Fighting Fire - s.k.

Chapter Six

Over the last few days, Stevie and Sam had been taking their time with the cleaning process of the house. The two of them have finished her dad's room and the study upstairs while working on smaller areas too. Most of the upstairs was now just riddled with bags of clothes and boxes of items they were planning to either give away or sell at a yard sale. They have definitely been making progress with the sorting, but today, Sam decided that they have been working enough and now it was time to have fun.

"Let's go swimming today," Sam said at breakfast and Stevie looked up at him from her mug of coffee. She nodded and smiled, wiping her mouth on a napkin.

"Yeah," she said, "I could use some fun."

"The upstairs is almost completely done," Sam smiled, "I think we've deserved this."

"You're right," She said, "This is just as much about cleaning this place up as it is about having fun!"

Ever since their night at the bar, Sam and Stevie have not argued, at least not seriously. This past week, they've actually been coexisting like normal humans. It was strange, but Stevie was surprised by how pleasant it was to spend time with him. No fighting. No drama. Sam was very careful with everything. He always asked her about her dad's things before doing anything with them and he always made sure to do check ins to make sure she could handle what they were going through.

It was fun. He was weird and quirky when he wasn't trying to be someone he wasn't. Sometimes, Stevie would reflect on these days with him and feel guilty for how they treated him growing up. She felt bad about the way she has always been so quick to judge him and write him off. She was walking a fine line between trusting him, ignoring the chance to be at one another's throats again and keeping him at an arm's distance. It had still only been about two weeks that they've been there, so she didn't want to be too sure of him.

"I have therapy this morning," Sam said, interrupting her thoughts, "But after that we can hit the dock for sure."

"Oh! Is this your first session?" Stevie asked and Sam nodded, "Yeah, I'm a little nervous about it."

"It's hard," Stevie admitted, "But just remember that it's for you. Talk about anything that is pressing you."

Sam nodded, checking the clock, "Oop! I should actually go get ready for that."

He grabbed his dishes and took them into the kitchen and Stevie watched him as he carefully washed them and set them aside on the drying rack. When he turned around to head up the stairs, she called after him, "Good luck!"

He turned around and smiled before excusing himself and Stevie looked around the house, wondering what she could do in the meantime. She looked over into the living room and saw Rosie laying on her back on the couch and she laughed.

"Wanna go on a walk, girl?" Stevie said and Rosie looked up, flipping herself around and wagging her tail.

Stevie smiled and took her mug to the sink, grabbing Rosie's leash and harness from where Sam has been keeping it. Rosie jumped off of the couch and wagged her tail as she made rounds around Stevie's legs. She got the harness on Rosie and they left the house, going on a walk for a bit while waiting for Sam to be done.

After they walked around the neighborhood of other vacation homes and Rosie got in enough of her desired sniffs, Stevie had only killed about fifteen minutes so she pulled her hair up into a bun and decided to head out back to the backyard and investigate the pool situation.

They always kept the pool covered up when they weren't home, but since she hadn't been there for so long, she was a little nervous about the kind of maintenance it would need to be back up and running. She cranked the cover off and was happy to find that the color of the pool still looked normal. So, she went ahead and fished out all of the questionable floating debris and dug out the vacuum from the pool shed, hooking it up and letting it get to work.