Page 66 of Drilled (Dad Bod Contracting 2)
Franco’s eyes are sympathetic. “I know the feeling, trust me.”
I wave a hand, hating how even now it hurts to talk about this old crap. “I know better, now. I was lucky to have a roof over my head, food in my belly, and that they never hit me, and that Dad never did anything gross to me, or let his friends do anything. I mean, I knew plenty of kids, just in my trailer park, who went through all that and worse, so I knew even then that I was better off than a lot of them. But it still just sucked, you know?”
“It’s tempting to compare yourself both ways, isn’t it?” Franco says, pausing to look at me. “To people who have it worse, and to people who have it better. But you can’t. You can only really understand what you’re going through yourself.”
“So true, that,” I say. “So, yeah. That was my childhood, and it really messed up my view of love and marriage. Like, if that’s love, I want zero fucking part of it. And, honestly, I had nothing better to even compare it to. My grandparents weren’t in the picture and never have been, for reasons I’m not certain about. Family dysfunction, I guess—the kind of shit all of them never got over, so they just don’t see each other. I’ve seen them for Christmas a few times, and I’d get the occasional birthday card, but that’s about it.”
“And then?”
I laugh. “You just want to get to the really juicy stuff, huh?”
He shrugs, grinning at me. “Yep, basically.”
“And then…I was so eager to escape Mom and Dad’s cycle of horse crap that I found ways to stay at school. Which for me ended up being sports. I played volleyball, basketball, tennis, soccer, did track…anything and everything, as long as it meant I could stay at school and practice, or work out. By junior year I was one of our school’s top stars in track and field, volleyball, and soccer. I was literally always either at practice or in the gym. I had it so I only had to go home to sleep, and only then for as little amount of time as I could manage and still function, which is a habit I’ve never been able to break, even to this day. I got almost a full-ride between volleyball and track scholarships, and the summer after I graduated I moved to an apartment on campus and never went back.”
“Was that with Imogen?” Franco asks.
I shake my head. “No, actually. We’ve never lived together. We were best friends all through school, and we ended up going to the same college just by virtue of accident or fate or whatever, but we never lived together.”
“Oh. I guess I just assumed you had.”
“Nah, we almost did, but we decided against it. I think we both knew we’d kill each other. We’re too different in the way we live, so our friendship was better off with a little space built into it.”
Franco laughs, flipping his knife between his fingers. “Oh man, I can’t even begin to tell you how tough it was, that year and a half Ryder, James, Jesse, and me all lived together in that three-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow. Jesse and I shared a room for the first two months, until we convinced James to let us update his basement into a workable living space for one of us. So then Jesse moved down there and I stayed in the bedroom, while Ryder stayed in the garage, which left one bedroom for James, one for the girls, and one for me, with Ryder in the garage and Jesse in the basement.”
“The garage?” I ask.
“Yeah. One of the first things James did when he bought the place twelve or fifteen years ago was to turn the garage into an extra room, so that’s where Ryder stayed from the start. The garage is James’s official Dad Bod Contracting office, now.” He pauses, examines his carving, twisting it this way and that to look for flaws, spots one, and sets to work fixing it. “Jesse and I almost killed each other on a daily basis while we shared a room, though. We nearly came to blows a few times. James never knew, though, and still doesn’t. I know he knows it was tough for us at times, especially early on, but he never knew how hard it was for two grown-ass men, used to independence, to share a single tiny bedroom.”
“It’s amazing that you guys did that for him.”
He shrugs. “Not really. He’s our best friend. Our brother. We’d do anything for him, and he’d do anything for us—and we have, in every possible way over the years.” He eyes me. “You can’t tell me you and Imogen aren’t the same way. In fact, I know you are—I’ve seen it.”
