Page 27 of The Wrong Guy
“Mmm—in here,” Jed’s voice booms.
I walk down the hall to the primary bedroom, much like the one I just left, and find Jed and a much younger woman with a very round, very pregnant belly. And despite calling me in here, he’s midmake-out session with her leg wrapped around his calf while he’s basically hoovering her lips into his mouth. I swear I actually see his tongue slip between them like a fat, pink slug.
Holeee shiiit! Is this the other woman Chrissy told Aunt Etta about? Here?
It has to be.
“Oh!” she says, wiping her mouth. “Hi!” she squeals in an unnaturally high voice. Untangling herself from Jed, she stays close to him, nearly glued to his side.
She’s definitely younger, probably thirty at the oldest, with long blonde hair, heavily lined eyes, and a huge, happy smile that she’s directing at Jed. Can’t say I’ve ever seen that before. Most folks barely grimace when looking at him. She’s wearing a sweetly floral, midthigh-length dress that’s swinging out below her baby bump and flip-flops with big, fake rhinestones.
Jed looks happier than I’ve ever seen him, if I’m honest. He’s still wearing the stupid cowboy hat that’s part of his signature look, a snap-front shirt, jeans that haven’t seen a day of actual labor, and snakeskin boots that cost more than a month of my salary. But there’s a light in his eyes that I don’t think I’ve seen.
Jed kisses her on the cheek, nuzzling up to her ear. “Jesse, this is Lucy. Lucy-Juicy, this is Jesse.” She places one hand over her belly protectively and holds the other out to shake mine, though she’s still nearly making out with Jed.
I lean forward and take her hand gently, correctly assuming she’s not much for full palm-to-palm contact. “Nice to meet you.”
I don’t really care, but it seems like the polite thing to say. And at least I can corroborate Chrissy’s story to Aunt Etta later.
“Surprise!” Lucy shouts unexpectedly, jumping a bit to grab Jed’s shoulders. Thankfully, he catches her by the hips so she doesn’t crash to the floor, especially in her condition. But it hikes her dress up so high that I can see the curve of her ass, which I quickly look away from.
They go back to a full-on face-sucking session like I’m not even here. After a painfully long two seconds, I shuffle my boots on the floor so they squeak, praying it’s enough to stop them.
He wraps an arm around Lucy’s waist, holding her tightly to lower her feet to the floor, and then presses a finger to her lips, shushing her. “I haven’t told him yet. Gimme a teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy minute, Lucy-Juicy.”
The high-pitched baby talk from Jed might hold the record as the weirdest-slash-grossest thing I’ve ever heard, and I will never tell a soul about it because then I would have to repeat it myself.
“Oh!” Giggling, she covers her mouth with both hands, but I can tell she’s grinning widely behind them. “Sorry, I’m too excited! This place is gorgeous, Jeddie.”
Blech. Did [she seriously call him “Jeddie”? I think I just threw up in my mouth a bit. Still not as bad as Jed’s baby talk, though.
Swallowing thickly, I ask outright, “What’s going on?”
But Jeddie and Lucy—again, puke—ignore me, too busy rubbing their noses together, baby talking, and holding hands. “Not as gorgeous as you are, my pretty girl.”
If someone told me they saw Jed Ford cooing sweet nothings, I’d have laughed my ass off. Hell, I’m seeing it with my own eyes and still don’t believe it. But as they press their open lips together again, I clear my throat pointedly, afraid I might see even more than I want to if I don’t interrupt them again. Thankfully, they stop.
“Ahem, that’s the surprise I have for you ... Lucy is going to be the on-site security here.” He winks cartoonishly, his mouth open and eye spasming. “Obviously, it’s in name only, but she’ll be here if anything hinky goes on.”
“Uh ... what?” There should be more running through my head right now, but that’s all I got ... “What?”
Jed talks to me like what he’s proposing is completely logical and I’m slow for not coming up with it myself. “With everything going on”—he raises his brows, and I take it to mean the situations with Chrissy and Lucy—“I want to have some type of security here when the crews aren’t on-site. Just in case.”
I wonder if he thinks Chrissy is going to go crazy and burn the place to the ground or something. “And you think Lucy is the right person to provide this security?” I repeat, looking at the young woman who’s resting her hands on her belly and staring at Jed like he hung the moon and she can’t wait to climb him like a tree again. “Out here?”
“It’s perfect. I want Lucy close to me, and this town house is sitting here empty. Bada-bing, bada-boom,” Jed claims. He jiggles Lucy in his tight grip, grinning lasciviously at her.
He cannot be serious. There are so many reasons why that’s a bad idea, starting with ...
“We don’t have a certificate of occupancy ...” What I really want to say is, Have you lost your fucking mind? but I’m aiming for reasonable and legal, both to protect my ass and so I don’t piss off my boss.
Jed waves a hand dismissively. “Pshaw, that’s only important if someone’s living here. Lucy’s staying on-site as an em ... ploy ... ee.” Boop. Boop. Boop. He touches the tip of her nose with his thick finger as he drawls out the word and then soothes the tender boops with a kiss.
Holy hell, he’s actually paying her to “stay” here, I realize. Jed’s balls must be bigger than basketballs, and Lucy must not have the faintest idea what she’s walking into with Jed and, more importantly, Chrissy.
I make a note to triple-check all foundation pour sites for any errant disturbed dirt because I’m not going to be the site lead who ends up in jail because someone else—ahem, Chrissy—decided to hide their dead bodies on my job site.
I’ve worked for Jed Ford long enough to know that arguing with him once he’s made up his mind is an exercise in futility. He once argued for weeks about whether we could build a catwalk walkway across a two-story foyer, which would’ve been possible if he’d been willing to also pay for the support beam to do so. But he didn’t want to pay, and I didn’t want the walkway to come crashing down on any foreseeable day and time in the future. It’d still taken the structural engineer to squash Jed’s idea because he wouldn’t listen to me, despite my experience having built hundreds of houses.