Page 2 of Hammered (Dad Bod Contracting 1)
And now the radio is broken.
And my phone is on life\ support.
And there’s no A/C at home either, and it’s hotter now at six o’clock in the evening than it was at noon.
AND THE FUCKING KITCHEN WINDOW WON’T OPEN.
I fight the urge to cry as I fail yet again to get the damn thing to even budge.
Screw it. Just screw it. Now I’m mad. I’ll get that thing open if I have to pry it open.
I hop down from the sink, lose my balance, and fall flat on my ass on the warped laminate floor. Good thing I’ve got plenty of padding back there, huh? I stand up, brush the dirt off the butt of my scrubs, and march out the back door. The backyard is one of my favorite places, and one of the reasons I agreed to buy the house—there’s a giant spreading oak tree that shades most of the yard, with a white-painted porch swing attached by two huge ropes to the lowest, thickest branch. Flowerbeds run around the perimeter of the fence line, planted with colorful, easy to maintain perennials, filled in with rocks instead of mulch, which keeps the maintenance even easier. There’s a cute little shed in the back corner of the yard, painted red with white stripes in an X on the door so it looks like a miniature barn.
I head over to the shed to get some tools. In it are an ancient push mower, a weed whacker, some pruning shears, a few trowels and buckets and spades, and a fifty-year-old Craftsman toolbox handed down from Nicholas’s grandfather, full of equally old tools. I open the toolbox and find a screwdriver and a huge, heavy hammer.
I march back across the grass, which desperately needs cutting, but guess what? The mower doesn’t work.
I slam through the back door, climb up onto the kitchen counter yet again, and wedge the screwdriver between the window and the frame. I give the back end of the screwdriver a solid whack with the hammer, and it bites back hard into my hand. I do the same thing on the other side of the window and then set the tools down and try to open the window.
Nothing.
DAMN IT.
I try again on both sides, higher, near the top of the window. Still nothing.
Getting more frustrated than ever, I decide to use a bit more force; this window WILL open, dammit.
Wedging the edge of the screwdriver between frame and window, I take a deep breath, line the hammer up with the screwdriver, and smash it as hard as I can.
The frame splinters apart, and the glass cracks. I curse floridly, and then set the tools down and try to open the window. I heave, and tug, and yank, and then, with a creaking, cracking noise, the window slides upward…sort of. It tilts in the frame, the right side moving slightly while the left side moves marginally. One more mighty heave and the window slides up all the way…
And the glass, already cracked, breaks entirely, chunks and shards of glass shattering on the counter and hitting the ground outside.
It’s open! Broken, but open.
I clear the broken shards away, inside and out, and, of course, I cut myself on a piece of glass. Sucking at the blood and cursing nonstop now, I deposit the bag of glass into the garbage can outside my garage, and go back inside. I wash my cut finger, squeeze a paper towel around it until it stops bleeding, and then wrap a Band-Aid on it, all the while staring at the mess of my kitchen window. The frame is splintered in several places and cracked from top to bottom, and the glass is shattered.
And it’s supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow.
I consider, for about six seconds, doing the dishes like I’d intended.
Nope. Not gonna happen tonight.
Screw it.
I have a couple bottles of red wine—one of my few splurges—so I open one, pour a nice big glass, and dump half a bag of Skinny Pop into a big bowl, grab my iPad, and curl up in the corner of my couch.
I need moral support. I have precisely one number in my favorites list: Audra Donovan, my best friend. I touch the number, put the phone on speaker, and then set it on my knee.
She answers on the fourth ring. “Hey, babe. Sorry, I can’t talk. I’m with a client.”
I hear music thudding in the background, and a deep male grunt of exertion.
“Ugh, fine,” I grumble. “Be that way. Your best friend needs you, but it’s fine. Whatever.”
She says something, but it’s muffled and meant for her client, and then I can hear her properly. “Oh quit being passive-aggressive, Imogen. You know I hate it when you’re passive-aggressive.”
“I had the worst day ever, Audra,” I whine. “I need a drinking buddy.”
