lousy door.
Besides, after reading in the garden for a couple of hours, she really needed to charge her phone to make a call and, when she’d looked for it before, she hadn’t been able to find the cord. It was probably hidden somewhere in the half-unpacked mess still cluttering her apartment. She knew she should finish unpacking or she’d end up spending the rest of her life looking for her things. But, without her mother to scold her, Dawn just couldn’t muster up the energy. And, now, she had repairs to make. On her own. Like the independent adult she was.
That decided, she turned the key and opened the door fully. She flicked her hallway switch, to give her more light, only to find it busted. Of freakin’ course. Damnit! This was just not her day.
She took a deep breath. Okay. Change the light first, fix the door later. Simple enough. She definitely didn’t need anyone’s help changing a lightbulb. So she shut the door, not even bothering to lock it, and grabbed her stepladder. First step: unscrew the fixture. Easy. She climbed the ladder and reached up.
Problem was: she was short. On all four legs, she was just over five feet tall. But, if she reared up on her hind legs, she could definitely reach. She’d have to be careful, of course, but she could do it. So, standing on the top step, she cautiously straightened, lifting her front legs until they rested precariously on the handrail of the ladder. She hooked her fetlocks around it, so her hooves could grip the metal bar — as much as hooves could — and reached up.
The light fixture was held to the ceiling with little twisty screws that her fingers, as slim and nimble as they were, could just barely turn. As it was, while the first two were reasonably easy to unscrew, the third absolutely refused to budge. Great.
She held the bottom of the fixture, to keep it from hanging from the ceiling on its last screw like some gaping porcelain maw, and turned her head this way and that, leaning on the rickety ladder to see if there was some trick or secret she was missing. But there didn’t seem to be one. It just needed sheer brute force. With her tiny, pinching, somewhat sore fingers. So, stepping fully onto the handrail with her front legs, to give herself more leverage, she gripped the stubborn screw and twisted.
She knew it’d been a bad idea the moment she felt the teetery stepladder tip, taking her down with it as it crashed onto the floor. Ow. She let out a small shriek when the fixture, no longer being held up by more than one rusted, partially undone screw, snapped under its weight and fell to the floor next to her. Shit! She panted and stared at the jagged edge where the rim had shattered in its battle between gravity and screw. She clutched a hand to her racing heart. Thank God it landed on the carpet and not on her. That could have been bad. Well, at least no one was here to see her screw-up.
Practically predictably — that errant thought alone fucking tempting fate — her door burst open, causing her to scream as a panicked person rushed in. “Are you okay!”
From the floor, with her legs still tangled in the stepladder, she looked up at Tucker who stared at her with wild, wide eyes. His chest was heaving as if he’d run up from his apartment. She supposed, if she’d heard a huge crash, she might have too. So she gave him a reassuring, if self-deprecating smile as she rubbed her haunches gingerly. “I’m fine. Just, uh,” she gave a little laugh, “changing a lightbulb.”
He rushed over to her, crouching down next to her. “Don’t move. You might have broken or sprained something.”
When he reached out to touch her leg, Dawn flinched and leapt up to her feet, her tail standing on end. “I’m fine. The only thing bruised—” She winced as she tried to put weight on her left front hoof, only to have pain shoot through the limb. “—is my ego. And, maybe, a twisted fetlock.”
Tucker looked at her questioningly.
“Ankle,” she clarified. “Nothing serious. I’m fine.”
Standing with a frown, Tucker shook his head. “You should sit down. It could be broken or sprained. Maybe I should call a doctor or…”
A vet. Dawn had heard the joke a lot growing up. Though Tucker didn’t look like he was kidding. His usual jovial smile was replaced by a stern, pinched expression. He reached for her again. “Because, you know, when horses break a leg—”
She was not a horse. Gritting her jaw into a tense smile, she skittered out of his reach, while favoring her injured leg, making her less than graceful. “It’s fine. I’d know if it was broken. It’s just twisted. I just need to—”
“—sit down and let me take care of you,” Tucker interrupted as he grabbed her elbow and herded her onto the papasan chair in the corner of her living room. “Just let me take a look.” Dawn frowned while he all but pushed her onto the cushion. “For my sake, please.”
She rolled her eyes and stuck out her limb. She winced as his fingers poked and prodded her leg. God, was this what she’d been like when Russ had cut himself? Invading his space. Touching him unnecessarily. Gushing and fretting all over him like he was some helpless child. How utterly mortifying! No wonder he’d been short with her that day; it must have taken everything he had not to yell at her to get the fuck off him and leave him alone.
Tucker stroked her leg, rubbing his hands up and down its length. “I think you’ll be okay.”
She resisted snorting and rolling her eyes. Barely. “Thank you, doctor.” She looked past him at the mess still cluttering her hallway. “I’m more worried about the light. I think the bulb is busted.”
He frowned at her scoldingly. “Why didn’t you call me? I could’ve changed it for you.” He stood up straight, putting his hands on his hips as he tutted down at her. “This is my job after all.”
She flushed and crossed her arms over her chest. “I didn’t want to bother anyone with something I could do myself.” She turned toward the traitorous fixture, not willing to look up at Tucker as he loomed admonishingly over her. Huffing, she waved her hand at the opened boxes still lining her walls. “Plus, I think I lost my phone charger the other day in all this mess.” Oh, yeah, she was such a capable and independent adult, wasn’t she? What would her mother say?
“You can borrow mine.”
Dawn’s brow furrowed as she stared at the cord in Tucker’s hand. “…Thanks.” Frowning, she took it, because it seemed silly and rude not to. “Lucky you had it on you.”
He shrugged and moved to pick up the stepladder. “I always keep it handy.” He smiled at her before climbing up. “You never know when you might need it.”
She supposed. After all, she could have sworn that she’d put hers in her bag after she’d last unplugged her phone. Moving was such a pain; she’d never lost so many things before. But she supposed that was bound to happen when you uprooted your whole world and planted yourself somewhere new. “Huh, it really is lucky that we have the same phone model.” She frowned as he made a small, noncommittal sound and pulled a lightbulb out of his pocket. What an odd thing to just carry around? But she supposed, as a caretaker, he must change a lot of lights. About to tease him about his over-preparedness, she watched his phone tumble out of his pocket and onto her carpet.
She frowned at the scratched, older model before looking at her bag which held her practically brand new, just-off-the-line phone. It was her first phone of her own, that wasn’t part of her family’s plan, so she might have splurged a bit, getting the latest model with as many bells and whistles as she could afford. His beat-up phone wasn’t even the same brand as hers.
“Uh,” he said, his gaze following hers even as he continued screwing in the new lightbulb. “That’s actually still my old phone. You know, with everything going on, I haven’t had time to get all my contacts switched over yet.” He coughed and stepped down the ladder again to face her. “So you can just go ahead and keep the cord. You know, until I get my new phone up and running.” He flashed her his signature smile. “Someone might as well get some use out of it.”
“…Yeah.” Her gaze narrowed on him and the bead of sweat dripping down his forehead. “…Thanks.”
He wiped his brow and came closer. “Now you can call me whenever you want.” He stood next to her, his leg brushing the chair’s curved edge. “Like for coffee?”
This time she did roll her eyes. “I told you, I don’t have time to date right now.” She felt like they’d had this conversation a hundred times now. Her hands fisted against the chair’s cushions. She’d chosen this chair, when she was sixteen, because she’d loved the idea of sitting down and just sinking into the cloud-like cushion, settling into the utter coziness of it. But it admittedly wasn’t the easiest chair to get out of. Once you were in it, you were in it.
And, right now, she really didn’t want to be. But she also couldn’t quite figure out a dignified way out of it.
He frowned and crossed his arms over his chest as he looked down his nose at her. “Yet you’re out by that dingy dumpster pond every day with Russ, reading your smutty stories.”
Dawn flinched at the hard, harsh tone she’d never heard from him before. That she would never have thought him capable of. He was usually all jokes and smiles; this sudden change seemed… wrong.
The corners of his lips pulled into a smile that never made it to his eyes. He leaned in closer to her. “I mean, teaching manuals.” He let out a mocking snort before arching a superior eyebrow. “Maybe if you went out with me, you wouldn’t need to read manuals anymore.” His hand reached out to tug on one of her curls. “Wouldn’t you rather live it?”
Okay, fuck dignity.
Pushing herself up and out of the chair awkwardly, waving his helping hands away, she limped to her kitchen to get a glass of water, her tail flicking testily. As she took her time drinking it, she tried to tell herself to calm down. That she was letting her temper get the better of her.
But, damnit, his words rubbed her the wrong way. Hitting her ears like something an adult would say to some naive, lovestruck child too ignorant to know her own mind.
And, sure, Dawn might not have a ton of romantic experience. Hard to, when you lived on a farm where most of the workers, aside from the occasional seasonal help who could be fun to have some fleeting fling with, either were family or felt like family.
But, even with her limited experience, she knew that being in a relationship had little to no bearing on her reading habits or preferences. And anyone who thought it should was definitely not anyone she wanted any kind of relationship with.
Slamming her empty cup on the counter, she turned to Tucker, her lips thin and her gaze hard. “I think we should focus on getting the light fixed.” And getting Tucker the hell out of her apartment.
READ PART FOUR
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