“Just a rag.” Kate shrugged casually with one shoulder, her fist still planted in her pocket, obscuring the evidence. “I was cleaning up a few things out here. Let Dad put the grill away and we can go inside. I think there’s still a few slices left if you need an after-dinner snack.”
“Oh yeah!” Landry had already spun around and wandered toward the pizza boxes for a second round. The kid was starting to eat anything and everything in the house.
Sure enough, Abby was inside leaning against the fridge, her arms crossed. When she took in Mike giving Kate one last lingering kiss full of promise to take his time much, much later, the girl shook her head. “You two are so gross.”
Good thing she didn’t yet realize they did more than make out and cuddle on the couch during movie nights.
“Yup. And you just keep right on thinking boys are icky. Until you’re sixty at least. I’m fine with that.” Mike cracked open a beer and downed at least a third in a few huge gulps before asking Landry to hand him a slice of the now-cold pizza.
He smiled when even Kate nibbled at a piece, obviously having worked up a bit of an appetite.
4
Kate tried not to let it bother her that Mike was getting farther and farther from her as each moment passed. But they’d been together for so many years now that it felt like part of her was missing when he wasn’t there. Something important. Like her heart.
She pressed her hand to her middle, annoyed by the tears that sprang to her eyes even as her stomach knotted. It wasn’t like her to be this needy, and it kind of pissed her off. Her emotions were all over the place. What. The. Fuck.
Before she could dwell on it, she heard a rap at the back door. Only a few people used that entrance to their house, and the call that followed made it clear which one of them it was. “Hey, Kate. Open up. I need to look for something in Mike’s office.”
Devon. The lone woman on the Powertools construction crew. She knew a thing or two about being tough.
Kate swallowed the acid that was clawing at her throat and rushed to fling open the gorgeous custom doors the crew had built to let in more light and add yet another special touch to the home they’d created together.
“Sorry, can’t chat.” Devon gave Kate an air kiss as she squeezed past and headed down the hall to Mike’s office as if she lived there. Hell, she’d spent enough time in their house over the years for that to nearly be true, and in the crew everyone was at home in each other’s spaces. But this was a bit much even for Devon, who was more like one of the guys than a member of the wives’ club.
“What’s going on?” Kate trailed behind the petite woman, who made up for her lack of stature with a huge personality and nearly unshakable confidence. “Can I help?”
“Uh, maybe?” Devon plopped into Mike’s seat and flipped open his laptop. “You know the password to this thing?”
“Probably something with the kids’ names.” Kate shrugged.
“Nah. It’ll be yours.” Devon looked up at her with an incredulous stare. “How could you not realize that?”
And when Devon did, she hesitated, her eyes narrowing a bit.
“What?” Kate asked.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I mean, I think so. It’s just been stressful lately, you know? Tell me what’s wrong with you.” Kate couldn’t handle much more. She already felt off kilter and had been fighting exhaustion for weeks.
“I need the contract for the spray foam insulation guys.” Devon swiped her hand over her face before pecking out a password attempt on Mike’s laptop and hitting enter. Nope. Not that one. “We waited all fucking morning for them and they never showed. They’re blaming the screw up on Mike when they clearly lost our appointment. They’re holding up our timeline. We can’t start putting the place back together until they’re done, and now they’re saying it’s going to take another three weeks to get back on the schedule.”
“Weren’t you already on the verge of being late to deliver the house since you’re down a man with Joe gone?” Kate groaned. Mike prided himself on doing what he promised their clients. He would not be happy about this. But he could only do so much, and be in so many places, at once.
“Yup.” Devon grimaced and then tried another password. Her curse made it clear she’d failed. Of course they could call Mike, and maybe they’d have to in the end, but Kate didn’t want to bug her husband any more than Devon or the rest of the crew obviously cared to either.
“Humor me. Try the kids’ names.” Kate leaned in.
“I did. That was the second one. I’m telling you…” Devon pecked out something else and tapped enter. The computer’s lock screen disappeared. “Bingo!”
“His password was bingo?”
“No…it’s ILoveKate69.”
“Shut up. It is not.” Kate rolled her eyes.
“Totally is.” Devon laughed. “Try it yourself. He’s such a pussy. And extremely predictable.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that or he’ll devise some plan to make you beg next time the crew is playing together.” Kate arched a brow, though her insides were melting from how sweet her husband could be. Lately things had been tense, but maybe if he could help Joe and she could keep the crew on track while he was away…
Maybe things could get back to something like normal. Then maybe this anxiety or whatever it was causing her to feel so out of sorts would ease up too.
“Still not finding a reason not to push him.” Devon winked.
Kate shook her head. “Maybe that’s what we all need. Some time to blow off steam together. Thank God we have the trip to Middletown next weekend and plenty of babysitters out there too.”
Devon studied Kate again. To distract her friend from finding anything too concerning she might then blab to Mike about, Kate pointed to his laptop. “He keeps all his contracts in a folder on the cloud drive.”
Devon swung around, her focus on hunting down the paperwork they both knew would be there. Mike didn’t mess up shit like that. He ran his construction jobs with military precision. If he said the insulators should have been there, she had no doubt they were supposed to have shown.
“Got it!” Devon leaned in, then cursed. “See! Those assholes think they can weasel out of this just because Mike isn’t there to shove his steel-toed boot up their ass. Little do they know that I’m twice as mean as he is.”
“And I’m even worse.” Kate snatched up her phone and said, “Read me their number. I’ll call for you. Unless you want the honors…”
“Honestly, nah.” Devon gave her the digits. “I’m better at knocking sense into things with my tools than talking about it. Do you mind?”
Kate shook her head. After a few minutes of explaining the situation and getting the same bullshit response Devon had earlier, she dug deep and applied her best mom-intimidation. “I have a contract right here that says otherwise. If you’re no longer able to abide by the terms, then we’ll expect a fifty-percent discount in order to offer our client compensation for the delay in delivery your mistake is going to cause. Their house has already sold, so they will need to be put up in a hotel and alter their move-in plans, all of which will make this mistake very costly.”