Page 60 of Screwed (Dad Bod Contracting 4)
I shake my head. “It has to be for him, and for his girls. If he goes through all this and he’s in a better place, I’ll be happy for him, even if he concludes he and I can’t be anything.” I ache inside just saying that.
Jesse pulls his hair back and then lets it go. “I don’t think he’ll come to that conclusion. I guess I’m just not sure how long it’s going to take for him to feel like he’s ready to offer you anything.”
“And I don’t know how long my heart can hold out, Jess.”
“And he’d tell you to do what you need to do.” Jesse slaps the sink. “I’m gonna go.”
“Thanks, Jesse,” I say.
He nods. “We’ll be done with your kitchen soon, and then we’ll start on your new door wall.”
“What about the master suite idea? I guess I thought that would be next.”
Jesse hesitates. “James said he planned on doing that himself.”
“Oh.” I blow out a breath. “I guess at this point I assumed he wasn’t planning on actually doing any of this.” I realize I sound ungrateful, possibly. “Not that it matters. I don’t want to sound like I’m—”
Jesse laughs, holds up a hand. “Hey, I’ve been thinking the same thing myself.”
“You guys are amazing. My kitchen is incredible.”
Jesse grins. “Appliances get delivered Monday. Once those are in, you’ll have a kitchen again.”
I clap excitedly. “I’m actually giddy with excitement, Jess. Seriously. Thank you so much.”
He exits the bathroom and I follow him into my mostly complete kitchen, which is just missing appliances and some floor trim, which Franco is working on now that the cabinets are in. “My pleasure.” He grabs his toolbox off the floor and heads for the door, pausing halfway through it. “Don’t give up just yet, Nova.”
I smile weakly. “Trying, Jess. I’m trying.”
Once he’s gone in a rumble of diesel clatter, I stand in my kitchen and look around, in awe of how open my house feels now. I stare at the framed-in opening where the fridge is going to go—it still needs drywall, mud, and paint, and then the actual appliance, and I try to picture the completed space.
I spend a few more minutes trying to visualize the whole place being done, but it’s hard, because I’m not really a visual person. And the mental exercise, to be honest, is more about distracting myself than anything.
Because it’s all too easy to remember James in here, to picture him. To feel him.
Gahhh.
I get ready for bed and curl up under my blanket, watching Dexter on my iPad until I eventually fall asleep.
I wake up abruptly, and try to figure out what woke me. I’m groggy—I don’t wake up easily, and when I do, it takes me a while to regain anything like coherency.
I lay in bed, blinking at the ceiling, waiting to see if whatever woke me up will happen again.
There it is—a fist pounding on the door…the back door.
I slide out of bed and tiptoe hesitantly out of my room, down the short hallway, and into the living room. Another knock—more of a pounding, honestly. Franco left his tools here, so I grab a hammer from the toolbox—the thing is something Thor would use, not just a normal hammer, but a two-foot-long thing with a huge, heavy head. I wield it in both hands as I approach the back door. I grip it one-handed, yank open the back door and kick the storm door outward, and then grab the hammer in both hands again, ready to clobber whoever the hell is at my back door at whatever the hell time it is.
James.
He’s weaving on his feet—absolutely hammered. “Nova.” His voice sounds oddly clear, however, even though he’s visibly obliterated.
“James…um. Hi.” I toss the hammer on the porch and reach for him as he sways, nearly falling off the little porch. “Whoa, there. Grab onto the doorframe, James. You’re too big for me to catch if you go down.”
He reaches for the doorframe, misses three times, and then gets it, and I hear the wood crackle under his grip. “Hi, Nova.”
I rear back from the potent reek of alcohol on his breath. “Wow, um…hi.”
He’s shirtless, although I see the shirt hanging from his back pocket. His jeans are filthy at the knees and one hip, as if he’d fallen in the mud and struggled to get back to his feet; his hands are similarly muddy.
“ ’M drunk, Nova.”
I nod, wide-eyed. “Yeah, I noticed.”
“No. No-no-nonono. I’m really, really, really drunk. Like super-duper McShwasted. Drunky drunk drunk.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“I started drinking at Billy Bar, but then I was too drunk to drive, so I started walking home. But then I missed.”
“You…missed?”
He nods, a wobbly, circling sort of movement. “Uh-huh. I missed the house and ended up at a liquor store down the road.”
