Page 55 of Time to Bounce

I was in the middle of ordering pizza when Jack, the foreman who’d practically built my house, showed with a new door.

He was out of the truck and headed toward me with a grin on his face as he said, “What are you doin’ here?”

I gestured to the broken door with my thumb hooked over my shoulder and said, “My girl showed me her house for the first time, and she bet me that I couldn’t kick it in. So I did.”

Jack looked at me like I was fucking nuts.

Then he looked at the door.

“I guess I can see why you wouldn’t want her staying in a house you could get into so easily,” he sized up the door. “Though, I might’ve just bought the door and replaced it rather than kicking it in. That’s going to make more work for me.”

“Sorry, bud,” I said. “You want some pizza? I’m on hold with them now.”

“Nah,” he said. “My wife is expecting me home at a decent hour tonight. I was at Home Depot when you called getting other shit. I can have this done in probably an hour. She’s not expecting me home for another two.”

“I’m guessing you want me to pay you in baked goods from Pie Hard again?” I chuckled.

“Damn right,” he said. “You know how dead I am inside since my wife made me start this new diet. I feel like all the joy I had in life is gone.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But your blood pressure and cholesterol are probably way better.”

He shrugged. “If I don’t have any joy in my life, what’s the point of living?”

“Your wife?” I asked.

“She doesn’t count. Because she’s making me hate myself because she hates herself,” he continued. “I think this’ll blow over once she realizes it’s more fun to eat tacos than look good for other people.”

The grin on my face stayed there past when we went separate ways.

I was full on smiling when I made my way back inside to where Athena was loading the washing machine with all her dirty clothes from her trip.

I stopped next to the table and admired a set of Japanese plates she’d gotten while she was visiting, then placed my order for pizza.

“Got it,” the woman taking my order said. “It’ll be about twenty minutes.”

I’d bet my left nut it’d be longer than that, but chose not to contradict her.

The pizza would get here when it got here, in the meantime…

“What was your favorite thing you ate while you were over there?” I asked.

Her face lit up as she stopped with a pair of underwear dangling from her fingers.

“Japanese curry,” she answered. “It was sublime.”

I caught the underwear that were dangling, then tossed them in the washer.

When she went to close it, I halted her hand and tossed in the ones that were still in my pocket from earlier as well.

“You don’t still have that condom in there, do you?” she asked worriedly.

I shot her an unamused look. “Do you honestly think that I’d keep that in there any longer than I had to? I tossed it out on our way to our vehicles for lunch.”

“Ahh,” she said. “Speaking of vehicles, if I’m spending the weekend with you, do you think it’d be okay if I dropped my car off at Big 5 Tire to get new tires put on, as well as get my oil changed, and my fuel filter checked?”

She had her back to me when she asked this as she reached for the top shelf where there was a huge glass jar of what looked like homemade laundry detergent.

I waited until she was done before catching her hips and spinning her toward me. “Absolutely.”

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