Love on the Ledge (2 page)

“I hate to break it to you,
nena
,” Leti says, “but nice guys don’t just fall from the sky.”

“That’s why I don’t pray for miracles.”

I reach for my sundress to change into, but a loud noise makes me jump back. Sunlight filters through the ceiling, which is strange because there isn’t a skylight. River grabs Leti and falls back just as the ceiling gives way. There’s a scream, the snap and crunch of wood, the shattering of glass, and a sack falls through the hole in the roof. Dust and sheetrock fill the room with tiny clouds. I cough when I accidentally inhale it. That can’t be healthy.

“Are you guys okay?” River asks.

The sack moans a response.

I jump back.

It’s not a sack.

It’s a guy.

A very beautiful, shirtless, unconscious guy.

I run to the guy on the pile of sheetrock and shingles.

Behind me, the girls run to go get help. The other construction workers are already clambering inside, shouting after their colleague.

I press my fingers on his pulse.

“Let me get him,” a guy says, standing over me.

“Don’t move him,” I say.

“It’s all right, sweetie,” he says.

“Which one of us is a nurse?” I stand. Even without my heels, I’m taller than he is. His sweaty face wrinkles and he takes a step back.

A pained groan comes from the pile at our feet.

“Don’t try to sit up,” I say. “You probably have a concussion.”

Maybe even a worse head injury, because he’s just lying there staring at me. Against his skin, golden from days and days of working shirtless on top of roofs or lying out in the sun, his blue eyes are startling bursts of light.

He blinks repeatedly. There’s blood where a nail has skewered his shoulder, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He just keeps staring.

At the door, River and Leti are in a fit of giggles.

My mom, aunt, and uncles run into the room. An older man with a beer belly follows at a leisurely pace. His shirt has the white letters “Robertson Roofing & Co.” printed across it.

“Sky!” my mom shouts. Her brown eyes are manic and wide. In Spanish she yells, “
Ponte decente
!”

“What?”

When I look down, I realize I’m naked. Or mostly naked. I’ve got on a demi-bra and a thong. I can feel my skin turn hot and red.
Shit. Shit. Shit.

I point a finger at my Uncle Pepe. “It’s his fault. What else are we supposed to wear when the dress is practically see-through?”

“Don’t blame the artist, honey,” Pepe says.

Save face
, I think. Even though my hands are trembling and I’m trying to avoid my friends snickering at my predicament, I grab my pajama shirt hanging from the doorknob (my sundress is covered in sheetrock) and put it on. It falls down to my knees. I try not to think that this shirt used to be Bradley’s. That I promised myself I’d throw it out.

“Did anyone call an ambulance?” I ask evenly.

The old man clears his throat, more angry than afraid for his employee. “Aw, not to worry, dear. He hits his head alda time. Never fell tru a roof before. This one’s a first.”

“Am I the only one who thinks he needs medical attention?”

All the onlookers take turns staring at each other. That’s the problem with people. No one wants to take action unless it’s approved by someone else. I see it all the time at the hospital. People would bring their injured friends in too late, and when we would ask why, they just “weren’t sure.” I’ve been surrounded by unsure people for too long.

The injured guy in question now groans some more. “I’m okay,” he says.

“Sit back,” I tell him.

But he ignores me. “No, really. My dad’s right. I hit my head a lot.”

Under his breath the father says something like, “Knocked the sense out of him long ago.”

I can’t believe that’s his father. If I got a paper cut my mom would insist we go to the ER. Sure, she’s a borderline hypochondriac, and maybe her smothering might
possibly
be linked to my failed relationships, but at least I know she cares.

When he stands, he’s the tallest person in the room. Not as tall as Bradley. Bradley was slimmer too. This guy, with his blond hair that reminds me of polished gold, is built like someone who’s spent his whole life working hard. His broad chest, covered in sheetrock, sweat, and a little bit of blood from the scrapes on his way down, wasn’t built at the gym, but by carrying loads of—well, whatever roofers carry, I guess.

“Really, I’m okay.” he says. His voice is brighter than I thought. You know when you look at a guy and you expect this gruff, brooding voice to come out of his mouth? This guy is the opposite. His voice is
light
if that’s possible. Not high-pitched or anything. Just bright. Light. Carefree. “Thanks for your concern, everyone.”

He looks at his dad, who has already turned around and is in a huddle with Uncle Tony, probably about turning the small job into a bigger one. Pepe screams when he sees my bridal gown in the heap. He pulls it out of the rubble.

The Fallen Roofer winces. “Sorry about that.”

Pepe looks him up and down. He wants to say, “It’s okay.” But he just shakes his head and carries the gown out of the room.

“Okay, party’s over, people,” I say.

When River, Leti, and Las Viejas don’t move, I snap. “Get out of my room!”

They all hold their hands up at my vitriol and turn away.

“Not
you
,” I tell the Fallen Roofer.

He turns around, massaging his neck. He quirks an eyebrow and points to his chest in a “who me?” kind of way.

“If you’re not going to get that hard head of yours checked out, then at least let me help with the bleeding.”

He’s backing away slowly, twisting and turning his torso. I know he’s trying to stretch out the kinks, but all it does is make the muscles in his abdomen ripple. Why are muscles so delicious to look at? Underneath the skin it’s just soft tissue and cells and…what was I talking about again?

In this light, with those big blue eyes, golden skin, and lush blond hair, he’s almost angelic. The kind of angel that falls out of heaven for being too beautiful. Or falls through a roof. Same diff. All I know is looking at his six-pack, I’m thinking I’m going to need an extra ice pack. One to put on his neck, and one to smack myself with. Am I
blushing?

“Sure thing, Doc.” His periwinkle eyes are the kind of eyes that are always smiling.

I go to the bathroom and pull the first aid kit out from under the sink. “I’m not a doctor. Nurse. Sit.”

“Are you sure?” He points to the white couch. “I’m dirty.”

“Just sit down, okay?” I say in the voice I use on my patients who don’t want me to change their lines and don’t want to stay still.

“Yes, Nurse.” He says nurse in a way that makes my belly tingle.

Then I realize something. “Hold this.”

I run into the bathroom and pull on the pajama pants discarded on the floor. When I come back out he looks a tad disappointed.

“Harvard girl,” he says, looking at my oversized pajamas.

This time the blush comes with a dull pain and a familiar headache. I shake my head. How can I say these are not my pajamas without seeming like a crazy ex-girlfriend who still sleeps in her ex-boyfriend’s old college rags?

“I went to Stony Brook, actually,” I say.

“Local girl.” He watches every step I take from the bathroom and back to him.

My room is huge. Bigger than the studio I had in Boston. But the way he looks at me makes it feel teeny tiny. It’s like he takes up all of it with his bare chest and golden hair.

Without another word I clean the back of his shoulder where a nail got a good dig. I take a pair of tweezers and pluck out tiny bits of plaster and wood. When I rip open an antiseptic wipe he jumps up.

“I’m good. Great, actually. I’ll be fine. I have to go back out and help the guys load up the truck.”

“Don’t be a baby.”

He groans, making him look all of twelve. “I’m a twenty-five year old baby, thank you very much.”

But he sits, and before he can jump away again I press the wipe on the cut. I can’t help but laugh.

“I’m glad my pain is funny to you,” he says.

“I’m not laughing
at you
. I’m laughing at the fact that you’re this big guy who fell through a roof, but this you have a problem with.”

“It’s a certain kind of pain that I don’t like. I can take punches. It’s just those little pains, like pouring chemicals on an open wound or lemon in a paper cut or stubbing your toe when you’re fumbling around in the dark on the way to the bathroom. Those little pains are the worst.”

I make a face I’m glad he can’t see. I take a square bandage and tape it on the back of his shoulder. “Then I’m glad you’ve never had necrotizing fasciitis.”

“Me too,” he says, rolling his eyes like he totally understands me. “Sounds terrible.”

“Well,” I say, walking back around him, “do you have bandages at home? Put another on after you shower. If it gets infected your whole shoulder is going to come off.”

“You’re the meanest nurse in Nurse Town,” he tells me.

I bite the smile from my lips and turn away from him. “You’re dismissed.”

He stands and walks backward toward the door. “That’s it? I don’t get a lollipop or a kiss or something?”

Kiss. The word makes my stomach flutter in a way River saying “laid” never could. I busy myself with putting the first aid kit back together. He stands at the door waiting for me to say something. Flirt. He’s flirting. Why can’t I, even if I kind of want to?

“You can have someone clean up the mess you made,” I say.

He scratches the back of his head and winces at the pain he discovers there. “Sure thing. I just need your name so I can fill out a cleaning order.”

I give him The Eye. “Nurse.”

“Nurse,” he says. “Is that a family name?”

I don’t laugh. I mean, I’m laughing, but I don’t let the laugh leave my lips. My inner self is kicking my outer self. He’s gorgeous. He’s dirty and will probably be blooming with black and blues tomorrow, but he’s absolutely gorgeous. It radiates from inside of him.

“I’m Tripp,” he says. “In case you were wondering.”

“That’s not a real name. I refuse to call you that.”

He looks affronted and stands a little taller. “Hayden Robertson the Third. Tripp? Like triple?”

Now I can’t help but let the laugh out. “I thought it might be Tripp like in triple shot of espresso. You have enough energy.”

He smirks. It’s a lovely smirk. “It’s kind of my superpower.”

“Mine’s wedding planning.”

He takes a step closer, away from the door. My senses are on alarm. He should stop being charming. Stop doing what he’s doing because it makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. Makes my stomach do jumping jacks. Makes me want to take these stupid Harvard pajamas off, and not just because it’s about time, but because he is the most beautiful creature I’ve seen in a long time, or maybe ever.

But then his dad stands at the doorway, and he stops mid-step. “Tripp, let’s go. Hill and Sanders are going to clean up. Get your sorry ass packing up the truck.”

The old man nods at me and storms out of the house.

“See you tomorrow, Nurse,” Tripp says, lingering.

I swallow the nervous laughter bubbling up in me and wave, hoping he doesn’t see how much he’s rattled me.

Because my room has permanently become a construction site, I get to upgrade to the balcony room upstairs. Pepe was going to use it on the eve of the wedding so the groom wouldn’t see the groom before the ceremony, but now he’s relocated to the pool house.

The upside to my new digs is that I have a direct view of the lawn and pool. The downside is that’s where my cousins inevitably take over, and their loud mouths will ruin my peace and quiet.

When Uncle Tony bought this house in his twenties, this part of the neighborhood wasn’t as ritzy as it is now. The Hamptons are, of course, the summer getaway for celebrities and for New York’s richest. The house might be a wing short of a mansion, but when he bought it, it was abandoned, and over time he renovated it himself to his liking. Thirty years later, he met the man of his dreams—my Uncle Pepe, the only openly gay member of our immigrant, Catholic, Ecuadorian family.

Tony worked in stocks and retired early. Pepe is a fashion designer who has every starlet wearing his gowns on red carpets. They’re the American dream, and they treat me like the daughter they never had.

Pepe even named me. I owe him a huge one. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be Guadalupe Lopez, and I got enough shit in middle school ranging from “Are you J.Lo’s cousin?” to “She thinks she’s too good for us because she’s light-skinned,” to my favorite, “Her ass ain’t even all that.”

The downside of being named Sky is that in college the people asked, “Wow, where is that from?”

“It’s English, you idiot,” I wanted to say. But it was their polite way of asking my race without seeming rude. Tan skin and light eyes really seem to confuse people.

My eyes, the bipolar green-hazel, and my last name are the only things I inherited from my father before he left us high and dry. In solitary moments like this, standing at my balcony sipping a cold cup of milk and coffee, I briefly wonder where he is.

The morning after the famous roof accident the workers are right back at it. I crane my neck to see the guys working on the roof. Three of them, and none of them are Hayden Robertson III. There’s no way in hell I’d ever call him Tripp, even to myself.

Bradley was Bradley Edward Thorton IV. Before I let myself go down that spiral, I run back inside where the air conditioning is a sweet respite from the heat.

“Sky!” Leti yells from downstairs. “Breakfast!”

Before everyone started arriving for the wedding, I could sit by the pool without having to listen to the chitter chatter of Las Viejas discussing my break up in Spanish. It’s a good thing I don’t speak it, and only just understand it. They’re worse than a high school cafeteria gossip squad, because after they discuss my failure to maintain a man, they cross themselves and pray for my soul.

“I’m coming!” I shout down the stairs.