Tribute

alarm, and though she didn’t know quite what to think about that, she owed him for it. And for the time he’d put in the day before, even after she’d been rude and snarly. She set the bristle brush down, crossed the road.
    He handed her the coffee, gestured to the wall as she greeted Spock. “Read it from here. Out loud.”
    She shrugged, turned, and even as she took a gulp of the coffee felt a little bubble of amusement rise in her throat. “Go to Hollywood, live like an ore ike.”
    “Ore-ike,” he mused. “I can use that. Seems to me he tried to hurt and intimidate you, and you’ve made him a joke. Nicely done.”
    “Unexpectedly ridiculous. I guess that’s a plus. I’ve nearly run out of mad. You don’t have to get into this again today, Ford. How are you going to make me a warrior goddess if you’re scrubbing off graffiti?”
    “That’s cruising along pretty well. I can give you a couple of hours before I get back to it. Spock’s looking forward to being what Brian and Matt call a job dog today. He’s just going to go over and hang out with the guys. Hence the bandanna.”
    “You know, I’m probably going to have sex with you, without the offer of manual labor.”
    “I’m hoping.” He gave her an easy, uncomplicated smile. “You know I’d offer the labor even if you weren’t going to have sex with me.”
    She took a contemplative sip of coffee. “I guess that evens it out. I do better on even ground. Well.” She started back across the street, and he and Spock fell into step beside her. “My father heard about this, called me last night. What could he do? How could he help? Why didn’t I come stay there for a while, until the police figured it out? Which is looking like, hmm, never. Then my stepmother got on the phone. She wants to take me shopping.”
    “For a new wall? This one’s cleaning up okay.”
    “No, not a new wall.” She gave him a light punch, then handed him protective gloves. “Patty, Angie and Cilla do the outlets. Like trolling for bargains would solve my problem.”
    “I take it you’re not going?”
    “I don’t have the time or the inclination to search out peek-toe pumps or a flirty summer dress.”
    “Red shoes, white dress. Sorry,” he added at her quiet stare. “I think in visuals.”
    “Uh-huh. The point, I guess, is that I’m not used to people offering— time or company or help—without any number of strings attached.”
    “That’s a shame, or perhaps living like an ore-ike.”
    She laughed, began to scrub.
    "Go play,” he told Spock, who trotted off toward the house in his red bandanna.
    “I’m trying to learn to accept the offers without the lingering haze of cynicism. It’s going to take a little while.”
    He worked for a few moments in silence. “You know what I see when I look over here?”
    “Trucks, big-ass Dumpster, a house in desperate need of paint?”
    “Sleeping Beauty’s castle.”
    “How? Where? Why?”
    “First, I risk impinging my manhood by admitting I dug on those kind of stories as a kid, as much as I did the Dark Knight, X-Men, and so on. And consider Disney’s version solid, with Maleficent one of the top villains of all time. Anyway.”
    He shrugged as she continued to stare at him. “You know how the evil Maleficent cast the spell, and surrounded the castle with giant briar, those big, wicked thorns. Closed it in to a dark, forbidding place that held sorrow and, well, trapped beauty.”
    “Okay.”
    “The hero had to fight his way through the blocks, the thorns, the traps. A lot of risk, a lot of work, but when he reached the goal, the castle came back to life. And, you know, peace reigned across the land.”
    She worked her wire brush against the wall. “I have to kiss the princess?”
    “Okay, new visual. Interesting. There are some flaws in the metaphor, but basically, the trapped, sleeping castle needs a hero to wake it up. Some people like having a part in that. And some . . .” He tapped his brush on a large black E . “They like to fuck it up.”
    “I find myself fascinated by a man who admits to enjoying fairy tales and uses the word ‘impinge’—and barely misses a beat while indulging in a brief girl-on-girl fantasy. You’re a man of layers, Ford.”
    “Me and Shrek, we’re onions.”
    Oh yeah, she thought. Falling for him, and falling fast.
    She stopped as Buddy’s truck pulled up beside them. The plumber leaned out the window, scowled. “What the hell is that supposed to