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ELIZABETH
I followed behind Tyler, who I couldn’t help noting had not included in his ClickandWed profile that he had the body of a runner. He wore his clothes like they’d been made just for him. I forced myself to look away from his backside in case he turned and caught me staring.
But wait, I had that right, right? We were married, so I should be able to look at him all I wanted? Creepy? I couldn’t decide and as long as I was the one benefitting and doing the looking, it didn’t seem that awkward to me.
Inside the large home, I gasped at the original molding and the intricate little details which made older homes stand out with originality. Inset shelves spotted the interior walls like framed pictures. Hardwood floors that had been scratched over time covered the entire main level of the home. “Is the whole place hardwood flooring?”
“Some is carpeting, but underneath it, I believe is wood.” Tyler nodded distractedly, tossing his keys into a bowl on the table that was really less than what the house deserved in its cheap pine frame. “Yeah, everything on the house is top-notch. Most of it just fell into disrepair. Very expensive disrepair.” He loosened his tie and went to stand at the back door, looking outside as he rested his hands on his hips. “Go and make yourself at home. We can talk later.” He glanced over his shoulder and then turned back to the window.
I'd been dismissed. I assumed I was supposed to go all the way up the stairs that climbed upward to my right.
I didn't know what to say. Maybe he was still upset. Maybe I should still be upset. I wasn't sure. I just knew I was hungry and needed a shower. Since the pizza wasn’t there, I’d opt to have the latter first.
Trudging up the steps, I tried taking in every detail of my new home, which honestly didn't feel like home. Three levels up, I finally reached the upstairs suite. Decorated in a mismatched style of contemporary and country, the room had a sensation like the most carefree of hippies and most uptight of grandmothers had fought over which features would be highlighted between the beaded doorway hanging and the hand quilted comforter on the bed.
The bathroom ruled over the whole southwest corner of the floor. Set up in a triangle, the deep claw foot bathtub was set on level with the windows on two sides.
I wouldn’t mind spending some time alone with that feature, even if I questioned the validity of the plumbing.
A shower was what I wanted the most right then, though. Shedding my travel clothes – the only clothes I had with me - I turned on the water. The squeaking and groaning of water running through old pipes brought a smile to my lips.
One thing I could do was speak the language of houses. We just understood each other. My new home was screaming for attention and hopefully, I would have the chance to give it a little TLC.
People called me the house doctor back home, which would've been the smarter business name instead of what I’d gone with. Oh, well, you live and learn. I climbed into the shower and groaned at the lack of shampoo. Just a bar of soap was all I had. Even my toiletries had disappeared with the blonde.
But I didn't care, because the bar of soap smelled heavenly with a mix of coconut and vanilla and something else I couldn’t define but I wouldn’t change for the world.
After I was cleaned and dressed again in my travel clothes I felt more like myself.
I opened the bathroom door and stepped out into my room. The smell of pepperoni pizza enveloped me in and I inhaled deep. How long had I been in there? Long enough for the pizza smell to reach through the entire house.
The aroma pulled me downstairs as if it had grabbed my nose with a hook.
Refreshed and ready to try again with my new husband, a phrase that was not going to be easy to say anytime soon, I smiled as I entered the kitchen. He was nowhere around and my smile faded.
The pizza box sat on the table with the lid open and two slices missing. There was no silverware or plates out, indicating I was welcome to eat.
I was alone. Again.
Slapping a smile on my face anyway, I blinked. Are you kidding me? Again I got mad. I wasn't trying to be mad, per se. But where had he gone?
Was I expected to only take three pieces of pizza? Or two? Was it safe to assume I was supposed to go find him and he had a piece for me? This only proved that he didn’t know me at all, if he thought I was only eating one piece of pizza.
I went into the kitchen and dug through the cabinets looking for plates. Paper plates sat on the lower shelf of the bottom cabinet beside the fridge. Pulling one out, I pulled a plastic fork from the box beside it.
The kitchen was not set up like it was expected to be lived in. There were no pots or pans and hardly any food, which I did not count a box of Golden Grahams as a staple.
I claimed three pieces of pizza and put them on my plate.
Finding Tyler and figuring out what was going on would be my first priorities. Taking a few bites while I stormed around the house searching was perfectly acceptable.
My anger mounted with each step. Where was he? The dang house was huge and the more I searched, the more I spied that needed to be fixed. He lived in a dang money pit. I’d never seen one so intricately deserving in Arkansas. This house was a potential gold mine, if only he’d take care of it the right way instead of little Band-Aids like wall paper to cover the cracking plaster and paint over ruined tiles.
I finally located him on the bottom level which wanted to be a basement but was too well-lit to be labeled that way. The presence of that floor proved me right with my guess of four levels in the huge house. Even with all the flaws, the building was a beautiful home.
Tyler hid in an office-style room on the bottom level which must be directly below the kitchen because there was a slider door that looked out on the grass and into the green yard out back.
I opened my mouth to speak and realized he was on the phone. He moved his hands as he spoke even with no one in the room. “I don't want to.” He paused. “It wasn't part of the deal, Jay.” He paused again, shaking his head and lowering it. “Fine. I'll do what I need to do. Yeah, I know. But the next bet is going to be a zinger.”
He hung up the phone and tucked it into his front pocket. In his other hand, he held his plate. He picked up the pizza and took a bite, staring outside.
I didn’t announce myself and I was frustrated beyond belief by that point. What was wrong with me, that he didn’t want to even be around me? He run away downstairs to get away. My expectations might have been skewed because of Alex and Jeremy, but I don’t think standard chivalry was too much to expect.
“I'm not sure if it's a cultural thing, but this is not how a gentleman treats women, guests, or their new wives where I come from.” I stepped into the office without knocking. I figured my accusation was bold enough to declare my intentions of not being ignored.
He glanced over his shoulder at me, the angle of his jaw intriguing even as it ticked with frustration. “I understand that you're upset, Miss Snyder. I'm not sure how else I can make it better. I apologize again.” He looked away from me, back outside.
“It’s Elizabeth or Lizzie. Not Miss Snyder.” I felt like I'd been dismissed again. What was wrong with me? He had signed up on this website, he had clicked I do. He didn't have to accept me. He could've moved onto the next one. He didn’t even have to get on the website. He could've gone on one of those dating sites were they let you pick people instead of matching you.
My anger started to morph into something more like pain and I wasn’t comfortable with that at all. Tyler was really ruining my experience. Alex had such a great experience – okay, not right out of the gate, but at least he’d talked to her.
I felt like I was getting cheated. “Am I not what you were expecting or something? You don’t think I’m pretty enough or something? I'm not quite sure where the confusion is here. You signed up for a wife. If this is what you were expecting and this is how you treat women, I can see why you had to go online to find one.”
“I wasn't expecting anything. The first match that came up was you. So I accepted. That's all it was.” He turned around and claimed a seat at the desk that dominated the room.
I was not used to being flabbergasted. “What? What you mean you clicked on the first one that you were matched to?” The pizza I’d eaten roiled in my stomach and I suddenly felt queasy.
He sighed, leaning his head back and pinching the bridge of his nose. After a moment of tense silence, he finally lowered his hand and lifted his face up to meet my gaze head-on. “Look, I don't want to do this. I lost a bet. I'm stuck in this house and I'm stuck in this marriage. We’ll get the money back, if we stick to doing the steps or whatever we’re supposed to do. If I don't make it because I'm not available to do the steps, or if I missed anything, I'll compensate you for that, okay? I can't guarantee anything. Any marriage is just a huge inconvenience. It has nothing to do with you personally.”
I chomped my teeth while keeping my lips closed so he wouldn’t see or hear it. I was nowhere near tears. What I was close to doing was picking up the stapler on his desk and slamming into his forehead. I maintained my control, and ground out. “What about my time?”
He pulled back and chuckled, as if I'd made a joke. “What about it? What are you doing over in your podunk town? Probably nothing important if you could drop everything and come here, right? You'll get six months in California. It's not a hotel but you can stay here for free. And you have the entire top floor to yourself. Sounds like a win-win to me.”
“You realize you just minimized my existence before you, right? Even if that was perfectly acceptable, which it’s not, the fact that you won’t even consider taking this seriously makes your actions even worse. I’m not sure what you thought when you saw my profile picture, but I can guarantee I’m not a simpering woman who will fall down at your feet because you’re a man.” I took a deep breath, blinking pleasantly as I smiled. I hadn’t raised my voice and I wouldn’t. He hadn’t earned enough affection from me to raise my temper.
“That being said, I’ll stay here, but I’m not interested in just shoving this to the side. I signed up for a chance at being happy. The fact that you signed up on a bet and clicked I do is disgusting.” I would consider his offer. I would consider ignoring and forgiving the fact that he had just relegated me to some kind of female that hadn't been around in fifty years.
I wasn't dependent on a man. I hadn't been dependent on a man – ever. I wasn't going to start something that wasn’t me just because I'd moved to California.
His shocked expression gave me a simple shiver of satisfaction. I wasn’t some pushover. No man was going to treat me like I wasn’t important.
Pushing my disappointment aside, I ignored my attraction to him which I was horribly embarrassed to admit even to myself. I lifted my chin and arched my brow. I was too practical to let emotion determine what I was or wasn't going to do.
Since we’d dropped all pretenses at our marriage, I slipped into business mode. “You have a three-car garage out there, is it being used?” Of course, I’d noted the garage space when I’d arrived. That was the only area I was interested in.
He recovered his composure and leaned forward. “No, I can’t get the garage doors open. I don’t want to pay to fix them, if it isn’t necessary. That’s why I park on the street.”
Nodding, I lifted my chin. “Can I use it?”
He lowered his eyelids to half-mast. “You must not have heard me. It doesn't work. The only door you can get through is the man door on the side.”
I shrugged. I could get inside with the small door. Then I wouldn’t have to pay anyone to fix the big ones because I was the one people called for that kind of thing. “I don't care. That's all I’ll use then.”
“Sounds good. I don't care.” He shrugged, and did something to a laptop that sat in front of him.
Being good with tools was my one conceit. I wasn’t too prideful to think I could do anything out there. Any time I got in front of a computer, it was for the basics and even then, I wasn’t completely comfortable.
I had picked California. I chose everything back in Arkansas when I had made this decision on my own. True, everyone else had pointed me this way like Alex and Colin Davies, but I had made the ultimate decision to come to Tyler Manning.
I could ignore my attraction to him. I was attracted to peanut butter and jelly, too. That didn't make a wedding.
No matter how much I wanted it to be.
I couldn’t wait six months to do anything for myself. Since I’d chosen California, that was where I would settle. I would make my new business there. Maybe I would call my company The House Doctor. That might be exactly what I needed to do.
