Page 30 of Hammered (Dad Bod Contracting 1)
Tears sprang into my eyes unbidden. “Jesse, you—I—”
“Before you say a word, you’re not paying a cent for these windows.” He was behind me so I couldn’t see him, but I heard the grin and the pride in his voice. “Nobody else at the Waverley job wanted them, so I snagged all the windows.”
“All of them? How many were there?” I ask.
He didn’t answer right away, and I turned around to face him, and saw his grin spread. “Well…how many windows do you have in your house?”
I blinked. “Um. Four here, three in the kitchen, two in the master bedroom, and two in the spare bedroom.” I have to count. “Eleven?”
He grinned even wider. “There were a total of twelve windows.”
I was incredulous. “And she just ate the cost of them? That’s…”
He waves a hand with a snort. “Don’t even try to imagine how much. A fucking lot. When we explained how long the return and refund process would take and how long it would delay the project, she was just like, I’m not waiting, order the doors and be done. We’re already so far over budget it’s ridiculous, but I guess they don’t care. I don’t know. I don’t get rich people sometimes, man.”
“Yeah, me neither.” I frown at him. “But Jesse…you’re not saying you replaced all of my windows, are you?”
He nods solemnly. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I replaced all of your windows…plus one.”
“What do you mean, plus one?” I asked, warily.
“You’ll see. For now, check out the kitchen.” I circle out of the hallway toward the kitchen, Jesse following behind me. “You ever think about taking those walls down? I checked it out, and the one wall is load bearing, but it’s not a huge space to cross, so you could pretty easily put a beam up across it. It’d feel like a whole different home.”
I stop in the hallway, trying to picture it. “All the walls? Like this whole floor would be open plan?”
He nods, grinning. “I can’t say it’d be a cheap project, but if I was gonna remodel this house, that’d be the first thing I’d do. The floors are in good shape, the kitchen is cute. You’ll need a new roof eventually, and central A/C, fresh paint all around…some new sinks and vanities and other details like that, but on the whole, this place isn’t actually that bad. New tile or marble in the kitchen, new countertops, that’s pretty big ticket stuff, obviously. But opening the floor plan would be first.”
“You’re talking thousands of dollars, though,” I point out. “I can’t even afford to fix the A/C on my damn car at the moment.”
“Couple grand sounds about right to knock down the walls and put load-bearing beams up.” He shrugs. “Just a thought.”
“It sounds lovely, Jesse,” I say, sighing. “I’d love to. And as soon as I have a few extra thousand dollars just sitting around, you’ll be the first person I call.”
“Just don’t wait until then to call me. There’s lots of little, relatively inexpensive stuff we can do that’ll improve things around here.” He pushes past me, grabs me by the hand, and pulls me into the kitchen. “We’ll talk about that later. For now, take a look.”
Once again, I’m left speechless. Two more new windows—facing the front yard and the backyard. Huge casement windows replace the old tiny ones, and the room feels enormous now, breathing and full of sunlight.
“My god, Jesse. It’s amazing.” I turn to face him. “I can’t—I just can’t.”
He grins. “You haven’t seen everything, yet,” he says, sounding excited. “Come on upstairs.”
I follow him up, failing to restrain my gaze from his taut, hard butt as it wiggles and shifts up the stairs.
How can he be so hot and so kind and generous? It should be impossible. I’d thought it was impossible.
I stop halfway up the stairs, ripping my gaze away from his delectable ass, realizing something is different on the stairs.
More light.
Breeze flowing upward, through the open front door.
I look upward. Jesse is leaning against the wall at the top of the stairs—next to him is another enormous casement window. The plus one. There was no window here, before, just blank wall.
“This was wasted space, before,” he says. “It was just begging for a window, so I obliged.” He glances at me, looking and sounding nervous. “I know I should have asked before adding a whole new window like this, but…it’s just—I knew without a doubt that it would improve the light up here and the airflow overall. So I trusted my gut and hoped you wouldn’t hate it.”
He just cut a hole in the side of my house—without asking or informing me first—and put a brand new window in.
Theoretically I should be pissed. I barely know the man. I have no contract with him, no references to previous work besides the window he did in my kitchen. But god, this window works wonders on the stairs and the landing area in general. I move the rest of the way up the stairs and stand at the window—I can see most of the neighborhood from here. The airflow brings the temperature down, lets in light…god, it’s amazing. I think I’ve used that word too many times already, but…
