Page 11 of Soothed By Daddy
Cyrus: I’ll be home tonight around six. If I bring some steaks, can we use your grill? We can plan your repairs based on what’s most important for safety. Wallpapered foyers and plant beds are nice, but they won’t keep you safe.
George: Yeah, okay. Are you sure it’s not too much trouble?
Cyrus: It’s not. Bye. Break over.
“I forgot to ask if you had potatoes, and I was craving them too,” I said as I plunked down a couple of giant ones on George’s makeshift dining room table.
“I’m glad you brought them with you because I don’t have any. This stupid project has kept me too busy to go to the store.”
George was back in overalls again, like he wore most days. I didn’t love that he was barefoot, but his feet were pretty, so it was hard to object too much. Still, I was going to fix it anyway.
“Safety first. You need shoes in a construction zone.”
“Silly.” George giggled. “It’s my house, not a construction place.”
“Dino boy, have you looked around? This is definitely a construction zone.”
George rolled his eyes but dutifully slipped on some flip-flops. Not what I had in mind, but I’d let him think he’d gotten away with it
“All right, let’s get started. Do you have running water in the kitchen?”
While the potatoes baked, I got oil and salt from my apartment because he didn’t have those either. We did an inventory of the house to see what it needed. Construction zone was the most polite way to describe his side of the house, but absolute clusterfuck was more accurate. My fingers itched to take over completely.
It would cost George a fortune to finish this place. The bones were solid, and the work wasn’t difficult if you knew what you were doing. The most important jobs, like plumbing and electrical, were done already. The remaining stuff was what made it a home. I’d made it clear that I wasn’t interested in a relationship, but that didn’t mean friendship was off the table. A friend with construction skills would help out a buddy. What else were friends for?
The main living areas were L-shaped. You entered a shared living room and dining space, with the kitchen located around the corner. The living room was a good size and looked out onto a messy backyard with a shit ton of potential. Sliding doors on the back wall would be a perfect addition, especially if they led to a revamped patio area. The beds were overgrown, but the roses hadn’t been choked out by the weeds yet. The small bathroom off the utility was painted black—floors, tiles, sink, and toilet withone sad light on a pull chain. I’d been in haunted houses with more atmosphere.
The stairs to the upper floor were solid but ugly with a seventies-style floral pattern wallpaper. The walls needed to be stripped, coated, and repainted, but the holes were minimal. The lighting was nonexistent.
Upstairs, there were two smaller bedrooms, a family bathroom, and a primary bedroom with an ensuite. Everything needed some touch-ups, but the walls were solid, and the rooms were decent-sized. The primary was messy, with clothes stacked in baskets, and the ensuite had been updated in the early eighties but hadn’t been touched since. The bed was a mattress on the floor.
“Where is your furniture?”
George’s cheeks tinged pink as he looked around the room. I didn’t like that he looked embarrassed about the state of his house, so I moved closer to him and draped an arm across his shoulders to pull him in for a quick hug. Friends hugged and cuddled each other when they were embarrassed, right?
“It seemed like more work to bring in furniture when I’d have to move it out to do the work in here, so I decided to wait and get what I really wanted when it was finished.”
“That’s good thinking, dino boy,” I said and gave him a quick kiss on the temple. Friends did that too.
“Thanks, it might be the only smart thing I’ve done with this house.”
“Why’d you buy it?”
“After the ex and I split, I wanted something of my own, but I overestimated my ability to follow instructions. Which, given my job, is kinda funny.”
“Yeah? I thought you were a writer or something.”
“I am—not the fun fiction kind though. Mostly, I do technical manuals for API purposes.”
“Uh, yeah, I have no idea what that means, but it sounds complicated.” Well, fuck, there I went again. My ex and I met on a job site. He was a land developer, and I was subcontracted as one of the commercial electricians. There was nothing he loved more than proving how down-to-earth he was with his blue-collar husband. I was street cred arm candy. But I bet George looked sexy as hell sitting at his computer, wearing the glasses he sometimes forgot to take off when he was peeking around the curtain.
“API means application programming interface. It’s mainly designed for developers and back-office tasks.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“Meh, you need to know code and sourcing fairly well, but not as much as you’d expect.”
“How’s that project going that was, uh…?”
