Page 9 of Nailed (Dad Bod Contracting 3)
He makes a face that’s somewhere between a puzzled frown and an amused grin. “What?”
“Avoiding answering my question.”
He blows out a breath. “Fine. Yes—it was messy. From start to finish, the whole fucking relationship was messy. The way we met, hooking up, dating, getting engaged, getting married, getting divorced, the whole thing was an unmitigated fucking disaster.”
I blink, eyes wide. “Wow. Okay.”
He gestures at me with his pint glass. “You asked.”
I nod. “I did.” I roll a hand. “Continue.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Curiosity?”
He laughs. “Morbid curiosity, then.” He pauses for a moment, thinking. “All through high school and trade school, I had a weird nickname: Bob Vila.”
I laugh. “Like, the guy from the tool commercials and This Old House?”
He snorts, nodding. “That’s the guy. You know why they called me that?”
“Because you were into construction?”
“Electrical work is not the same as construction, FYI. And no. Jesse was the first to call me Bob Vila, back in…tenth grade? Eleventh? Somewhere in there. It was because I was always dating these girls who were, according to James, Jesse, and Franco, fixer-uppers.” He uses air quotes around the phrase. “Meaning, the really messed-up girls from shitty backgrounds who I thought needed me to save them.”
I grimace. “Oh. That’s…fun.”
He laughs. “It’s a complicated psychological thing. I guess I just wanted to feel needed—at least that’s what the therapist I saw after my divorce told me.” He shrugs. “It was a series of train wrecks, to be honest. One girl after another was messed up somehow and would get needy and clingy and weepy and I’d end up breaking up with them because I’d realize they needed more fixing than I could provide, and I’d promise myself the next girl I dated wouldn’t be needy.”
“Yet they always were,” I suggest.
He nods. “Exactly. And then I met Amy. I was freshly single, coming out of another relationship with a girl who was…well, let’s just say popping Norco like Tic Tacs was the least of her issues.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah. So I met Amy at a bar, and we hit it off. Flirting, lots of back and forth, I thought she was hot, she seemed to like me, seemed fairly normal, no obvious signs of crazy. And trust me, I was getting good by that point at seeing signs of crazy.” He concentrated on his glass. “So, we, uh…hooked up. I was determined that’s all it would be—remember, I was less than two weeks out of a relationship that had really taken its toll on me. Only, I messed up—I stayed the night. Not intentionally, but still. We’d been drinking, and it got late, and I meant to get up and go home, but ended up passing out instead.”
“Let me guess, she had a boyfriend.”
He smirks. “Not quite. We’d gone back to her place after the bar—again, seems normal, right? Only, I wake up, and she’s not there, and there’s a chick standing over me, staring down at me looking pissed, and it’s not Amy.”
I frown. “Huh? Like, you slept with the wrong girl?”
He laughs. “No, god no—I wasn’t that drunk. The girl was totally different, brunette to Amy’s blond, tall to Amy’s short—a totally different person. And she was seriously pissed off, because she’d stayed the night at her boyfriend’s house, came home to get her books for class, and found a random dude naked in her bed.”
I break out into laughter. “What? How does that happen?”
He shakes his head. “It turned out the girl whose bed I was in—Shelly, her name was—realized I had hooked up with Amy…her former roommate. Shelly had kicked Amy out because she kept stealing money, not paying rent, and doing other crazy shit.”
I blink. “Wow. Quite an impression. So…how did you end up in Shelly’s bed?”
“Amy was still between apartments, and needed somewhere to bring me so we could…you know. And apparently she’d kept a copy of Shelly’s key, and somehow knew Shelly would be at her boyfriend’s that night, and figured Shelly wouldn’t mind us using her bed.”
I make a disgusted face. “Um…gross!”
“I know! I was mortified. But apparently Shelly was fairly familiar with Amy’s bullshit and wasn’t too surprised. She told me to let myself out and feel free to not come back. I’m assuming she threw away her sheets once I left.” He laughs.
I shake my head. “Wow. So…you ended up marrying this Amy girl? The one who stole from her roommate, kept secret copies of keys, lied about being homeless, and brought you to her ex-roommate’s apartment for sex?”
He laughs, nodding. “Yep, I did.”
“Wow. Do tell how that happens.”
“She was…convincing. I’m not justifying it, mind you. I knew it was a bad idea, I knew it was only going to get me into trouble, but I was…addicted, I guess. Because she really needed me. All the guys were like, ‘danger, danger, abort, abort—this chick is fucking nuts,’ but I just couldn’t resist.” He sighs. “She was a deadly combination of hot, good in bed, and needy.” He frowns at me. “Sorry, I’m just…telling the truth.”
