One Hot December

“You did it?”

“Yes,” he said. “Believe it or not I am capable of doing some home improvement projects on my own. I do run a construction company, after all.”

“You look supercute in your suit with your little hard hat on when you come to inspect us on-site.”

“I wasn’t always a suit,” he said, throwing his coat and briefcase down on the kitchen counter. “I used to hang drywall and put down flooring. Let’s see... I also poured concrete, painted, did a little basic masonry work and framed houses. I think I can strip and refinish a floor in my own house.”

“I know,” she said. “I just like giving you a hard time.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

“The floors look great with your dark green walls. Your paint job?”

“Yeah, thanks.” He smiled hugely and then realized his “being cool” plan was already out the window if he was grinning like an idiot for the sole reason she’d complimented his wall color.

“Come here,” he said. “I’ll give you the ten-cent tour. The house was built in the 1940s. Three stories, cedar exterior, knotty pine floors. First floor is the living room and kitchen, second floor is the master bedroom, guest room and two bathrooms, top floor’s the loft.”

“What’s in the loft?”

“Me,” he said. “I sleep up there. Heat rises. Warmest room in the house at night. Plus it’s the only room where you can see the top of the mountain in the morning. Very good view.”

Ian paused, hoping she’d say something, anything, about wanting to see that view. But no, not a word.

“Um, all the furniture is made in Oregon,” he said, pointing at the wood-framed couch, the rustic dining table and the cane-back rocking chair. “There’s a hot tub outside.”

“Oh, my.”

“You like hot tubs?” he asked, a very pleasant image appearing unbidden in his mind, one that involved him and her and his hot tub and absolutely no clothing.

“Nope.”

“Let me guess—you also hate puppies, kittens and chocolate.”

“Yup.”

“Liar,” he said. She nodded, but that’s all she did. No flirting, no teasing, no winking, no nothing.

“Okay, the fireplace is in the sitting room. Want to see it?”

“Please,” she said. “That’s why I’m here.”

Luckily she was behind him and couldn’t see him wince when she said that. All his hopes were fizzling like a wet firecracker. Why did he think he could make things right with her just by bringing her out to his house, getting her alone with him, hashing things out? Flash had already made her decision about him. If he were a gladiator and she the empress of Rome, she would have looked down on his beaten, bloodied and bruised body in the ring and given him a thumbs-down.

He led her through the living room to the rustic sitting room—oak bookcases, pine coffee table and his stone-and-iron fireplace, which was about to fall apart.

Ian pointed to a weak spot in the old irons screen.

“You can see that some of the joints are broken, and there’s some rust.” He grabbed a bar of the decorative iron grate and shook it so she could see how the central part of the design had come loose from the joints. “What do you think?”

Flash didn’t say anything at first. She knelt onto the wood floor and ran her hands over the iron scrollwork.

“Ian...” she breathed. “It’s beautiful.”

He grinned again, like an idiot again, but this time he didn’t chide himself for it.

“It’s ivy,” he said. “The whole thing is iron ivy. I thought you’d like it. It looks like the sort of thing you’d make.”

“I would.” Her eyes were alight with happiness and wonder as she ran her fingers all over the twisting and looping iron bars. “A real craftsman made this. Or craftswoman. This is art. Real folk art.”

“It sold me on the house.”

“It would have sold me, too,” she said. “Wow.”

“Oh, my God, did I hear Flash Redding say ‘wow’ to something? I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

“I am not a hipster,” she said. “I’m an artist with high standards. There’s a difference. Hipsters pretend they aren’t impressed by stuff. I’m genuinely not impressed by stuff. But this...this is wow. You done good. You have better eyes than I gave you credit for.”

“I have a good eye for beauty,” he said. She looked up at him and said nothing. But he could have sworn he saw a ghost of a smile dance across her lips before it disappeared into the hard line of her mouth again.

“I’ll fix it,” she said. “An artist needs to fix this, not just any welder. This is delicate work.”

“Flash is on the job,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Flash again? Not Veronica?” she asked.

“You want me to call you Veronica?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll call you Flash. Why, I don’t know. I assume you flashed someone at some point in the past and the name stuck?”

She shook her head in obvious disgust at his ignorance.

“Poor Ian. You’ve never seen Flashdance, have you?”

“Flashdance? The dance movie?”

“Yes, Flashdance is a dance movie.”

“No, I haven’t seen it. Why?”

“The main character in it is a woman who works as a welder by day and an exotic dancer by night. When I started welding in high school, one of my friends started calling me Flashdance. But I don’t dance so it got shortened to Flash. I’ve been Flash ever since.”

“Should I rent the movie?” They were having a good conversation. This was progress. This was an improvement. This was giving him hope.

“If you like to watch sexy girls dancing, maybe. And welding.”

“I’m more into the welding than the dancing. I feel like I’ve missed out on something,” he said as he knelt on the floor next to her and watched her test all the connections to see which ones were loose and needed to be rewelded. “Before my time, I guess.”