“Please, Rick. I know it’s hard and I hate to ask, but you know. Only do a little, okay?”
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. He had to dig under a pile of hair to do it. Yes, he’d let the whole “not cutting his hair” thing get out of hand. “You mean that I look like Sasquatch and will scare all your guests?”
She giggled. Sadly, they both knew it was true.
“Gotta go, brat.”
“Chicken. You will do the thing, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll do it.”
“Talk soon.”
“Bye, kid.” He clicked off and let out a long breath. His sister wanted him to cut his hair and beard before her wedding. No big, right? Except she knew he hated people pawing over him. When he did shear the mane and his face fur, he did it himself with a pair of kitchen scissors. Some stupid part of him wanted her not to care, but that wasn’t fair at all. He’d set out to create a classy, well-educated woman, and it wasn’t right to expect her to settle for a Yeti brother.
The problem was a lot more than his hair didn’t fit in with Alice’s friends. After her wedding, though, it wouldn’t matter so much. Hell, he worked all the time, so he was always prepared with an excuse when somebody asked him to do something.
He sighed and stepped out of the truck, walked to the back, grabbed his tools, and headed through the gate and down the steps to the front door. Like a lot of houses in Laguna, this one was built on a hill with the living spaces upstairs and bedrooms down.
They were doing a total remodel for his clients, Snake and Theodore, a really nice gay couple with a kid. Good thing he liked them because sometimes they were so happy and in love it made his teeth itch.
They weren’t technically his clients since his father still owned most of the business—God forbid the old man would relinquish all of his power—but when Rick had planned to leave and work for somebody else, the old man had forked over enough of the business to make sure Rick stayed and then retired and put Rick in charge. That meant Rick got to do all the work, for all the hours, with none of the final say. Fortunately, he didn’t hate construction, and he was damned good at it.
Rapping on the front door, Rick listened for footsteps. Nothing, so he extracted the key from his pocket and let himself into chaos. Drywall dust coated the floor, and the holes in the wall where windows had been were now covered with boards to keep out what weather southern California conjured in early January.
Okay, get to work. He set down his tool caddy, extracted his toolbelt and strapped it on, then picked up his hammer. After all, it was a fucking new year, during which he got to get older but not one bit better.
With a slam, he took out a burst of anger on the next piece of drywall.
Chapter Two
Downstairs, behind closed double doors, Theodore Erasmo Walters startled and nicked his face. “Damn, that man sure takes six a.m. seriously.” He rinsed the razor and then popped a corner of toilet paper on his cut.
His husband, Snake, stepped out of the shower and chuckled. “He’s getting the job done.” Snake grabbed for a towel, which Theodore captured the other end of and used to pull his much larger husband toward him.
Snake didn’t fight.
Theodore nuzzled Snake’s dampness and rested his head against Snake’s broad chest. “I wonder what his story is?”
“Whose?”
“Rick.” He looked up into Snake’s eyes. “I’d guess that there’s a pretty good-looking guy under all that hair.”
“Should I be worried that you had to inspect him carefully enough to figure that out?”
Theodore grinned. “The only person I’m interested in inspecting is standing right here.” He stretched on tiptoe for a kiss, and what with one thing and another, it was a solid half hour before he thought about hairy Rick again.
As he pulled on his jeans and white dress shirt, his teaching uniform, Theodore said, “I don’t think he’s a happy guy, do you?”
Snake, who’d settled down to check his laptop in his makeshift workspace that was filling in until his home office was ready, glanced up. “Who?”
“Rick.”
Snake snorted.
Theodore planted his hands on his hips. “Excuse me, Mr. Romance Writer, shouldn’t you be more observant in light of your chosen profession?”
Snake sat back in his chair. “He’s efficient, on time, and good at what he does. Everything else, he hides behind that hair.”
“So true.”
A solid knocking on the double doors to the bedroom signaled that Rick wasn’t the only early riser around there.
Theodore walked to the door and pulled it open, then staggered back as Andy, their going-on-nine-year-old son, threw himself at his dad. “It’s about time you two woke up. What’s for breakfast?” After embracing Theodore, he raced over and hugged Snake from the back. Andy was approaching the “cool” age when parents were nothing but an embarrassment, but so far, that hadn’t translated into their homelife.
Theodore said, “I got those great scones from the bakery, and we can have them with eggs, assuming we can get around Rick.”
Andy flopped back on their unmade bed. “I was upstairs, and he’s working in Snake’s office, so we should be able to grab scones and escape before anyone notices.”
“No scones without—”
Andy kicked his feet. “Protein. I know, I know.”
Theodore tapped Andy on the knee. “Let’s reconnoiter.”
Bent over his computer, Snake said, “If you happen to encounter a cup of coffee up there, I’d be willing to take it off your hands.”
Theodore and Andy slipped out of the bedroom, closing the doors behind them to save Snake from the noise, and headed up the stairs to the massive, vaulted-ceiling living room. Ahead of them, between the living and family rooms, was the large open-concept kitchen with its island separating it from the family room and pass-through window in the wall from the living room. God, he loved it. They’d never have been able to afford it if the house hadn’t needed a ton of work. Fortunately, they could renovate with Ronconi construction and still save a ton of money.
Hammering and voices came from the other side of the living room where Snake’s big home office would eventually look out over the courtyard garden at the front of the house. The location allowed people to visit him without having to enter their living space. The voices meant some of the other guys were arriving, but at least they were confined to the office for a few minutes anyway.
Home free, Theodore and Andy rushed to the kitchen, and Andy grabbed the scones from the refrigerator while Theodore made coffee and cracked eggs into a bowl.
From the front of the house, Rick’s pissed-off voice echoed in the open space. “Yes, I know I promised, and I’ll do it. Yes, before the wedding.” There was a pause during which a loud sigh drifted toward them, and then Rick said, “I’m not sure why it’s your business, but yes, the beard and the hair.” Another pause and Rick muttered, “Shit.”
One of the other guys on the crew—it sounded like Fred—said, “Your sister on you about the fur again?”
“No. That was one of my sister’s bridesmaids who’s appointed herself Alice’s watchdog. Jesus.”