His brother James shouted back, “Everything is under control.”
“I doubt that,” Josh said. “But also, not our problem.” They’d already worked out the details ahead of time by rotating the responsibility of caring for seven children by dividing it up among the four brothers. Two stayed upstairs with the kids, which left two of them free to play pool in the basement. “Everybody wins,” they’d decided.
“I’m not sure I do, considering Amber and I don’t have any kids yet,” Justin had said. The newlyweds were actively trying to get pregnant and planned to have their kids close together, since they’d gotten a bit of a later start than the other brothers.
“Think of it as a karma deposit,” Josh had told him. “Besides, our kids will make excellent babysitters when they’re a little older and then they can watch yours, so you’re welcome.”
“How’s it going?” Jordan asked as he lined up his shot. “You gonna give the online-dating thing another try or what?”
“I’m definitely not.”
“Then what’s your plan, man?”
“I don’t need a plan.” Josh took a drink of his beer. “I met someone. We’ve been spending some time together. Quite a bit, actually.”
“Who is she?”
“Her name’s Layla. She’s the music teacher at Sasha’s school.” He was about to call her his friend, which was true, but they were friends who’d traded kisses and were now in a transitional phase, it seemed. And he wanted more of those kisses.
Lots more.
“Oh, yeah,” Jordan said, pumping his fist. “That’s what I’m talking about. Little brother is back in the saddle.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. It’s pretty new.”
“Yeah, so? You can still be into it. It’s okay to have a good time, you know. With her or anyone else.”
“I know. I guess I just thought it would be easier.” That wasn’t completely true. What he’d thought was that it would be exhilarating to go out and sow some oats. Date a variety of women at the same time if he felt like it. Do all those things he’d missed out on because he’d married so young. But now that he could do them, he had no desire to. It didn’t seem exhilarating at all. It mostly seemed exhausting.
“It’s not like before if that’s what you’re worried about,” Jordan said. “It wouldn’t be cheating now. All I’m saying is that it’s okay to play.”
Josh took a long drink of his beer. “Yeah, I know.”
* * *
Jordan’s coworker had a sister who needed some electrical work done and he’d told the coworker all about Josh and given a glowing recommendation.
“Seriously, what have I told you about doing that?” Josh said when Jordan told him to expect a call. When friends and family referred him, it often ended up being a job he wouldn’t have accepted otherwise. The work they needed done was rarely in line with his skill level and almost all of them balked at his hourly rate. He’d asked his family to stop doing it, but he also had a hard time saying no once a business card or his phone number had been handed over and he received the call. Too many times he would discover all that was needed was another outlet or a dimmer switch or someone to hook up a ceiling fan or two. In this case, he hadn’t even talked to the potential client on the phone, because Jordan had acted as the go-between and all Josh had was an address and a request to stop by in the evening.
He was surprised when he pulled into the gravel driveway of a home twenty minutes outside of town. The fence was crumbling, the siding was peeling, and he double-checked to make sure he had the right address. The last thing he wanted to work on was a crumbling fixer-upper, and the house’s condition probably meant the cost of his services wouldn’t go over well, either.
A woman who looked to be a few years younger than Josh opened the door. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and she had a smear of dirt across her sweaty cheek. She had dark hair and eyes and she looked nothing like Kimmy. “Hi, I’m Nikki. You must be Josh.”
“Yep. Nice to meet you,” he said. They shook hands and she ushered him inside.
“Thank you for doing this. The last guy I hired flaked on me as soon as the kitchen was done. I guess he had a better opportunity, or something came up. I told my brother I wanted to find someone I could trust, and I was so glad when I found out about you. I don’t feel comfortable hiring anyone now without a personal recommendation.”
“Sure,” he said. “No problem.”
“I bought this house as an investment. I’m an interior designer and I thought it would be a fun challenge to buy something, gut it, and decorate it from the ground up. I must have temporarily lost my mind, because I’m in a little over my head. It needs a lot of work. But the price was right, so here we are.”
“I’m guessing some of your problems are electrical,” he said.
“I had an inspection done and I’ve got a list of things that range from mildly annoying to super unsafe.”
“Can I see the inspection report?” he asked.
She fetched it from another room, and he scanned the items that needed to be addressed, ranging from critical to low-priority. “Is it hopeless?” she asked.
“No. It’s not hopeless. But it could get expensive.” Family referral or not, he’d worked hard to get where he was, and he wasn’t going to start slashing his rates now. He didn’t have to.
She didn’t blink when he gave her his hourly rate and the number of hours it would probably take.
“I can do that,” she said. “Budgeting for the worst and then doubling it was the only smart thing I did.”
She was often there when he worked on the house, and over the next few days he learned that she’d recently moved back from the East Coast after a bad breakup. “My brother thought I was crazy to buy this house, but I needed something to tear down and build back up. I guess that’s what you do when your own life crashes and burns.”
Once he’d gotten inside and discovered how much she’d already done, he realized that the house had a ton of potential. She told him that the roof and siding were being replaced next and she’d showed him the rest of the plans one day when he was taking a break for lunch. She’d spread everything out on the brand-new quartz countertop and pointed to various things on the blueprints. “I bought it at the right price—I have a suspicion the previous owner might have died upstairs—but it was exactly what I was looking for. I should still be able to sell it for a nice profit even with all the work I’m putting into it.”
“I don’t think you’ll have any trouble selling it,” he said.
“What about you?” she asked one day. “What’s your story? How’d you get into this line of work?”
He told her that he didn’t like to sit for too long and that he liked working with his hands. “I knew college wouldn’t be for me, but I still wanted a career.”
“Looks like it worked out for you.”