he came to quote the kitchen. forty-five minutes, a number on a clipboard, a handshake, and then i’d go back to eating cereal over the sink like a woman whose life was fine.
his name was Dale. he showed up in a gray work shirt with the sleeves shoved to the elbow and a tape measure on his hip. he said “ma’am” once, saw my face, and said “sorry, habit.” i laughed for the first time in what felt like three weeks. the divorce papers had been signed since March. the house had been mine since April. nobody had touched me since a long time before either of those. i’m being honest here, because who is there to lie to.
he measured everything, knocked on the wall by the stove, and listened to it like a doctor. he got down on one knee and looked under the sink and said “huh” in a way that cost me probably four thousand dollars. i stood in the doorway holding my own elbows and watched his back move under that shirt, longer than a sink inspection called for.
“okay,” he said, standing up, knees cracking. “i can have a number for you tomorrow. emailed. nothing crazy.”
“you want coffee?” i said. it came out of me before i’d decided. “i just made a pot. it’s, it’s probably bad.”
he looked at the pot, then at me, and said “i could do a coffee.”
so he sat at my kitchen table, in the chair that used to be my husband’s, and i stood there leaning on the counter with my mug. we talked about nothing. his truck. my sister. a guy he’d worked for who wanted a bidet in the pantry. he had big hands and he wrapped both of them around the mug like it was February. my neck was sweating.
he finished the coffee and i thought okay, that’s the end of it. he’ll stand up, say thanks, and i’ll watch the truck back out of the driveway.
instead he looked past me and said, “your cabinet’s hanging.”
“my what?”
“that one. over the toaster. door’s about an inch off.” he stood up and crossed the kitchen. i stayed where i was, so for a second he was right there, right against my side, the heat of him, sawdust and a little sweat and whatever soap lives in a man’s truck. he reached past me and swung the cabinet door. it dropped crooked on its one good hinge, made this sad squeak.
“that’s been like that since february,” i said. “he kept saying he’d get to it.”
“hinge is stripped. screw’s just spinning.” he pulled a little screwdriver thing out of his back pocket. an actual multi-tool. i swear to god that was the moment. the pocket. a man who had a tool on him for the thing in front of him.
it took him four minutes: a toothpick out of somewhere, some wood glue out of the truck, and he packed the hole. then he held the door up with one hand and drove the screw with the other, his arm stretched across the front of me, his forearm tendons going tight. i could see the little hairs on it. i could see a scar across his knuckle. the glue smelled like a school project. my knees had gone loose and i was breathing through my mouth, trying to do it quietly.
he swung the door. it closed flush. clicked. that sound was the nicest thing the house had said to me all year.
“there,” he said. “give the glue an hour.”
“i don’t,” i said, and my voice cracked, “i don’t have a lot of an hour.”
he looked at me, gone still with the screwdriver in his hand.
“what do you mean?”
“i mean,” i said. “i don’t know. i mean i’d really like to ask you something that isn’t about the kitchen.”
he put the screwdriver down on the counter, very carefully, like it might go off. “okay.”
“and you can say no. then you leave, you send me the number, and we never talk about it.”
“okay,” he said again. quieter.
“would you,” i said, and then i couldn’t say the rest. so i grabbed the front of that gray shirt in my fist and pulled.
he met me halfway. thank god. thank god he met me, because if he hadn’t i think i’d have lain down on the linoleum and died. his mouth was warm and tasted like my bad coffee. he kissed like he had all day, slow and a little rough on the lip. then not slow. his hand slid up the back of my neck into my hair and gripped. i made a noise i did not know i still had.
“you sure?” he said against my mouth.
“if you stop i’ll hit you with that screwdriver.”
he laughed, a short surprised huff, and then he picked me up.
just picked me up. hands under my ass, and he sat me on the counter like i weighed nothing, right by the toaster, right under the cabinet he’d just fixed. my feet didn’t touch the floor and he stepped in between my knees. i wrapped my legs around his hips and could feel him through his work pants, hard already, thick against my thigh. i said “oh” out loud, to nobody, to the ceiling.
“yeah,” he said into my neck, kind of rueful. “sorry. it’s been a while for me too.”
“don’t you dare be sorry.”
i got his shirt up and off, and he had a working chest, the chest of a man who lifts drywall for a living, a little soft at the middle with hair across it. i put my mouth on it and he let out a breath that shook. he was doing the buttons on my blouse and getting it wrong, fumbling, big fingers. i said “just rip it.” he said “that’s a nice blouse.” i said “i don’t care.” he did. one pop and the buttons skittered across the counter and into the sink. he pushed my bra up and took my nipple in his mouth and sucked, hard, with a little scrape of teeth. i grabbed the edge of the counter with both hands and said his name like a curse.
“Dale. Dale, oh my god. take them off. take my pants off.”
he undid my jeans with one hand, still sucking. i lifted my ass and he dragged jeans and underwear down together. they caught on my ankle and he just yanked. one foot came out. the rest hung off my other leg like a flag. i was sitting bare on a cold counter in front of a stranger, and i felt shameless.
he looked down at me, just looked, then said, low, “you’re soaked.”
“i’ve been soaked since you looked under the sink.”
“you’re kidding.”
“your knee on the floor,” i said. “i don’t know. the knocking on the wall.”
he groaned, honestly groaned, and then he went down on his knees. right there on my kitchen floor, the same knee he’d had by the cabinet. he got his hands under my thighs and pulled me to the edge and put his mouth on me.
oh my god.
where he learned it, i have no idea. he was patient and sloppy and so sure of himself. flat tongue, then just the tip, then sucking at me gently until my hips started rocking on their own. when i tried to get away from it he held me down with one forearm across my belly. i said something. i said a lot of things. my hand was in his hair, tight. his stubble was scratching the inside of my thighs. the toaster got knocked sideways. i didn’t care. when he slid two fingers into me, thick, curling them up, i came so hard i hit my head on the cabinet.
the fixed one. it held.
“you okay?” he said, looking up at me, chin shining, a little worried.
i was laughing. tears too. both at once. “i hit my head and i’m great. please. come here. please get up here.”
he stood and i unbuckled him, my hands shaking so badly it took three tries, then shoved his pants and shorts down. he sprang out heavy and flushed and thick, thicker than i expected, curving up a little, with a bead at the tip already. i wrapped my hand around him and my fingers didn’t meet.
“jesus,” i said.
“too much?”
“no. god, no. i’ve just been starving.”
he leaned his forehead on mine and breathed. i jerked him, slow, twisting at the head. he swore, quiet. “fuck, careful, careful or i’m gonna.” i said “not yet,” pulled him to me, put the head right against where i was wet and open, and looked him in the eye.
he pushed in.
slow. so slow. it burned a little, the good kind, it’d been so long. i dug my heels into the backs of his thighs and said “more.” he gave me more, inch by inch, until his hips were flat against me and i was full, so full, it felt like i could taste it. he was shaking. we both were.
“you feel,” he started, and didn’t finish.
“i know.”
then he moved. my ass slid on the counter with every thrust and he caught me and held me still by the hips. the whole kitchen rattled. mugs, the toaster, the dumb little magnet on the fridge. i heard myself, loud, saying yes and right there and oh fuck. he kept saying my name. my actual name, which i had told him once, an hour ago, and he’d kept it.
“not here,” i gasped. “my back, the counter, the, take me to bed. please. i want to be flat on a bed.”
he didn’t pull out. he grabbed my thighs and hoisted me up with me still on him. i yelped. he carried me down the hall like that, stumbling, bumping the wall. a framed photo of my ex’s parents knocked crooked. neither of us stopped. i bit his shoulder to keep from screaming. every step pushed him deeper.
he dropped me on the bed, the unmade one, the sheets i hadn’t washed in a week. neither of us cared.
he got on top of me and put my knees up by my ribs and fucked me, properly, long hard strokes, slapping, the headboard banging the wall. i pulled him down by the neck and kissed him. sweat dripped off his chin onto my collarbone. he reached between us and found my clit with his thumb and rubbed it in tight circles, steady, one rhythm, like he’d measured me.
“i’m close,” i said. “oh god, don’t you move. don’t change anything.”
“i got you.”
“don’t you dare change.”
“i got you. come on. come on me.”
it came up from my feet. my whole body locked, back arching off the sheets, a noise tearing out of me, past words. i clenched around him so hard he cursed. he said “fuck, fuck, you’re.” his rhythm went ragged. he buried himself to the root and shuddered and came, groaning against my ear, hot, pulsing, deep inside me. i held on to him and kept coming, small aftershocks, until he collapsed and we were a wet heap breathing.
the headboard ticked once against the wall. then quiet.
“well,” Dale said into my hair, after a while. “that’s not in the quote.”
i laughed so hard i shook him off me. we lay there on our backs staring at the ceiling fan. my thighs were sticky. i had a button in my hair, i don’t know how. my legs were still doing the shaky thing.
he left around six, after we ate cold pasta standing at the counter, both of us in my robe and his work shirt, a very stupid picture. he kissed me at the door, a real one, and took a long time getting into his truck.
the email came at 9:40 that night. subject: Kitchen Estimate / Invoice. i opened it expecting a number.
Demo, cabinets, countertops, labor: $14,200. Credit for time already on site: $0.
Additional services rendered today:
Cabinet hinge repair (over toaster), parts and labor: $0. No charge.
Rest of services: pending. Customer to advise whether she’d like to schedule a follow-up visit. Estimated time on site: all night. Payment terms: dinner first.
P.S. Glue should be dry by now. You should check it. I’ll bring the screwdriver.
i read it three times, in bed, in the sheets that smelled like him, grinning at my phone like an idiot.
then i typed back: Approved. Bring the toothpicks too.
