Page 9 of Hammered (Dad Bod Contracting 1)
Sweet? Is he a prepubescent surfer?
“You got it, dude,” I say.
He laughs. “You’re mocking me, aren’t you?” He says it, once again, in a near-perfect replication of the inflection and tone from the scene in Toy Story.
“Oh, no, no, no, no,” I say, answering the quote. “Buzz, look! An alien!”
He laughs even harder. “Oh man, I still love that movie. I used to babysit my nieces on Saturday mornings, and they’d literally watch that movie on repeat. I know just about every line.”
“I do too, actually,” I say. “I worked at a daycare when I was in nursing school, and that was one of about five movies the kids would watch.”
I’m in my car by this point and then plug in my earbuds and back out of the parking lot, still chatting with Jesse about our favorite kids’ movies—we share an affinity for them, oddly, despite us both being forty-ish and single and without children. His favorite is The Emperor’s New Groove and mine is Lilo & Stitch, and we trade favorite quotes from both movies as I drive home.
I’m home in a few minutes. I pull onto my street, and see a giant pickup truck sitting at the curb in front of my house. By giant, I mean a heavy-duty black Silverado with massive, knobby, thick-sidewall tires and a lift of several inches, tubular chrome steps, an LED light bar across the top of the cab, a winch at the grill, an oversized, built-in toolbox in the bed, and a back rack with rear-facing work lights.
“Is that you parked in front of my house?” I ask, still on the phone with him.
“Yeah,” he says. “When I said I was in the area, I sort of meant in the same neighborhood. So I’ve just been sitting out here. That’s you pulling up?”
“Yep.”
He hangs up without warning as I bump into my driveway, which is nothing but a pair of hard-packed dirt ruts in the grass beside my house—there’s no garage, not even a carport. Another item on the list of things I’d wanted to do to the place—build a garage addition. Parking outside in the Illinois winter sucks.
He’s sitting in his truck as I park, all the windows down, an arm hanging out. The engine is off and the radio is on—playing “music” that sounds like someone put a spoon in a garbage disposal and recorded the resulting grinding noise, with a lot of unintelligible shrieking over top of it. He’s bobbing his head to the music, and his fingers are fiddling on the outside of his truck door, mimicking the movements of the guitar chords, I realize.
The radio shuts off as he opens the door of his truck and jumps down.
“Hey there,” he says. “Long time no talk.” His grin is addictive and sexy and easygoing.
“Hi.” I gesture at his truck. “What was that you were listening to? Your band?”
He laughs as he leans into the cab and withdraws his tool belt, buckling it around his hips—which, holy shit, is a sexy thing to watch. “God, you think I just listen to my own music? I hope I don’t come across as that egotistical, Jesus.”
“No, I just—I don’t know.”
He elbows me in the ribs. “I was kidding. Mostly. Number one, I don’t listen to my own music. Mainly because we don’t have an album or even an EP or anything. We’re just a dive bar band. We play covers and shit, mostly, with a few of our own originals tossed in now and then, but there are no recordings of us. Number two, that’s not the kind of music we play.”
I sigh in relief. “Good. Because I’m sorry, but that sounded awful.”
He just laughs again. “Eh, it’s not for everyone.” His eyes twinkle, amusement rife in them. “That’s my cousin’s band.”
I blanch. “Oh. Um. Sorry? I didn’t mean to offend you, or—god.” I let myself into my house, Jesse on my heels. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”
He just laughs all the more. “I’m messing with you, Imogen, relax.” He shrugs. “I mean, it is my cousin’s band, though.”
I set my purse on the bottom stair and head into the kitchen. “It’s definitely not my thing. I didn’t mean to insult your cousin’s band, though.”
He waves a hand. “Oh, he wouldn’t care even if you’d said that to his face. He’d think it was funny.” Once in the kitchen, his demeanor shifts to business. “So, your window.”
“So, my window,” I echo. “You found something that will fit?”
He tips his head side to side. “Um, sort of?” He laughs self-consciously, rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay, no, not really.”
I wrinkle my brows at him. “I’m confused. I thought you said you have a window.”
He nods. “Oh, I do. I have a window. I have the best, most amazing, most beautiful window ever, and it will take this kitchen to eleven out of ten.” He shrugs. “It just…doesn’t fit—yet. I’ll have to do some retrofitting.”
