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.”
Chapter 2
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.
Finishing my dinner, I pull my laptop into my lap and start searching for potential properties. It was one of the first things that helped Oliver start to place trust in me. I’m always looking for the next deal, and I routinely find potential properties for him. But my next goal is to do a flip from start to finish . . . find the property, research it, renovate it, and sell it on my own. It’ll be my little jump forward on Oliver’s trusting me to be independent.
I get lost in the listings, and before I know it, it’s almost midnight. I click Save on a few of the listings that I want to drive by this weekend and crash into bed, happily exhausted. Maybe it’s not a night on the town, but I feel like I’ve accomplished something.
Chapter 3
Caleb
“Ugh,” I mutter involuntarily with a wince, holding my hand over my mouth. It doesn’t help much. I still feel like the stench is a physical blanket that’s assaulting my mouth, nose, and eyes to the point I’ve got tears running down my cheeks. I’ve got a pretty strong stomach. I’ve choked down plenty of disgusting stuff in my time, and I have no problem going elbows deep in a clogged toilet if I have to . . . but this is pushing the limits.
The house is a mess—trash in the corners, holes in the walls, a decided slope to the floor from the front of the house to the back, and a wretched putrid smell that seems to be soaked into every square inch of the walls. When the listing said the house was a ‘fixer-upper’, I think they were being generous. No wonder Oliver got it so cheap.
I pull out my phone, dialing Oliver. He wanted me to give him a call as soon as I could give him a work estimate. While I wait for him to pick up, I try the window next to me, but it’s jammed. Gagging, I head to the back door, but the metal screen door is stuck until I put my boot on the lock and break it off. Fuck it, that’s the least of the concerns for this place.
“Hey, Caleb, how’s it going?” Oliver greets me. In the background, I can hear the lively conversation in the coffee shop & deli that is Mindy’s Place. It’s a weird thing about Oliver. He has a perfectly good office upstairs that he could use, but he spends most of his creative time either in the basement taking up a corner of the metal table the pizza chefs use for rolling dough, or a seat in the shop if things aren’t too busy. “You’re quick on the call. You have an estimate for me already?”
“Hey, Oli, and yeah. How’s the restaurant today?”
“Good,” he says. “Mindy had the idea of running a panini lunch buffet, and she’s got a line out the door. So the grill guys are going nuts. How’s the house?”
“Man, how big is your bank account?” I ask, gulping down the sweet clean air of the backyard. It’s a total mess too, but at least the smell isn’t so bad. “Actually, check that. I know you could afford it. But if you want my best advice, get a couple of Molotov
cocktails because this house needs to be burned down and rebuilt. It’d be faster and cheaper than trying to fix it.”
“That bad, huh?”
A squeaking noise behind me reminds me of another thing, and I’m glad that I always wear some old military surplus combat boots when I go into places like this. “I’m not even joking about how bad this place is structurally. And it’s got rats, not mice, fucking Lower East Side sewer-size rats in the kitchen. You owe me for this one. I’m gonna need two showers to wash the stench off. And I’m thinking of burning this shirt.”
I can hear the wheels whirring in his mind. It’s what I respect about Oliver. Some people, they’d be pissed off that the house is so much worse than advertised. He isn’t. He knows how to make a profit on this deal no matter what. “You up for lunch? If I smell another panini being grilled right now, I’m gonna lose it. Meet me at the taco stand over by the hotel in ten so we can stay outside. And I’ll stay upwind of you.”
I laugh. “Hey, at least you can see what a real man smells like instead of that fancy cologne shit Mindy has you wearing. But I’ll take the tacos. See ya in ten.”
Oliver laughs, and we hang up. Walking around the house to avoid upsetting the local rodents, I peel off my shirt and toss it into my tool carrier. I was serious about ditching the damn thing. I grab the bottle of antiseptic gel I keep in my glove box for emergencies and squirt my entire chest and arms. It’ll dry out my skin some, but it’ll at least cut the smell and make sure I don’t get some funky ass fungal growth. I get my upper body as best I can before discreetly getting my balls and deciding that’s enough. Pulling on my spare t-shirt, an old high school football shirt that’s seen better days but still keeps a sentimental place in my rotation, I drive over to the taco truck that’s a mainstay in the downtown area near the Grand Waterways Hotel and Park. Oli’s there a few minutes later, pulling up in his new car, a Lexus GX in silver gray.
Mr. Fixit Page 2