Page 13 of Drilled (Dad Bod Contracting 2)
“Hranco izh downstairzh,” he says, around the caps.
“Thanks.” I hesitate, and then glance at Ryder. “He say anything?”
Ryder doesn’t answer right away, instead finishes twisting the wires together, screws on the cap, and then repeats the process twice more.
When his mouth is empty of caps, he scratches at his short, neat red beard. “To me? Nah. But he wouldn’t. Franco keeps that shit to himself.”
“Which shit?” I ask.
He sighs. “Um, the kind of shit that has him acting like a cranky dick?”
“Oh.”
Ryder takes the switch plate and starts screwing it into place. “Just so you know—”
“Ryder?” I interrupt.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t. I’m just going to talk to him real quick.”
“Okay, but all I was gonna say is that Franco doesn’t like to mix personal shit with business shit, so he may not be super receptive to your visit.” He shrugs, and steps away from the finished switch, flipping his screwdriver in the air and catching it again.
“How do you even know it’s personal?”
He snorts, his eyes raking over me—not lecherously, not in a way that creeps me out, but making it obvious enough that he appreciates the female body. “Well, you left here together yesterday, and Franco showed up wearing the same clothes as the day before, and he was a cranky asshole all day.” He laughs, shrugging. “I’m an electrician, so I have to be pretty good at math, you know? And that’s pretty simple addition. Two plus two equals you guys boinked.”
I snicker involuntarily at his word choice. “Boinked? What are you, twelve?”
“At heart, yes,” Ryder says, laughing.
His phone rings, and I think both of us are glad for the excuse to exit the conversation without any awkwardness. I have no idea where the stairs to the basement are, so I have to wander the house looking for them. I catch a glimpse of James in a half bathroom, inspecting the grout in the floor tiles and the caulk around the base of the toilet.
I met James once, yesterday. He’s the tallest of the four men, at six-five or six-six, and he’s built like a refrigerator, if a refrigerator featured broad, heavy shoulders, twenty-inch biceps, thighs the size of my damn waist, and a chest you could use as an anvil. He’s…well…he’s magnificent, is what he is. He has short, neat brown hair sprinkled with silver at the temples and a matching, neatly groomed brown-and-silver beard. His eyes are a deep, dark, mesmerizing, forest green. Despite being built like a god, he is gentle and kind.
He glances at me as I pass, and stands up to lean out of the bathroom. “Audra, right?”
I reach out to shake his hand. “Yeah—hi, James.” I frown. “Wait—if you, Ryder, and Franco are all here, why is Jesse off?”
James laughs. “Ryder has some electrical to wrap up, Franco is finishing the wine cellar, and I’m going through and double-checking that everything has been done right and to my personal standards. Jesse doesn’t have anything to do here now that the construction is done, so I gave him the weekend off and he’s starting demo on a new renovation Monday.” He turns the faucet on and off, nudges the mirror to make sure it’s stable and centered, and tries the vent fan, then looks at me again. “Franco is in rare form yet again today. Do I have you to thank for that?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny these allegations.”
He just laughs again, a hearty, amused boom. “He’s in the basement. Stairs are over by the garage.”
I wave as I walk away. The basement is bright and airy and open, being a walkout consisting of a large den area, a smaller side room, another half bathroom, a kitchenette, and a workout room with mirrors on all four walls, and a wine cellar; the latter space is where I find Franco. He has a brad nailer and is installing a built-in wine rack—which, from the look of it, has been custom-made by Franco himself. I know he’s a carpenter, but this is the first of his work I’ve actually seen, and I have to say I’m damned impressed. The room is easily twenty-by-twenty with ten-foot ceilings, and the built-in racks stretch from floor to ceiling on three walls, the fourth wall being the glass-fronted entrance. A railing runs around the top of the racks, and I see a ladder with rollers lying on the floor, allowing someone to easily reach a bottle near the ceiling. The racks are works of art, with elaborate scrollwork decorating the face of each diagonal support beam, stained a rich deep mahogany, and polished to a high gleam.
“This is really beautiful,” I say, by way of greeting.
Franco glances at me, shock rippling across his gorgeous features before he carefully neutralizes his expression. “Thank you.”
“You handmade all of this?” I gesture at the cellar.
