“Oh, well, you know…” Marie shrugged her shoulders and twirled her finger in her dyed rose-gold hair. “Last night, Eddie and I got a little wild, and well…” She cleared her throat, and her cheeks turned a bright shade of red. “Jax, it’s a little embarrassing. Eddie told me not to tell you the truth, but I’m a terrible liar.”
Her stare moved past me and landed on Connor, my assistant, who’d recently finished his junior year of high school. He was my one and only employee for one simple reason—no one else in town had enough nerve to work with me. Connor was different, though. He was the town’s hustler through and through. If there was a way to make a profit, Connor was all over it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a millionaire before he turned twenty-one. The wheels in his head were always turning with ideas on how to make more money for himself.
I’d been working with him for almost a year now, which was a lot longer than any of my other employees had lasted. Everyone before him either left crying or calling me an asshole. Some cried and called me an asshole at the same time.
Connor was different. He didn’t take any of my aggressive, short comments personally. He was determined to show up for his paycheck and have a good time doing it, too. Even when I was in a shitty mood, Connor acted as if we were the best of friends.
It actually worked pretty well in my favor. We were the perfect odd couple. It was as if Oscar the Grouch had a plumbing business with Big Bird. When I came off as a grump to customers, Connor used his charm to win them over. He walked away with more tips than I did on the regular because people liked him. I couldn’t blame them.
Sad to say it, but over time, the little shit had grown on me, too.
I brushed my arm across my forehead. “Now, don’t be embarrassed, Marie. Either you can tell us now, or I’ll take apart the pipes. We’ll find out what’s in there regardless, but if you tell me now, I can avoid doing extra work in case it doesn’t need as much as I might think it does.”
“Oh, heavens.” She blushed and clutched her pearls in her slender fingers. “Okay, well, I’ll just spit it out. There are anal beads down there. Not big ones or anything! Just a very small string of them.”
Connor instantly burst out laughing. I shot him a stern look to tell him to shut the hell up as my body flinched at the idea of what Marie had just told me. The idea of sweet, little Marie using anal beads brought about a level of discomfort I wasn’t ready to face. What kind of freaky shit was my therapist into? Disturbing didn’t even begin to cover what I was feeling.
Hell, now I was clutching my own damn pearls.
“We only used them once while Eddie and I were…um, well…” She blushed more and leaned in toward me. “You see, I was on my hands and knees on the sink counter.” She paused and gestured around. “Don’t worry, I bleached everything before you came over. There’s no cu—”
“Oookay, you know what, Marie? I think we got it from here. How about you go ahead and tend to whatever else you need to get done around the house? I’ll be done in here in no time.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Connor standing there with his arms crossed and the reddest face in the history of time. His cheeks were puffed out like Alvin the damn chipmunk, and I knew if I poked him in the side, he’d explode.
When Marie was out of sight, Connor released his laughter, hunching over and gripping his stomach as he howled in a fight of giggles.
“Oh my gosh, that’s the nastiest shit I’ve ever heard! She’s like a hundred years old!” he exclaimed.
“She’s in her sixties, not one hundred, and you’d be lucky to be her age and still have a sex life.”
He shivered at the thought. “That’s disgusting. I don’t want my wrinkled cock sliding into someone at that age.”
“Language, Connor.”
“I’m just saying that’s fucking gross.”
“Language, Connor.”
He groaned. “Sorry, Jax.”
“Just hand me a wrench, will you?” I rolled up my sleeves and maneuvered beneath the sink to get started.
“Hey, Jax—knock, knock,” Connor said, holding the wrench out toward me. I swore, this guy cracked more bad jokes than a Midwestern dad.
“Who’s there?”
“Marie’s anal beads.”
For fuck’s sake. “Marie’s anal beads who?”
He snickered before bursting out laughing again. “No, that’s it. That’s the joke. The joke is you’re about to touch Marie’s anal beads, and if that’s not comedy, I don’t know what is.”
He kept snickering the whole time I worked, and I didn’t expect anything less from the goofy kid.
After the anal beads had been successfully removed from the sink pipe, I scrubbed my hands aggressively then shut off the faucet. “Go toss the stuff into the truck. I’ll meet you there.”
“Aye, aye, captain.”
He hurried away, and as I headed out of the bathroom, I found Eddie walking into the house with a briefcase in his hands. He spent his mornings in the park, reading the newspaper on his days off.
Eddie was in his sixties, too, and the wrinkles on his face told the stories of his past. His smile lines were deep, and all of his lines contained levels of depth.
He nodded my way with a small grin. “I see you’re still alive after missing two weeks of therapy appointments,” he commented with a smirk.
“Just working.”
He nodded in understanding as he set his briefcase on the ground. He raked his hand through his gray hair. “And Amanda? How is she? How are you two doing?”
“We aren’t. We broke up a few weeks ago.”
“Hmph.” Eddie stare said a lot more than his words ever would.
I sighed. “Okay, out with it.”
“Out with what?”
“Your thoughts on the subject of Amanda and me.”
“Thoughts?” he murmured, brushing his thumb across his thick mustache. “I have no thoughts at all on the subject.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Really.” He paused for a moment, still studying me with those therapist eyes of his. The fact that we weren’t sitting in his office didn’t mean he wouldn’t utilize his skills on me. A part of me was suspicious that he’d had Marie place the anal beads down the drain just to get me to come over after missing some appointments.
I wouldn’t have put it past Eddie.
“Why?” he questioned with his narrowed eyes. “Should I have thoughts on the subject? Do you have thoughts on the subject?”
There it was.
His comments seemed so nonchalant, but I knew he was setting me up to dig deeper into my psyche about why things hadn’t worked out between Amanda and me. He was therapist-ing me.
“Do you want me to lie down on your couch and tell you my thoughts?” I joked.
Eddie smirked a little. “My couch is always open.”
“Yeah, well, not today. Plus, we have rules. In-office sessions only, remember? Besides, I have more jobs to get to with Connor, so forgive me for not wanting to dive into the details of my breakup.”
“Hmm.” Oh hell. I knew the tone of that hmm. No good ever came from that type of hmm when it left Eddie’s lips. He gestured toward the couch. “Are you sure we can’t explore a bit? Even for five minutes or so?”