Fix You (16 page)

12

             
J
essica – Jess – met him at her back door at eight-thirty Monday morning, ready to work. All her shiny blonde hair was tied back with a blue bandana and she was in jeans, sneakers, and a red t-shirt that had been washed to near disintegration. She had a pair of leather yard gloves hanging out of her back pocket. And she looked amazing.

             
“You’re late,” she said in a flat voice.

             
He lifted the McDonald’s bag in his hand. “I brought you breakfast, though.”

             
“Did you eat yours in the car?”

             
“Yeah.”

             
“Good, then we can get started.” She plucked the coffee from his other hand and blew the steam off the mouth of the lid. “I don’t do breakfast.”

             
Jessica Walker, he’d decided Saturday, was not a woman who played games. She wasn’t a flirt. She wasn’t, by nature, passive-aggressive. The venom he’d glimpsed was the direct byproduct of her husband’s defection.

             
There was nothing quite so pathetic as a man who felt his masculinity was threatened by his woman. To think that this very feminine blonde could reduce a guy to the sad state Chris had watched her ex stoop to on Saturday was laughable. Chris was no gentleman, but he knew you didn’t show up in front of an ex’s family with the new arm candy in tow. Not that the new candy had anything on the old candy…but still. He’d been in the presence of her ex – Dylan, he’d gleaned from eavesdropping – for all of ten minutes and he’d cheerfully decided he hated the man. He was an idiot. And he’d never liked idiots.

             
He set the chicken biscuit he’d brought her on the counter and heeled the door shut behind him. “You may wanna eat,” he cautioned, surveying the sprawling room they were about to hammer to bits. “This is man work.”

             
She took a sip of the coffee and set it down, fished the gloves out and started tugging them on with a wry non-smile. “Well, it may be, but I’m all you’ve got. Jo has to watch the kids till Ellie shows up and all my manpower is employed at real jobs. So.” She turned to face him with a professional expectation lighting her green eyes. “Where do we start?”

             
He couldn’t decide if she was this cold all the time, or if it was a deliberate effort because of her divorce. He was ninety-nine percent sure, though, that she was only cold outwardly, that this was a front and – unlike all the fake women who put on a good face but who lied and cheated their way through life – her sharp exterior hid a warmer and more receptive interior. At least, he hoped that was true. He hoped it was true for unprofessional reasons.

             
“I’ll go get my stuff.” He reached for the doorknob. “Do you have safety glasses? You’re gonna need them.”

             
He went to his truck and returned, tools in hand, to find her standing at the counter in a pair of clear plastic safety glasses, sipping her coffee and staring at the McDonald’s bag. She glanced at him as he laid out the sledge hammers, crowbars and cordless drill. “Eat,” he told her, expecting a reprimand. She gave him a long, flat look, then her eyes dropped to the tools, then she reached for the bag.

             
“I’m gonna try,” he said as she nibbled at her chicken biscuit, “to take all these cabinets down without making a mess.”

             
She nodded and swallowed; he thought a smile might have threatened. “So no hammering everything to bits like on TV?”

             
“Not unless you just wanna clean up the mess.”

             
She nodded again and took another bite, a bigger one this time.

             
The mess was going to be unavoidable, though, because whoever had painted the cabinets teal had painted over every screw in great thick globs. Chipping away the paint in order to back the screws out would be tedious and frustrating.

             
Chris hefted a sledge and offered her its mate. “Alright, Goldilocks. Let’s see what ya got.”

             
Jess’s eyes, he noted with a grin, were bright with the prospect.

**

              Tam had been at his desk all of five minutes when Mike came down the hall to see him.

             
He’d been at Parrish for almost three months and he still felt like an imposter; he still waited for someone to take a good look at him and realize that he didn’t belong, that hiring him had been a mistake, and that security needed to be called. He was comfortable with the meat and potatoes of his job – the number crunching – but he couldn’t shake the sensation of a punk playing dress up. He still couldn’t wrap his head around the inane small talk at the water cooler or come up with suitable lies when he was asked about golf or tennis or a whole bunch of other things he didn’t care about.

             
At Mike’s knock, his head snapped up out of startled instinct, a hand going to the spikes of hair he no longer had. His sudden flare of nerves dissolved, though, as his brother-in-law threw himself down into one of the chairs across from Tam’s desk and pegged him with an expression so serious, Tam wanted to laugh for some reason.

             
“What’s up?”

             
“I have to ask you something,” Mike’s voice was earnest, his green eyes wide, “and trust me, I don’t want to ask it.”

             
A snarky retort formed and died in Tam’s throat. He tried to suppress a grin. “Sounds serious.”

             
Mike released a huge breath, fiddled with his tie, ran a hand along the edge of the desk and watched it studiously. Finally, he lifted his gaze, swallowed and asked, “Are you getting laid?”

             
Tam understood why he hadn’t wanted to ask it, but not what had prompted the question. “Um…”

             
Mike made a face. “I don’t wanna know anything about what you and Jo
do
,” he clarified, “but I need to know,” he exhaled again, shaking his head, “I need to know if you’re getting any.”

             
“Did Jo say something to you? Are you trying to sell me Viagra or something?”

             
“No! Jesus….just answer the question.”

             
Tam shrugged. “Sure. Your sister sexes me up - ”

             
“Yes or no question,” Mike said with a scowl. “
Yes
or
no
.”

             
“Then yes. And you wanna know…why?”

             
“How often?” Mike asked, and Tam barked a disbelieving laugh.

             
“Dude, are you sure you want to know? I mean, I appreciate your concern about my sex life, but - ”

             
“As often as normal?” Mike persisted. “Or less?”

The little stress lines bracketing his mouth were what had Tam frowning and actually considering. It was rare that Mike was stirred up about anything, but when he was, he was impossible to put off. With an inward shrug, Tam said, “I guess. She’s bee
n tired working on the house…” A frown tugged as he thought about her question two nights before:
Are you bored with me?

“Less because she’s tired?” Mike asked, grim-faced. “Or because of Jess’s divorce?”

Realization came slamming into him. “She asked if I was bored with her,” Tam said, and felt his face settle into an expression he figured was similar to Mike’s.

“Are you? Bored?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“That son of a bitch,” Mike cursed, and sank back in his chair. His eyes flashed. “I’m
gonna beat Dylan’s ass…and
then
I’m gonna kill him.”

“Delta?” Tam asked, already knowing.

              “She’s half-convinced I’m gonna lose my freaking mind and dump her for a blonde.”

             
“Jordie and Ellie are having trouble too. He wouldn’t say what, but I’m gonna put my money on - ”

             
“Dylan. Stupid
fucking
Dylan.”

             
Tam sat back and pulled an ankle up onto the opposite knee, tracing the stitching along the side of his shoe with his thumb. “The girls are getting paranoid,” he stated the obvious. “Even though they shouldn’t.”

             
“Damn right they shouldn’t.” Mike rubbed at the back of his neck. “Delta
knows
I would never…” his mouth twitched unhappily, “and Jo
has
to know.”

             
“She does. They both know.” And Tam was confident that was true, even if their wives were plagued by an irrational fear at the moment.

             
“I’ve been romantic as shit, man,” Mike went on. “I mean, really good stuff.”

             
Tam bit back a grin at his word choice, then sobered. “They’ll come around,” he predicted, and hoped he was right.

             
“They better,” Mike sighed. “’Cause I don’t ever wanna have to ask you that again.”

**

              Demolishing kitchens should have been court mandated therapy. Her arms were quivering jelly in the aftermath of swinging a sledge hammer; she was slick with sweat, her shirt glued to her body, little rivulets escaping her bandana and trickling down her temples. She was breathing hard and choking on dust. But her heart was thumping and for the first time since she’d found a pair of black panties in her husband’s coat pocket, an exhilarating sense of accomplishment was flooding through her, leaving her smiling and happy.

             
She plucked her paper dust mask down, let it dangle from its string around her neck, and took stock of what had once been a hideous teal kitchen. They’d taken it down to the studs – it was just an empty shell laced with exposed wires – and at their feet, scattered across the sub-floor, the cabinets, backsplash tile, crumbling plaster and old laminate counter tops and linoleum flooring lay in great discarded heaps. It felt very much like standing in the middle of a landfill.

             
Chris, propped on his own sledge beside her, had plaster and God knew what else in his dark hair, his gray t-shirt clinging to the solid planes of muscle in his torso. Tall and broad and holding a hammer, he was, in that moment, the poster boy for all things masculine. A man’s man. The kind of guy of which her father would very much approve. And he was strong – she was still a little in awe of the damage he’d done to the upper cabinets with just one swing of the sledge hammer.

             
He turned to her, glasses and dust mask pushed up on his forehead, smiling a sharp, white smile. “Whadya think?” he asked like he already knew the answer.

             
She was already smiling to herself, so she let it stretch, inhaling a huge breath her tired body needed. “That was fantastic,” she said, honest, and watched his grin widen too.

             
“It’s a good stress reliever,” he agreed, toeing a splintered teal cabinet door. “But now we gotta haul this out to the dumpster.”

             
“If Ellie will ever get here,” Jess stepped back and felt something hard beneath her shoe, “then Jo can - ”

             
Pain exploded in her right foot. Sharp, hot, sudden and blinding pain. She didn’t know if she screamed or gasped or said anything at all, only that tears clouded her eyes and she bit her tongue until she tasted blood. It wasn’t the pain of a sprain or break. It wasn’t an injury. Something had
stabbed
her.

             
Chris appeared in front of her and a big hand curled around her upper arm, steadying her. His face swam, her unwanted tears destroying her vision. “Which foot?” he asked.

             
“Right,” she managed through her teeth.

             
She couldn’t even begin to argue as he scooped her up into a fireman’s carry; there was nowhere to sit or even lean in the carnage of the kitchen, and her foot was thumping in time to her pulse, the pain in the sole searing. He carried her out and then very carefully settled her down on the back steps. Both her hands curled around the step she was sitting on and her teeth started chattering.

             
“What’d you step on?” he asked, and reached for her foot.

             
“It hurts,” was all she could say without sobbing, and brought her ankle up to prop on her knee, the heel of her shoe landing in his waiting palm.

             
Jess almost puked when she saw the head of a screw protruding from the knobby sole of her sneaker.

             
Chris sucked in a breath. “Shit. It went all the way through.” He reached for it.