The Cosmic Law of French Toast by Meowser Hotchner
Day 14: Hot Baths (and a twist requested by GhostWhispererFangirl)
I allude to events in ch 27 so feel free to double check what that was. :)
Melinda cursed, a rare moment for her.
Jim jerked around.
"Why are we doing this ourselves?" Melinda said.
"What do you mean?" He asked, chuckling.
"Why can't we get a handyman out here to fix the damn heating?" She asked, propping hands on hips.
"It's not like we're cold anymore," Jim said, his eyes sweeping over her jean and tank top clad self.
"A very small comfort," Melinda sighed. "Jim, seriously, we're not going to get this damn thing done. I have no idea what I'm doing. You have no idea what you're doing."
"I do too," he protested, gesturing behind him. "We just have to get this piping right—"
Melinda sighed, sinking down onto the basement steps behind her. "First the yard, now this."
"We can't afford workmen," Jim said. "You know that. We both knew that when we bought the house. We'd do it ourselves."
"Yeah, but that was before the paint in the shower, and the tree falling in the yard, and after the windows..." Melinda trailed off, seeing the look on his face. She reached to pull her sweater back on, feeling the winter day's chill after not being active for so long. "Let's get back to work," she sighed.
He smiled softly, pulled her to him for a brief moment, and she could feel him inhaling the scent of her hair. "I love you," he breathed, pressing a kiss to her neck before pulling away.
She immediately missed the strength of his arms around her, but went back to her job. "So I'm cranking the wrench," she stated.
"Yeah, and I'm going to open this up," Jim said. "If you did your job correctly, and you did, cause I was watching, this should fix our hot water problem."
"Okay," Melinda said. "Go."
She watched him as he twisted his wrench, muscles in his back rippling.
And then a sound of moving water.
"That should be the water returning to the radiators," Jim cheered. "Hurry, run upstairs and see if it worked."
She jogged up the stairs, passing by the front door; through the front windows she could see snow outside.
She pulled the faucet on, turning it to hot, and cheered when the water came out warm.
"We did it!" She exclaimed, jumping up and down, turning around to run back down and celebrate with him, but Jim was already there, and she collided with him.
Muscles collided with curves, and she gasped at the look in his eyes.
Melinda opened her mouth to speak, but Jim's mouth descended on hers, immediately asking her to open up to him.
Oh, this felt good. So good.
She pulled away. "We did it," she said softly, staring up at him.
"We did," he returned, holding tight. "Thank you, Mel."
"For what?" She whispered.
"Letting us do it together," he said, hands going up and down her back. "Listening to me when I said we could do it ourselves."
"Well, it meant so much to you," she said, eyes falling from his beautiful, clear blue eyes to his lips.
He groaned at seeing it, and kissed her again.
"Okay, stop, I want to put my hands on your head, but they're all gross," Melinda said, pulling away. "And our clothes are filthy."
"Then we can take them off," Jim suggested.
She opened her mouth to protest, but then realized the wisdom.
"We can do better than that," she said, eyes sparkling. "We can properly celebrate the return of our hot water."
"How?" He asked, hands moving up her back.
"By taking a bath," she told him.
A/N: This chapter is really just a tease for the ao3 version.
