No Bunny But You (Holiday Romance Series) (5 page)

“You’re nuts. Are you taking notes on what we’re
doing?”

He spread his hands. “What? We’ve moved
furniture.”

“That’s the kind of detail you’ll need to mention.
Just say something at the first of the piece about needing to clear
the room before you get started.” She handed him the pad she’d
insisted he keep at hand. “Write it down so you will remember to
include it in the segment.”

“Yes, ma’am. Really, really need a boyfriend,” he
finished under his breath, but loud enough that he knew she could
hear.

“If you don’t stop giving me grief, I’ll kick your
sorry tail out of here and you can do this television segment thing
on your own.”

Laughing, Drake made a note on the pad. “You know you
wouldn’t do that. Remember, you still owe me for dumping me when we
were high school kids.”

In the middle of unrolling a sheet of plastic, Molly
turned. “Get over it finally, would you? I just dated Luke Braddock
for three weeks. You and I have been friends for years. Of the two
of you, I think you won.”

“Yes, we have been friends for years.” He’d been
angry and hurt when sixteen year-old Molly had broken up with him
for the flashier Luke Braddock, but when she’d taken her time a few
weeks later to show him how to do a quadratic equation, they’d
started becoming friends.

Drake watched as she measured off the plastic. Molly
had really been his first serious girlfriend. They’d only dated
three or four months, but she’d been his first serious kiss and the
first girl who’d let him get to second base. For a moment, he sat
looking at her, a flash of remembrance holding him to the spot.
Molly’s breast had felt good in his hand. Round and full and soft
with a sweet little kernel of nipple. He’d relived that touch for
months to come, feeling like he had a rocket in his pants.

Getting over her had been difficult, but having her
as a friend turned out to be a close second.

“Next we’re going to tape plastic over the door,” she
said. “A piece over the hall side and another piece over the
bedroom side. Double taping helps keep the dust from the sanding
dust from escaping into the house. We wouldn’t want that because
sanding can leave a gritty coat over everything in the place.”

He made a note on his pad.

Molly handed him a roll of masking tape and she
stepped into the hall to put up that side.

Reflecting that he hadn’t thought for years about
fondling Molly, Drake started taping. It was part of growing up to
learn to segment sexual thoughts away from friends…and parents.
He’d learned that quickly.

“Make a note on your pad,” Molly’s voice was muffled
by the plastic sheeting, “to tell your listeners not to skimp on
the tape. They need to do a really good job at sealing off the
room.”

“Yes, Miss Molly.” He tore off another piece of tape
to secure his side, trying to dismiss his thoughts about her
breasts.

“Smart ass.”

“Just exactly how are you going to get back in here?
Cause I sure as hell don’t know what to do with this sander
thing.”

“It’s a drum sander, you idiot, and I’m coming back
in through the window, which you will open for me.”

“You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that.
Good thing it’s warm today.” He added a note on his pad.
Seal
room tight. Drum sander.

“You should mention that viewers—or your blog
readers, if you use this as a project there—need to make sure they
have a way to get into and out of whatever room they’re working on.
It could be an upstairs bedroom and the window wouldn’t work.”

“Right.” He made another note on the pad.

In a few minutes, he’d finished his side of the seal
and opened the bedroom window for her, the warm Austin spring air
having cleared up from the other day. Molly hoisted her leg over,
reaching up for him to pull her in.

“Thanks. Now, put on one of the masks over there.”
She pointed to the shelf in the closet where she’d placed several
items. “And we’ll get started.”

For the next few hours, Drake learned more than he
ever wanted to know about sanding a wood floor. He took copious
notes and worked harder than a man ought to. Of course, Molly
seemed unflagging. She’d insisted he run the drum sander, using a
contraption called an edging sander to get close to the wall. As he
fumbled his way along, Molly had yelled directions at him over the
noise of the machines.

Learning how to sand the floors without leaving gouge
marks was a tricky thing, he’d realized.

After Molly had showed him how to sand the floor at
the corners of the room by hand, he reflected that he’d seen more
sandpaper than he ever wanted to see in his life.

He stood, brushing his gritty hands against his old
battered khakis.

“Okay,” Molly lifted her mask, “now we vacuum really
good.”

“I have a question.”

“Okay.” She looked at him patiently.

“How is this going to work for a five-minute
television spot? This is a big-assed project.”

“If you ever watched the show, you’d see that
projects like this are filmed at various stages and then edited to
fit the time.”

“Oh.” He made another note on the pad, saying out
loud to himself, “Man, I’m learning all kinds of things.”

“Yes, you are…I hope.”

Between the various stages of the project, Drake went
to the closet to make notes on the pad. After vacuuming, they wiped
the entire bedroom floor with what Molly called a “tacky”
cloth.

“I don’t know,” Drake said, holding the sticky cloth
in his hand, “this doesn’t seem any tackier than those jeans you’re
wearing.”

Almost before the words were out of his mouth, he got
a rag in the face.
Oomph.
He laughed, straightening from
wiping his corner to lob it back at her. “I have to say that you
should always do this kind of work with your best friend. It makes
the job more bearable.”

“You’re welcome. Just call me whenever you need
someone to throw a rag in your face. Okay, now you stain.” She
popped open a paint can. “Here you go. It’s all yours.”

Drake looked down at the murky liquid without
enthusiasm. “All mine?”

“Yep. Use this clean mop to spread it all over the
floor. The smaller rags are to use on the corners. Then, we’ll let
it dry and tomorrow we’ll put on a couple of coats of urethane to
seal it.”

“Yes, master. Tomorrow?”

“Yes, tomorrow. You are to be here first thing in the
morning.”

He bent and touched a hand to his brow. “Yes, my
liege.”

“Jerk.” Molly rolled up a barely-used rag and made as
if to pop him with it. “Get going.”

Moving from one corner to the next—and getting stain
all over himself in the process—Drake darkened the floor to Molly’s
satisfaction.

When he showed up at her house the next morning,
Drake ambled into her kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee and
leaned against the counter as he drank it.

Molly, who’d finished her breakfast just as he got
there, came back into the kitchen, carrying a gallon can.

“Okay,” she sat the can on the counter top, prying
off the top so he could see it was filled with a golden,
translucent liquid. “Now that we’ve let the stain dry, we can apply
the poly. I’ll hand this up to you once you’re inside the bedroom.
Dip this clean, dry mop into the urethane, gently wring it out—here
are some gloves—and mop it on the stained floor. I’ll be in there
in a minute. I need to make a follow-up call regarding the Easter
picnic. I’ve narrowed the bunny thing down to one guy. The others
just didn’t pan out. No experience or no references. I’ll be right
back.”

“Okay.” Drake followed her out of the house and
climbed up the ladder and into the bedroom. The floor looked nice
and dry. Reaching back, he took the can from Molly. “Just spread it
around, right?”

“Right. Here’s the clean mop.”

After setting the can down, Drake dipped the mop in
the open can and started mopping the urethane on the floor.

Doing mindless work, gave his brain time to reflect
on this thing with he and Molly.

Molly had been his best friend through thick and
thin. They’d been there for one another through college dramas and
through the break-up of her parents’ marriage.

They’d each dated others, of course. At one point,
he’d seen a girl seriously and when that had ended badly, Molly was
there for him. She’d even gone to his parents for a chilly
Thanksgiving celebration after that. Sadly, all occasions with his
parents were chilly. As far as he could remember, they’d never
seemed happy with one another.

Most of the gatherings of his family were awkward. He
was one of the rare kids who’d wished his parents would
divorce.

Lost in thought, he mopped, dipping into the can and
wringing the mop out carefully before swishing the urethane over
the dark floor. When he’d done the main section, he walked around
the edges to kneel and mop the sticky substance into the corners,
the way Molly had showed him to put on the stain.

He hadn’t dated anyone in particular in a while—hence
the bed buddy he and Aaron had seen at the bar—and he didn’t think
Molly was dating anyone either. He usually heard about her dates,
but she seemed so caught up in work, especially since the Easter
Picnic situation, that she hadn’t had time for anything else—other
than helping him with his toilet and now teaching him how to do a
floor.

Sitting down in the last un-urethaned corner with one
knee up and the other under him, he used the rag to coat the floor
near the wall, becoming absorbed in his thoughts again.

He had good guy buddies, but Molly had seemed the
most constant of his friends. Particularly after he’d started the
blog. He’d chased a number of journalism jobs up to that point,
starting to get a little desperate, which wasn’t like him.
Normally, he felt pretty confident that he could work things out,
but he’d lost his newspaper job at the lowest point in the economy
and he hadn’t been able to find anything else. No one was hiring
back then and he knew better than most that journalism was a field
in transition. He’d applied to all the big news magazines and every
newspaper in a five-state radius.

Glancing at the window—about two feet away from where
he worked on the last corner—Drake wondered how Molly’s phone call
was coming. He knew this Easter picnic was huge for her. Since her
ideas were fresh and fun, she had a growing reputation for bar
mitzvahs and corporate events, not to mention birthday parties,
amongst the wealthy of the area. This Easter Picnic would put her
into a whole other category though.

Having heard more about her work since she’d switched
from interior decorating, he’d learned enough about party planning
to see that.

Slopping the golden liquid over the floor in the last
corner, Drake straightened up, intending to kneel on one knee as he
covered the wood in the spot where her nightstand would go. But
when he tried to get up, his leg wouldn’t respond.

Drake glanced down, trying to ascertain the problem
when it hit him. Throwing his head back in frustration, he bellowed
at the ceiling.
Damn, damn, damn!

Not having realized it when he sat down, he’d allowed
the outside of one pants leg to rest against the area of floor he’d
already mopped…and the liquid had apparently soaked into the
material.

He’d urethaned his pants leg to the floor.

* * *

Getting the bunny thing all lined up was a real
relief, Molly reflected, hoisting her leg over the bedroom window
sill again. This Easter picnic would put her on the Austin party
planning map, if it came out all right. Every prominent family
would be there, not to mention the big foster kid
organizations.

She stopped, seeing Drake just inside the window, on
the freshly urethaned floor, not moving.

“How’s it going?”

“Ummm. Pretty good…to a point.”’

Molly looked around at the room. “It looks good. Why
are you just sitting there?”

“It seems I neglected to attend to one, small
detail.”

She looked back at him, noticing he was still in the
same position. “What? Why aren’t you moving?”

“Well, Molly. I can’t move.”

“Why not?”

He sat with his one leg against the floor as he
leaned on the other knee propped up next to it. “I’ve—um—attached
my pants leg to the floor.”

“What?” She started laughing. “Seriously? You let
your leg fall against the urethane? Oh, Drake.”

His smile was entirely phony and he said, “Ha ha.
Yes, hysterical.”

She threw her other leg over the window sill. “You
can’t just sit there. Maybe you’d better take the pants off.”

Looking down at himself, Drake grimaced. “You don’t
know of any way to get these loose?”

Still laughing, Molly tried to answer and took a
minute to get herself under control. “Not with you still in
them.”

“Even though the urethane won’t be completely dry for
twelve hours, it sets to some level pretty quickly. You’re going to
have to take them off,” she recommended, still chuckling.

“Maybe you should just go away.” He seemed disgusted
by her amusement, reaching down to unlace his battered athletic
shoes.

“I could do that, but I wouldn’t think you’d want to
deal with this alone.”

He gave her a deadpan look. “I’ve been taking off my
pants—for the most part—by myself for years.”

“Not with them glued to the floor, unless your
fraternity was more into hazing than I heard.”

Looking down at the problem, Drake took a moment.
“So, I should just unzip these and—“

“And take them off. Yes, I think that’s the best
plan.” Molly balanced on the windowsill, careful not to step on the
newly-urethaned floor, although his being stuck so firmly indicated
it had set some.

“Would it help if I hummed some stripper music?
Da
da dah! Ta da, da dah
!”