said about house husbands. You don’t need one. You’re strong and beautiful and totally rockin’ the socks off life.”
“Wow, Mom. You should have stopped with the pride statement. You’re laying it on so thick, I’m definitely sniffing out an ulterior motive here.”
“Shows what you know. Sometimes a mother can just call her daughter to shower her with praise and not expect anything in return.” Mom waited a beat. “Though, if you wanted to swing by The Twin Dragons and grab some takeout, I wouldn’t mind your company. We could open a bottle of wine and watch movies. I’m no house husband, but I am great company.”
Spending another night alone sounded about as exciting as my last patient’s battle with foot fungus. “I’m pretty pooped. Doubt I’d be much fun.”
“What if I told you I was less interested in the company and more interested in Chinese takeout?”
“We’re a match made in heaven, aren’t we?”
As Mom chortled her agreement, I tried not to cringe. So I was thirty years old and hanging out with my mother on a Tuesday night…
So maybe that was a little weird…
A touch boring…
Embracing the things that made me unusual also made me interesting. Besides, I was too tired to do more than drool in front of the television. If anyone was equipped to deal with that, it was the woman who’d wiped my bottom for the first two and a half years of my life.
Chapter Three
Joe
As I pulled up to a red light, I slipped my phone from my pocket and called Lucas Hutton—the Joey to my Chandler, if Joey was sarcastic, intense, and a combat vet.
“If it isn’t Captain Conscience,” he said as he answered. “How was your scouting expedition?”
“That’s a good one. Me. With a conscience.” The average person didn’t stand a chance against my disdain for the drama of human existence. Need advice about your bad day? No problem. I knew just the thing to say. Suck it up, buttercup.
Lucas scoffed. “Going out of your way to make sure you don’t take advantage of someone sounds like the definition of conscience to me.”
“Whatever, man. Maxine Monroe put her ad on a classified page on the internet, for fuck’s sake.” The light turned green and I gunned the engine. My dinosaur of a truck rattled forward at a snail’s pace. “Does she know how many serial killers stalk those kinds of websites? Is she aware how many con-artists would gladly move into that guesthouse and drain her cookie-baking soul of all it had left? I do. And it isn’t looking good for humanity as a whole. I might be an asshole, but I draw the line at taking advantage of an old woman lost in the modern world, trying to make it on her own.”
“I wonder what would happen if you saw yourself the way the rest of us do.”
Not interested in a self-esteem boosting pep talk from a grumpy Marine, I changed the topic. “I definitely think I can take the job, by the way. The backyard is a jungle and the place is a shithole, but man does it have potential. If all goes well tomorrow, I’ll be out of your hair by the end of the week.” I’d been staying at The Hutton Hotel—Lucas’ family business—for the last couple months while I figured out what to do with my life.
“Everyone said it’s hard to see your children grow up…” The fucker pretended to choke on emotion and sniffed loudly. “I just wasn’t prepared for the reality of it all.”
The renovations would test my knowledge of construction—rusty at best, though I was pretty good about a decade ago—but I could do the work. Which was exactly what I needed to know before I sat in front of a little old lady in need of protection from the vast criminal network of would-be internet killers.
The last thing I wanted was to stare into a pair of teddy bear eyes surrounded by a puff of white hair and find a way to say I couldn’t do the work. Because the chances were that I, with my one soft spot naked and vulnerable, would take the job even though I didn’t have the skill. That would suck for both of us. A major lose-lose.
As Lucas continued talking, Penny Dreadful stole my attention. She wasn’t my type, though considering my long string of strikeouts with women, maybe that was a good thing. Once you got past the fact that she thought I was a common criminal, of