Page 52 of Drilled (Dad Bod Contracting 2)
“Which included you, am I right?”
“Shut up. We went on one date.”
“Yeah…date.” Jesse says this with a snort.
“Are you done?” Franco snaps. “Because I could bring up Amy Collins…or Judy Fredrickson…or Prissy McLane.”
“Oh god, please don’t bring up Prissy McClane,” Jesse pleads.
“We all tried to warn you.”
“Like we all tried to warn you about—” Jesse starts.
“I will stab you in the eye with a cinder if you say another fucking syllable,” Franco snarls.
Jesse laughs, holding up his hands, palms out. “Okay, okay. Jesus, dude.” He stops laughing, and eyes Franco. “That’s some seriously old history, man, get over it already.”
Franco shoots to his feet and stalks away, ripping his hair out of the ponytail, shaking it back and combing his fingers through it, and then retying it as he vanishes into the shadows.
I glance at Jesse, who’s still standing behind me. “Let me guess, more old history that’s Franco’s to tell and not yours?”
“Yep.” He smirks down at me. “But if you could get him to tell you about it, it might explain some things.”
“She’d have to do some explaining herself, though,” Imogen says. “And she’s as miserly with her history as the rest of you seem to be.” She pauses, and I realize what she’s about to say it. “She’d have to tell him about Jared.”
“Dammit, Imogen,” I snap.
She shrugs. “Like Jesse said, it’s old history. We all have it. No sense hoarding it like it’s something precious. Just get it out there and move on. Quit letting it have this hold on you.”
“Easy for you to say.”
She frowns. “You think it was easy for me to get over Nicholas? Just because I have Jesse now, and I’m happy as can be with him, doesn’t mean I’m over what Nicholas did to me. I’ve just found something worth having that makes it easier to keep moving on, one day at a time. It’s a choice—I made a choice. And it wasn’t easy.”
I get to my feet with an aggravated huff. “Whatever.” I grab my bag and head for the house, just to get away from Imogen’s truth.
“I guess we get the fire to ourselves, huh?” I hear Jesse say, and then the thunk and spark of a log hitting the fire, followed by the renewed crackling of flames devouring the fresh fuel.
I see shadows in the distance—Ryder and Laurel strolling along the fence line of James’s property. I angle away from them to give them their space and privacy. Where to go? Where did Franco go? I want to know so I can go anywhere else. The house seems like a safe bet—but, as I head for the kitchen, I see James and Nova standing chest to chest by the fridge, her hands on his shoulders, his on her waist. They’re not kissing, though, and their body language is tense, as if they’re fighting the obvious attraction between them. I see Nova shake her head and pull back, twisting away from him, then James scrubs a hand through his hair, mussing his usually neat brown locks.
Nope, not going in there.
The eight-foot-high wood-slat privacy fence surrounding James’s backyard runs up to the side of the house, dividing Jesse’s property from the neighbors’. A large gate that spans the driveway up near the front corner of the house separates the road and the rest of the property. I see moonlight glint on the metal gate as it swings open on silent hinges, only the slight rattle of the latch giving him away.
Headlights approach from the street, then turn and bounce up onto the driveway, and silhouette Franco’s form. His head is down, arms swinging loosely.
He’s leaving?
As I walk up to the front of the property, I notice that the gate is tall, and looks like it was handmade from metal piping and rods and spindles; it’s heavy but well-balanced on oiled hinges, swinging open slowly as I give it a push. Behind me, the fire flickers orange at the far end of the yard, and Imogen and Jesse are small, conjoined shadows. Just as I turn to close the gate behind me, I see Ryder and Laurel slip back to the fire and sit down.
A car door opens and I hear a voice identifying Franco. The vehicle is a late-model Kia sedan with a pink LYFT sign on the front dash, driven by a middle-aged man in a Sikh turban. I’m lit by the headlights as I approach, and the driver turns to see if Franco wants to wait for me.
He leaves the door open, one foot in the car and one on the pavement. I stop beside him, staring down at him.
I don’t say a word; neither does he.
After a silent moment, energy crackling between us in a storm of unspoken tension and awareness, Franco slides over and extends a hand to me.
