5 – Laughter of a goddess #LoveStoryChallenge

It had either been God or pure coincidence. Of all the dripping taps in all of Middlesbrough that needed fixing, of all the university student-ravaged drainages in Stonebridge Apartments, it had to be her kitchen tap that needed fixing. He had nearly frozen – no, he actually had frozen – when he saw her draped in an ankara-print dress, her braids held in a hair net and white furry slippers cladding her small feet. Her eyes had narrowed in when she saw him and she had stood at the open door, waiting for an explanation. “A dripping tap in the kitchen,” he had said, more like a question than a statement. She had led him into the kitchen, where she was working at her laptop, the kitchen table clustered with printed out and photocopied journal articles.  His heart was pounding as he worked, and his mouth was dry. He didn’t like how he was feeling at all. Finally his window of opportunity had come and he was ignoring her sitting a few feet away from him and was working away at the tap as though his life depended on getting this one job right. When he turned to ask her to run the tap and see if the dripping had stopped, he caught her staring at him. “It’s rude to stare,” he had said, and she had laughed; a laugh as rich and as beautiful as she was.