The Renovation (Contemporary Reverse Harem 2)

Shelle reached for my hand.

“I’m sorry. The whole thing is just so shitty.”

“Yeah. I have thirty days to get current on the loan. I thought he’d been making the payments, but he’d stopped a few months ago. Fucker.” Damn. The tears began to fall.

Shelle dabbed my face with a bar napkin and handed me another in anticipation of a runny nose.

“Okay, then. What about selling it? I mean, can you make some of the improvements quick enough to get a decent price?”

She had a point. I wondered if anyone would help me with the house and let me pay them after it sold with the proceeds.

“The whole point of buying the house was that we could flip it quickly. There’s a lot to be done, and I’m not sure we could do it before the bank comes to take it. But maybe…”

“All right. Now we’re cooking with gas.” She loved sayings like that.

“On a positive note, my neighbor asked me out.”

She slapped my thigh.

“Damn! You’re not even single a week and look at you with a date.” She rolled her eyes.

“Well. I wouldn’t say I have a date, per se. I mean, I guess it’s a date. If you want to call it that.”

“Who’s the guy? Have I ever seen him over there?”

“No. I never really knew him until the other day. He’s hot as hell, though. Tall, with dimples. Super buff. He’s a contractor.”

Shelle looked at me like she’d won the lottery.

“What? What did you say?”

“Oh, you know, that he’s tall. Pretty eyes. Really long eyelashes—”

“No, you idiot. You said he’s a contractor.”

Oh. I get it.

I shook my head hard. “No. Shelle, I can’t ask him to work on my house. It would be too weird.”

She threw up her hands in exasperation. “Girl, you have a lot on the line here. Use your head. Or maybe another body part.”

She threw her head back and laughed with her gap-toothed grin.

Chapter 4

Tanner

How did I get into such a situation?

I was the only dude in the room. That, in itself, was not a problem. The advertising business had more women than men, generally, so that was business as usual for me.

But to be the only guy in a room of eleven women discussing tampons?

Fuck. I did not sign up for this. I mean, did I really need to know which of my coworkers had a heavy monthly flow? Or which ones got sore breasts? Or what size tampons everyone preferred?

I didn’t even know they came in sizes.

Are you even allowed to talk about shit like this at work, anyway?