Shrugging, I put my bag down just outside the door and step inside. I find Mrs. Barnes on the other side of the kitchen, wearing a tennis skirt outfit. For a woman who’s probably in her sixties, she definitely stays active. Maybe she’s on her way out to play. “Looks like your petunias are safe for the rest of the summer, Mrs. Barnes,” I say after carefully wiping my feet. “That new PVC pipe is going to last you for years.”
“Thank you, Caleb,” she says. I notice that she’s touched up her blonde hair and makeup too as she turns, holding out a big glass of lemonade and a plate of cookies for me. “You looked like you were working like a total draft horse out there. How about a few cookies?”
I smile shyly. I can’t help it. I know what she’s doing, and it’s really beginning to embarrass me. I take the glass and drink. The woman does make a pretty kick-ass glass of lemonade, with real lemon juice that she squeezes by hand and a few other secret tricks that she says she won’t tell me, just that it’s ‘something men wouldn’t understand’. It’s nearly ice cold too, tart and sweet and singing as it rolls down my throat. I have to be careful. It’s so cold that I know if I chug like I want, I’m going to end up with a splitting headache, and I don’t want that. Setting the glass down, I take one of her homemade peanut butter cookies and take a bite. “Thank you, Mrs. Barnes.”
“You’re so very welcome, Caleb,” she says, setting the plate down. “Oh dear, I do hope this wasn’t a good shirt?”
She reaches out, putting a well-manicured hand on my arm, and I see the small tear in my t-shirt. It’s new, probably from when I tied the thing around my head, but I shrug, feeling weird. I don’t want to be rude, and I don’t want to upset a nice lady who’s a good customer, but I’m not interested in her ‘features’. Also, not to put too strange a point on it, you just don’t seduce a man like me with lemonade and peanut butter cookies. It’s the sort of thing she’d give her son if the son of a bitch didn’t live in Bend, Oregon, and work as a regional coordinator for FedEx. He didn’t even come home for his father’s funeral.
Doesn’t make it any less weird, and I chew my cookie quickly, trying to keep things professional. “Mrs. Barnes, if you’d like, I’ll mail you the invoice for the work today—”
“Nonsense, Caleb, you just rest yourself right there and I’ll go get my checkbook. You do take checks, right?” she asks, even though she already knows the answer, but I nod anyway. With most of my customers being from an earlier generation, I’ve gotten used to taking checks more than cash or credit cards. “I really do have to thank Janice for recommending your services. You are quite the Mr. Fix-It.” She emphasizes each word like she has something besides irrigation pipes for me to fix . . .
I chuckle. I don’t mind my nickname. “Thanks.”
While she fills out the check, I eat another cookie, getting the balance just right. Eat too many, and she’s going to insist that I stay longer and have some more because apparently, I need the calories. Eat too few, and I offend her. I swear, I learned more about how to do customer relations in the social hour after church than I ever did in college. When Mrs. Barnes comes back, she glances at the plate of cookies and mostly empty glass of lemonade, giving me another smile and a pat on the chest. “Really, Caleb, you are a godsend. I didn’t know what to do when I suddenly started gaining a new swamp out in the back yard. And coming over on your Saturday? I appreciate it. You must have some young lady that you’re standing up to take care of me.”
I shake my head, smirking. “No, Mrs. Barnes. I was only planning on catching Mindy’s new frappe and listening to some new music. I was able to do the music, and I’ll grab the frappe later.”
“Well, I’ll certainly tell all of my friends about you,” she says. “Mr. Fix-It is going to be in high demand around here.”
I smile, backing away and heading out the door. I don’t want to run, even though the hungry look in her eye tells me I probably should. Giving her a little wave, I grab my tool bag and walk around the side of her house to my work truck, a ten-year-old Silverado that I just got a new paint job for. I hate looking like a ‘handyman’, even if it is my job, and I make sure my truck looks good. When Mrs. Barnes taps on the front window and gives me another wave, I break into what I can only call a power walk, half throwing my tool bag into my cargo box before jumping behind the wheel and backing out as fast as I safely can. “That’s it,” I mutter to myself as I narrowly avoid her mailbox. “I’m backing into everyone’s driveway from here on out.”
I drive away, chuckling to myself as I reach the stop sign and turn right, heading for the gas station. Really, scared of an old lady who was just feeling a little ‘autumn heat’? Getting out, I top off the tank—I never let my truck get below a half tank after running out of gas in high school—and lean back, laughing to myself. I guess I’m more tired than I thought. Or maybe the lemonade was a little harder than normal?
Nah, that’s not Mrs. Barnes’s style. Like a lot of my clients, she’s pretty sweet. I didn’t think she’d be one of the flirty ones at first, but I’ve gotten my fair share of customers who want to put a little spice in their lives by calling me over to do work around their houses. I didn’t expect that, but it’s okay.
It still sometimes feel like I stumbled into this line of work by lucky accident. When my best friend, Tony Steele’s, mother had us do some work for her, I was glad to help Tony out. After he left town to take over a new family venture in Hawaii, I was asked by his big brother, Oliver, to join him at Steele Solutions. While I’m more than happy to help Oliver out in town and around the area, I’m no real estate tycoon type. I like working with my hands and my brain at the same time. Rewiring a house, repairing plumbing, all sorts of things like that are more interesting to me than just running numbers on a computer screen.
Not that I don’t give Oliver his respect. The man works hard, and he’s hardly the kind to sit on his ass. His business, his family, his wife’s cafe . . . the man works hard, and he can use his hands as much as his brain when he wants. But for me, I get as much satisfaction out of fixing a roof as I do cashing the check I get for the job. Oliver just likes to separate the two is all.
“That way, he doesn’t get hit on by his customers,” I chuckle as I put the nozzle away. “But I gotta remember to thank him and his mom.”
It’s true. Janice Steele’s word, and her circle of friends, have made it possible for me to be an independent handyman. Starting with working around her place, then Oliver’s properties in town, I’ve grown to the point that I’m booked out sometimes two weeks in advance, unless it’s an emergency job like Mrs. Barnes’s garden. Most of my customers, other than Oli, who’s more than willing to jump in and swing a hammer with me if he can, are either widowed or have husbands who are getting up there in age, and they aren’t quite up to some of the challenges of keeping up a house. That’s where I come in.
I climb back into my truck, heading for home. It’s not a big place, a fixer-upper that I bought with the ‘finder’s fee’ check that Oli cut me for the Hawaii property he’s made huge bank on, but I’ve got it in good shape after a year. Either way, I’ve got the rest of the weekend to chill out, then Monday, it’ll be back to work. “Ah, it’s not all bad,” I tell myself as I head out, plugging my music player into the dash of my truck and letting Roxy’s voice accompany me home. “Eight hours a day, five days a week, and I’m my own boss. TLC for Oli’s properties, repair jobs, and cashing checks. Can’t really beat that.”
“Well, there’s one way I could beat it,” I think as Roxy switches to one of her love ballads. “But that’s not for me.”
Cassie
“And boom!” I cheer myself as, with a bump of my hip, I close the filing cabinet drawer, signaling another project complete. “Headshot!” I hit the button on my computer’s media player, and a karaoke version of the old DMX song X Gon’ Give It To Ya starts playing, with me singing my own version instead. “Cass gon’ give it to ya, fuck doin’ deals on your own, Cass gon’ deliver to ya
. . .”
I know my little celebration is trite, and I really shouldn’t be yelling out Headshot complete with my own choreographed song and dance every time I complete a deal, but I’ve busted my butt on this. Besides, I’m alone on the second floor of the Flaming Dragon building, and nobody’s around to see my silly moves or hear my stupid lyrics. And if Tom Cruise can dance to Ludacris in Tropic Thunder, then by God, I’ll do what I want when no one can see me.
I’m just hitting the final lines when I turn around and find my boss, Martha, standing inside the door, laughing silently at my antics. I freeze, both hands thrown up in finger pistols, and she laughs harder as the music stops. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just investigating the sound of howling strangled cats they were talking about down in the coffee shop.”
“You scared the shit out of me!” I hurriedly protest, wiggling and patting my ass. “I might need to do an undie check! You know how dangerous that was?”
“Oh, yeah, you’re the most gangster hundred-and-ten-pound girl in the entire state,” Martha says with a chuckle. She’s dressed as she always is, in a fashionable blouse and slacks combo that, while nowhere near as formal as the clothing I wore when I worked at Aurora, still broadcasts a sense of professional competence that’s more than backed up by what she does. The company might be called Steele Solutions, but Martha’s as vital to Oliver’s success as his own smarts. “What in the world are you doing?”
“Cel-a-brate-ing! The McCormick deal is officially in the books as a win!” I reply, twirling and blowing off my ‘guns’ before holstering them in their invisible holsters next to my skirt. I still like to wear my sexy office clothes when I can, and Oliver doesn’t mind as long as I’m willing to get dirty and throw on a pair of jeans when I need to. And he knows from his own brother’s word that I can get my hands as dirty as anyone. “I got the last of the paperwork from the county clerk today, and it’s all ours! Well, Oliver’s, or, well . . .”
Martha laughs again. “I know what you mean. Great job, Cassie. That was a complex project. I’m proud of you for getting it done on time and on budget. Listen, Oliver’s at home for the day. I heard one of the kids is sick. So how about you take off early, relax, and maybe go out to celebrate tonight?”
She finishes her comment with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. I’m happy to get the praise. And the fact is, I’ve been busting my butt for a long time, trying to make an impact with the company. Really, it’s been hard to maintain my reputation as a ditzy party girl when I haven’t been out shaking my ass on the dance floor in ages. But since I started working for Oliver six months ago, I feel like I’ve grown a lot. Best of all, Oliver’s noticed it too. The last two projects, he let me, more or less, run completely solo after he signed off on my plans. Sure, Martha was there as a safety net, but I managed all the contractors, sales listing, and price negotiations, and now it was sold, baby, sold!
And Martha’s right. The McCormick deal was a complex project. Originally bought by Tony during Tony’s ‘funk phase’, as he calls it, the original plans had Steele Solutions sitting with that turkey of a property around our necks for the next decade. Instead, by finding the right investors—namely, a Chinese company that wanted to gain an American headquarters and needed a big enough property to get the tax breaks—I was able to take advantage of an opening. By setting up the right contractors for them, I was able to flip the property for not just a profit, but a good profit at that.
“Well, I suppose I could use a little bit of relaxation and reward,” I reply, leaning against my desk. “Hmmm . . . what should I get with my sales bonus? Shoes. Definitely those new peep-toe wedges with the ankle-strap ties. Completely impractical, especially in blush pink, but completely gorgeous and well worth the treat as a reward.”
“Shoes?” Martha asks, smirking and shaking her head. “I swear, all the smarts you have in that head of yours, and you blow your bonus on shoes?”
“Not just shoes,” I reply, biting my lip. “Maybe I’ll stop by Victoria’s Secret too. The wrapping is sometimes just as important as the present in the box.”
“Yes, well, I don’t need to know anything about your box,” Martha says mock-primly. While she’s no prude, she had to deal with both Oliver’s and Tony’s overactive single libidos for so long, she’s had enough. I don’t mind. I’ve been running a pretty epic dry spell anyway. I like to think I can keep things professional. I can still be a ditz—in fact, a lot of people assume I am just from my personality—and I’ve even used that to my benefit occasionally. But Martha sees through it so she keeps things at a relaxed professional level in the office. Not that I don’t miss joking around with Hannah sometimes. “Go on, get out of here before I find some files to shred or something.”
“This is Steele Solutions, not the White House,” I tease, grabbing my purse. “Thanks, Martha. See you tomorrow.”
I head downstairs, grabbing a frappe and a to-go salad from Mindy’s Place before heading back to my apartment. It’s not much, a one-bedroom half of a duplex, but compared to what I was living in before, it’s a damn mansion. I’ve actually got my own bedroom and living room that are separated by a real wall and not just a folding divider cutting the space in half. Oh, and a bathtub. Oh my God, the luxury of being able to stretch out in my own bathtub whenever I want . . . it’s heaven on earth sometimes.
I pop my salad in the fridge and decide that a bath is just what I need. I can do shoe shopping online anyway. None of the shops in town carry the really good brands. Manolos? Try Mano-nolos around this town. Still, I don’t mind. It’s a small and safe little town. Besides, Amazon is my buddy. So I pour in some bath oil, a gift from Hannah who sent it from Hawaii, the smell instantly relaxing me as I’m reminded of the forest we had to walk through on a constant basis.
In the year since coming back from Hannah and Tony’s wedding, I’ve missed her, even as we’ve grown closer as friends. Still, she’s nearly five thousand miles and six time zones away, which sort of sucks. But the bath oil is nice, and I’m just about to close my eyes when my phone rings. “Well, speak of the devil and she shall appear,” I answer, seeing that it’s Hannah. “How’s life in paradise?”
“Good,” Hannah replies, giggling. “But am I really the devil?”
“Only as much as I’m an angel,” I tease in reply. “What’s going on?”
“Not much,” Hannah says before filling me in on the goings on in Hawaii. In addition to her pregnancy, she and Tony are working at adding some rental cottages to the massive property. While the project’s still in the initial stages, it’s exciting to think about. “Studmuffin told me you closed the McCormick deal. He wanted to say thanks for pulling that albatross off his neck.”
“He can reward me with a first-class plane ticket and two weeks in one of those bungalows, and can you please stop calling your husband Studmuffin all the time?” I joke. “Oh, I love the bath oil. Hawaii smells different from any other place in the world. I guess that’s why it’s a vacation paradise.”
Hannah makes a surprised sound. “You’re calling me when you’re naked in the bathtub?”
“Nope. I’m answering your call while I’m naked in the bathtub,” I retort. “A small but important difference. Oh, and tell Tony that when I get there, I expect to have two attendants to see to my every need.”
“Tell you what, you get out here, and I’ll make sure to find some guy you can order around and tease constantly. Speaking of which, how is Caleb?”
“He’s been doing okay. Tony’s mom has gotten her friends to give him quite a few jobs over the past few months,” I tell her, shaking my head. “We go on our weekend runs usually, but he’s been so busy with his handyman work that he has to skip it sometimes. Not to mention, it seems like I’m always out doing something for Oliver anyway. You know, real estate investment is more than sitting on your ass behind a computer.”
“Says the woman whom I taught everything she knows,” Hannah laughs. “If it weren’t for me, you’d still be running
around Aurora and taking weekend trips to the sex toy shop to replace your most recently worn out toy, Elmer.”
“Shh,” I reply, putting on a dopey accent. “Be vewwy vewwy qwiet. I’m hunting wabbits.”
“Yeah, well, I hope you’re not needing one anymore,” Hannah says, but when I don’t answer, she hums. “How long has it been?”
“A bit,” I admit. “But come on, Han, it’s not that bad. I’ve just not had the time. I’m enjoying working for Oliver, and I want to learn everything I can from him. You know, opportunities like that don’t just fall from the sky.”
“Yeah, well, you just remember that good men don’t fall from the sky either. You gotta go out there and find them,” Hannah says.
We finish up the call and I lean back in the water, letting the scent and the warmth wash away days of tension. The fact is, despite coming across as flirty with the opposite sex sometimes, I’ve been trying to be more low-key since moving to work with Oliver. I want more out of life than a latex toy, that’s for damn sure, and while I’m not a saint, I’m not the girl who was using yoni eggs and packing a silver vibrator in her bag anymore either. Even Hannah senses it, I think, and our comments are more for fun than anything else.
Getting out of the bath, I evaluate myself in the mirror. I’ve let my hair grow longer. It’s almost halfway down my back now, and I think it looks good on me, even if it does make me look a little shorter somehow. I change into some lounge around the house-worthy short shorts and a tank top, letting the boobies dangle free. I’m not built like a pinup model, but I make up for it in other ways.
I get my salad and plop down to my one not-so-secret guilty pleasure, reality shows. Whether it’s Real Housewives, bachelors and bachelorettes looking for love in all the wrong places, or even people wanting to get totally ridiculous motorcycles built, I love them. Tonight, it’s Wedding Dress Hunters, and while I eat my salad, I smile as the girl on-screen says yes to a poufy princess monstrosity that looks like it came out of a cheap sci-fi movie or something. Whatever floats her boat, I guess.
Dirty Talk Page 47