by M. C. Cerny
Just as another round of drinks came, I heard Kristen scream from the bathroom.
“Damien, what did you do?” I asked, immediately regretting it.
“Oh, you know, just an unsolicited dick pic.”
“You keep those on your phone?”
He wiggled his eyebrows, and I took a deep breath, figuring there wasn’t enough alcohol for any of that.
“What? You don’t?”
“Yeah, I don’t exactly have situations that call for a dick pic.”
“Would you have preferred if I asked her politely? She was kind of asking for the anaconda.”
The headache I didn’t have was coming on with a vengeance now.
“Hey, if you want to commit the crime of harassment then be my guest. You’re just giving Evan more ammunition to arrest you.”
“Well, thanks. I do prefer to send them willy-nilly.”
“Sometimes… argh… I just can’t with you. I really can’t. You realize Kristen is an adult and she’s allowed to have casual sex with men other than you?”
“Pfft. More like competitive sex, thank you very much. It’s better than my opinion on her dating Pig Prick, which is why she came in here in the first place. If she asked nicely, I could have told her that he’s not here. I’m sure she’ll find him, but not before she gets a closer look at my prize sausage.” Damien shimmied his hips like a bad Bollywood dancer, and I had to look away or vomit in my mouth.
“Uh-huh.” I didn’t want to dignify the conversation by asking anything else and continued nursing my beer, signaling to Andy for my tab to be wrapped up.
“So what’s the game plan for the house?”
“Taylor Jane said a film crew from the college is coming over periodically to document the house’s transformation starting next week.”
“Lucky you, movie star.”
I wasn’t the type to be on television and I hoped like hell the film crew was smart enough to stay out of the way as the heavy work was being completed now.
“I hope not. If this is anything like those reality nightmare shows I am quitting done or not with the project.”
“Spoil sport and we all know you wouldn’t quit, so stop saying it.” Damien huffed.
“When are you coming over to start the plumbing work?”
Damien clinked bottles with me and downed his quickly. “Toward the end of the week. I’m finishing up a tub install. I’ve got to check Mrs. Landry’s pipes, if you know what I mean.” Damien gave me a look that said he was banging the older woman, and I shuddered, trying to scrub the image from my brain. Mrs. Landry was honing in on her late fifties, but she looks thirty-five at most. “I’m free after that.”
“Good.” I tried to not think about the next few weeks and made a mental list in my head of all the stuff that needed to get done between now and then. I was going to be busy circumventing Taylor Jane’s laundry list of items that could wait until we were ready for the finishing touches. I planned on dodging film students and the electrician to fix the outlets upstairs with the new wiring. We didn’t need any more events of the FUBAR level.
12
Taylor Jane
“All right, make sure you wear these hard hats and stay out of the direct construction. Hunter has safety tape and cones blocking off the areas he’s deemed unsafe for me, so follows those and you’ll be all right.” I passed a set of yellow hard hats to Matt and Logan, who were the film students assigned to the project. Both were young, well-groomed kids from the film department wearing faded jeans and tight white T-shirts over their metrosexual bodies. Logan held the camera, and Matt carried a clipboard with a light pole. “Now where is Hunter.…” I looked around the porch crisscrossed with what he called my TJ-safety tape, but I didn’t see him anywhere. He was probably still pissed at me for the whole bird thing. Who knew his feathers would get so ruffled after the encounter. I was glad I wasn’t driving him to get a rabies shot, and Mr. Hooter escaped the house without further incident.
“What the hell is this?”
I felt Hunter before I actually saw him and swung around, pasting a sunny smile on my face.
“Good morning, Hunter. How are you today? Feeling better?” Fake me smiled so hard my face hurt.
“Okay, I got the message.” Hunter’s curtness stung.
I guessed he didn’t want to exchange pleasantries. Heaving a heavy sigh, at least I tried.
“These are the film students, Matt and Logan. Remember? That whole must film this for the contest thing?” The only answer I got was a grunt, which told me enough and yet not anything at all.
“I can see that, Taylor Jane. Why are they in the middle of my demo?”
I looked inside the doorway to the exposed walls of the living room. Stacks of sheet rock were waiting to be put up after we found a huge electrical and duct problem that delayed finishing the room. Another wall had several holes in it, indicating that it would be the next wall opened up.
“Your demo?”
He huffed, removing the hammer from his belt, handing it to me as a sacrificial peace offering. My hand touched his ungloved one and a shiver of need zipped straight to my middle, leaving me in a puddle of want for my best friend.
“Our demo then. What are they doing in our demo, Miss Bryant?”
I pushed the hammer back into his hand and pushed him aside to usher the boys in with their gear. I felt hot and flustered. I shouldn’t be, but I did. Oh heavens… did I ever. I wondered if Pastor Rooney had any room at mass this Sunday because I had a butt load of confessing to do.
“Because, Mr. Sunshine,” I drawled out to tease him as he rolled his eyes at me. “I need them to film the progress of what’s going on here from the big stuff on.”
“Uh-huh.” Hunter didn’t look convinced and my eyes wandered inappropriately to my friend’s trim waist circled by his tool belt. A belt that would look great tied up somewhere. It was hard to picture the mechanics of it and Tumblr was sadly lacking in the construction porn that wasn’t from the 1970s with striped tube socks and blatantly obvious. I usually had to clear my browser history before I found anything good to jill off to. Besides, who needed the videos of strangers when Hunter filled out his T-shirts like a linebacker since high school? It was next to impossible to not notice his pecs pressed against what I imagined to be the softest cotton imaginable.
“Hey, girlfriend!”
My staring was interrupted by a big hug from behind. Louisa Cox owner of the Vodka and Wash and personal friend slash stylist was here to do makeup for the video. Kristen hooked us up and Louisa was happy to lend her skills for a small line in the credits.
“I am so excited to be here!” Squeals and jumping in the hallway left the boys looking vaguely uncomfortable.
“Woo! Girl on girl action and I’m missing it!” Damien yelled at us from the driveway, bringing in his tool box.
I should know what he was working on, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember when Hunter was staring at me so intently. Louisa let me go and rooted in her pouch hanging off her belt.
“What is this?” Hunter’s growl stopped our enthusiastic reunion when Louisa bopped him in the face with a large pink poof ball from her own tool belt filled with makeup brushes.
“Makeup!” The poof dispensed a pearled glow over Hunter’s cheeks, highlighting his obvious displeasure and the angles of his face, which should have made him a cover model on every calendar from high school until now. I might have been a teeny bit biased.
Smacking his lips unsmiling, he stepped around us, addressing our little group, “I’m going to go help Damien in the bathroom.” He brushed past me down the hallway and missed playfully bumping into my shoulder like he normally would on purpose.
I missed the contact but kept the smile on my face because Logan was holding up a camera in our direction, catching everything. I needed to win this contest badly, so I pasted on my best smile.
I was still watching Hunter walk away when I was nudged into the kitchen.
�
��So tell me all about this beautiful house and when are you coming in for highlights?” Louisa had a genuine interest in the demo and remodeling of the house. I hired her to take care of the makeup to make everyone look presentable on film for the Home Design video story of flipping this house for the contest. I wasn’t about to let anything go to chance when I knew some of my classmates had entered as well. A cash prize followed by a season long television contract doing what I loved for a paycheck that could turn my dad’s life around was nothing to scoff at.
“It’s at least a hundred years old.”
“Obviously. It has that Children of the Field vibe.”
“Corn? Don’t you mean corn?” I told her as Louisa pushed her large frame vintage glasses farther up her nose, waving her hand away.
“Whatever, but these large open rooms are fantastic with the natural lighting.”
“Well, we do have a bit of the sheetrock down, so we can fix the electrical work Hunter’s grumpy about and the cable upgrades needed to be rerouted, but I’d like some crown molding at the top. We’re still negotiating the molding.”
“Beautiful. You were always sketching and coloring in high school, so I’m not surprised.”
“Yes, Kristen mentioned you wanted to redo the salon. I have some ideas if you’re interested.”
Her enthusiasm was contagious as she grabbed makeup applicators and started painting my face with small touches here and there. I had told her I wanted natural, but I didn’t want the guys to go crazy editing the tiny pimple on my chin either.
“I was thinking purple and snakeskin wallpaper with copper tones.” She made a pursing look with her lips, and I followed, letting her apply a natural looking lip gloss.
“Nice, but what about introducing a print somewhere? Snakeskin is vogue right now, but I don’t think it’s going to last more than two or three years tops and then you’re stuck with it for a while.”
“That’s true and I don’t want to compete with the salon across town that’s been around since we were in high school. I bought this place because I wanted something special and different.”
“Exactly!” I moved around the kitchen, cleaning and organizing to give the crew the next set of directions once the drywall and sheetrock were completed in the living room. We checked out paint chips until we heard a crash from the back of the house.
“Damien!” The walls shook with a yell that sounded like a bear with his paw caught in a trap and probably carried over to the neighbors next door and a few streets down.
“Oh my God, that’s Hunter!” I scrambled to the back bathroom where the guys were working this morning to stop short when the floor that used to be there was well… not there anymore, causing me to jump back.
Louisa tugged my shirt so I don’t actually fall into the hole that used to be solid flooring.
“Get back, Taylor Jane, before you fall through.” Hunter was up to his waist, legs submerged, and my antique tub was rocking precariously at an angle. The smell was awful, so bad my eyes started to burn, and I wondered how Hunter was just standing there almost frozen and rooted to the spot.
My hand covered my mouth and nose at the new stench filling the room. “Oh my God,” I muttered.
“God has nothing to do with that smell.” One of my film rookies mumbled shining a light into the room.
“I’d say we’ve got significant floor rot in this room right here.” Damien nodded his head up and down and the film crew hovered over my shoulder, the microphone pitched above my head catching each deep breath I struggled to take with the smell.
“You fucking think so, genius. Pull me out of here.” Hunter started swinging his hammer when Damien got close.
“We’re going to have to edit that for language.” Matt, Logan, I wasn’t sure who said that. Hunter glared from his semi-submerged state. The lighting in the room was off, but I swore he was turning purple making me worry.
“God, what is that smell? Demon, did you shit your pants today?” Kristen called out from behind us, trying to squeeze in and join the circus.
I repeated to myself, these are not my monkeys; just help Hunter get out of the floor.
“Not today, Pebbles, I think Hunter busted a hole in the pipe to the septic from the toilet.”
“Shit.” Louisa, Kristen, and I uttered simultaneously. Stormy didn’t come close to describing Hunter. He was more of category five hurricane about to make landfall.
Meekly I asked the dreaded question. “Maybe I should get the power washer?”
Damien laughed and fell trying to lift Hunter out of the flooring that was splintered.
“Get out!” Hunter’s yell had us all scrambling back faster than we could move and we collapsed in a jumble of bodies, video camera and sound equipment dropping in the hallway. I flopped over and sneaked a peek because sure enough, poor Hunter was covered in a century’s worth of shit from his knees down. Thank God that was the only place it was located.
Kristen, who’d joined the party late, started to gag along with Matt, while Logan and Louisa helped them up, pulling them away from the room. I couldn’t help the giggle that erupted from my lips when Damien started howling with laughter. He was also covered in shit, but it was just his boots. Could someone commit murder with their eyes? Hunter did with serial killer precision better than Jamie Dornan on The Fall.
“Oh, Hunter, I’m so sorry.” I ducked out of there as quick as I could because I was laughing so hard I might actually pee myself and the only working toilet on site was the port-a-john I rented, but hadn’t shown up yet, because why would anything in my project go smoothly?
13
Hunter
Usually it was Damien covered in shit. He was a plumber. I expected he would get messy in ways that stupefied human dignity from time to time. I had a degree in engineering, several years of working with the Marine Corps of engineers, and this one blew my ego literally out from under me.
It didn’t help that Damien and I had been arguing about the toilet, the tub, and everything under the sun this morning when everything went to hell in a handbasket. I told him to check the flooring for signs of rot, and what did the jackass do? He jumped up and down on the very flooring I was standing on moments ago, and it was my ass that went through the weakened wood right into to ancient septic piping. Generations of ghosts in this house were probably rolling in their graves laughing at me. I needed more caution tape for this house like I needed a hole in my head.
“Get me the fuck out of the floor.”
Damien was still—five minutes later—clutching his stomach, tears streaming down his face while I was knee-deep in ghost poop. I was pretty sure when I was an old man bouncing my grandkids on my knee I’d laugh about this, but not today. Today, I considered plotting my cousin’s death so he couldn’t reproduce children anything like him.
“Dude, you smell like ass.”
I contemplated how much closer Damien needed to get physically before I pulled him in to join me because, you know, misery loves company.
“I’m standing in shit. It’s not roses, moron.”
“I can’t wait to tell Mom and Dad.”
Yeah, because what I wanted to do was go to dinner at my aunt and uncle’s house to relive this shit show all over again. I had enough carved woodland creatures lining my garage. There were no hands-on therapies to fix this unless strangling my cousin counted. Damien must have connected some of the neurons in his brain because he finally stopped laughing long enough to come sufficiently close for me to reach him. Lucky for him my ire subsided enough to a death glare.
“I’m gonna pull you out. Anything you can stand on underneath you?” My footing wasn’t secure, but I considered grabbing him and pulling him down to stand on. “Uh ah.” He nodded no, giving me a wagging finger.
I slipped down another inch until I felt the cracked pipe under my ruined boots. I had loved these boots right up until that moment.
“Just a busted pipe.”
Damien nodded and gave me a hand,
pulling until he lifted me out far enough that I could get out on my own. “This cleanup is going to suck.”
“You’re buying me new boots, asshole.”
“I figured you’d say that.”
We were trying to work together, but it was harder than we thought.
“I know, that’s why I’m leaving you with it while I go home to shower and have lunch.” Today could end right now for all I cared. “In fact, I’m taking the whole damn day off before I say or do anything that might hurt Taylor Jane. You, not so much.”
“We’re going to have to rip out these boards and replace everything. Might even need to fill this up with some gravel to cover up the new piping once the septic gets pumped.” Damien was all business now and he could at least get this part of the job done successfully.
“I don’t care how it happens, just do a good job, and do it right.” I almost didn’t want to leave because leaving him in charge of anything was not the best idea I’d had.
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
With a salute and me giving Damien the finger, I made my way down the hall to the front door, which was now covered in black garbage bags taped securely down. A note scribbled in blue chalk on the drywall read:
I’m sorry you got caught in the exorcism.
XO – TJ
“Thank you!” I yelled to the house.
A meek chorus of unlikely ghost giggles yelled back, “You’re welcome.”
I left for the rest of the day, asking myself for the hundredth time why I was doing this in the first place. I knew why I was doing it and not because I had been conned or sweet-talked, though on day one I might have disagreed. I did it because I couldn’t let anyone take advantage of my best friend and that was the story I was sticking with.
The problem I had to deal with now was my burgeoning feelings for her. I had a lot of shit, no pun intended, to deal with, and I didn’t know if I could handle it. It might be better for all of us involved if I pulled back, let the project finish and then go back to the way things were before this all started. Taylor Jane had made it pretty clear she wanted to flip this house and win the contest and prove herself to everyone. That was fine but what about everything else? What would I be left with if she left, moved on, got her own television show of some kind? I’d be here, with a handful of phone ass shots from Damien, but it wouldn’t be with her, and I didn’t know what my topsy-turvy heart thought of all of that.