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N oise-canceling headphones could only do so much when every whack and wallop out front shook the entire house.

I’d slipped the headphones on as I hunched at the kitchen table with my laptop, feeling oddly unsettled at the sound of splintering wood when they took the doorframe out.

It was a deep-seated, primal thing. My entrance was being breached. I should be out there defending it, not sitting with the kitchen door shut and my back to it all, grimly going through spreadsheets with numbers in one column that were lower than I wanted, and numbers in the other column that were higher than I wanted.

I’d had a quick look online at the price of exterior doors and frames. The basic prefabricated ones weren’t too pricey. They weren’t cheap, but they wouldn’t break the bank.

The door I’d seen on my lawn next to Kevin’s toolbox and Phil was, however, premium quality. Even worse, my house had been built back in the 1800s, meaning it didn’t have anything approaching standard dimensions.

In other words, Kevin must have sneaked back at some point and measured up before he custom ordered it.

I didn’t know what to think.

Actually, I did know what to think.

I thought that Kevin had a hard-on for me, he had a hard-on for my house, and he was a generous and giving soul who was determined to shower me in free parts and labour, and orgasms.

I didn’t have low self-esteem, but I could admit that it wasn’t the highest, either.

So I questioned it, all right?

Why had this lovely, kind, intensely physical and formerly straight man set his sights on me?

He’d more than set his sights. He’d locked on and was coming at me full throttle. He wasn’t going to stop until he got his way, and I was giddy with excitement about it. I wasn’t even talking about the sex. I was excited at the mere idea of someone looking at me and thinking , I want to make that man happy.

Why me? Why now? What did it mean for the future? Was there even a future or was this a phase?

I had a lot on my mind.

With an impatient huff, I closed my laptop, took the noise-canceling headphones off, and went outside to see how they were doing.

And to see Kevin in his element.

They’d finished taking the old frame out and my little hall was flooded with morning sunshine. I winced at the generous scattering of masonry and general crap over the tarp that Kevin had put down to protect the parquet.

“Am I safe to come out?” I called.

Ali’s head popped into view. “Yep,” he called back. “Come on through. Don’t touch anything.”

Keeping my arms to my sides, I eased over the tarp and slid through the ragged doorway.

The old door and frame lay on the lawn to the left of the path; the new door, Kevin, and Phil were all huddled together on the right. Kevin was on his knees with a measuring tape and a pencil. Phil sat with his nose about an inch from Kevin’s and watched, enthralled, as Kevin made a mark at one end of the long side of the frame. He sat back on his heels, tucked the pencil behind his ear, and twisted at the waist to say something to Ali, who was brushing stone chips and debris from the doorway. When he caught sight of me, he smiled.

“Hi,” I said breathlessly.

“Hi.”

“Uh. How’s it going?”

“Good. Now we’ve got that old frame out, we’ll be cracking along.”

Behind me, Ali muttered in agreement and continued his brushing.

I wandered over to stand by the old door. “I can see why I had such a tough time getting it closed now. Looks like a banana.” It wasn’t quite that bad, but it was definitely warped. The middle lay flat to the grass. The top and bottom bowed up.

Kevin came to stand next to me. He tapped the splintered frame with the toe of his work boot. “Good job we got to it today,” he said. “Look how much it’s swelled. Another few months and bits of it would have started falling off. Rot’s got in.” He kicked gently at the rain bar along the bottom edge. The wood crumbled.

I felt oddly embarrassed about it, even though it had been in a similar state when I bought the house.

“If you want to help out,” Kevin said, “you can get the furniture off for me.” At my quizzical look, he said, “That’s the hardware. All the metal. The wood’s gone to shit but this’ll clean up nice, and it’s proper antique. I can put it on your new door for you, or you can sell it to a salvage yard.”

I blinked at the door. Sell it? “Is it worth anything?”

“Nah, not really. Not a lot. You’ve got a nice knocker and finger plate. Good solid knob.”

I side-eyed him, wondering if this was more of his hopeless dirty talk because it sounded like it, but no. He was taking this seriously.

“Hinges are a bit crap,” he continued, “but they’re antique too, and they should still be functional when you get the rust off. I really hate to see stuff like this get chucked, you know? It’s not too much of a bother to clean it up or, hell, don’t even clean it up, just take it to salvage rather than landfill or scrap metal.”

“That’s very environmentally conscious of you,” I said. “Sustainable.”

“Yeah. I’m kind of into that. You won’t believe the stuff that people have us haul away. Like, proper antiques and stuff. I mean, Craig never tells them if it’s worth anything, he just takes it off their hands then goes and sells it himself for the profit. Like he did with the ribcage shower.”

“The…what?”

“Ribcage shower. It was a style of Victorian shower. So many cool pipes. They come off a central pipe and curl around in a semi-circle from about head to thigh, like a big open ribcage.” He sketched it out in the air between us. “I never even knew they had showers back then, but they did. Looked proper steampunk. Shame we had to take it out. I did say to Craig, why not see if the client would rather we fix it up and make it a feature but he said there was no point, they’d already bought the new suite for us to install. I suppose it makes sense. If you want a new bathroom, you probably want to level up and go for rainfall shower heads and…” he trailed off and his attention zeroed in on my face.

“I don’t need a new bathroom,” I said quickly.

“But—”

“I don’t! The upstairs one is fine.”

The upstairs bathroom had an alarming soft patch in the floor that I avoided stepping on because I was fairly certain it would drop me straight through to the kitchen if I tried. It was decorated in early-eighties harvest-beige and brown with actual sheafs of wheat printed on the tiles and it was not my style, but as long as water came out of the taps and the toilet flushed, doing anything in there was at the bottom of my list.

“Upstairs one?” Kevin said. “You’ve got one downstairs?”

“Yes, in an extension at the back. It’s the one I use most.” Except for brushing my teeth or the odd nighttime trip to the loo.

I had a suspicion that Deirdre had built it for her beloved Phil, who wouldn’t fit in the poky little shower stall upstairs. If she hadn’t built it for him, at the very least she had decorated it in his honour. It was a large wet room—no tub—and little cartoon dogs frolicked on the floor-to-ceiling tiles. Phil was certainly no stranger to using the facilities. I’d found that out after he’d made it to the goose poop in the park before I could stop him, and I’d spent a good hour and half scrubbing first him and then the bathroom clean.

He’d had a lovely time. I had not, and I now had a local grooming parlour saved in my contacts, one that was owned by a woman who was happy to fit Phil in for any goose poop-related emergencies if I was happy to bribe her with free coffee.

I was.

“Okay,” Kevin said. His animated expression said: not okay. It said Kevin was now mentally redesigning my bathrooms. “I’m going to need a proper look around.”

“I’m starting to think you’re more interested in my house than me,” I said.

“I’m not,” Ali muttered from behind us. “Probably because I’m the only one working while Kev’s standing around chatting you up.”

Kevin’s cheeks pinkened. “All right, all right,” he said. He detached a screwdriver from his tool belt with practiced grace that did not turn me on, flipped it, and held it out to me, handle first. “Why don’t you get unscrewing?”

Phil joined me as I knelt on the lawn by the door and started unscrewing the big ornate door knocker.

I didn’t get far. I notched the tip of the screwdriver in the screw head no problem, but for the life of me, I couldn’t get it to turn. Lefty loosey, righty tighty, I reminded myself, wrapped both hands around the black-and-yellow handle of the screwdriver and gritted my teeth as I gave it my all.

Nothing. Not even a millimetre.

I sent a shifty look over at Kevin and Ali, who were being all competent and professional as they got the frame up and fitted it into the doorway. Kevin must have sensed my attention on him because he looked back at me immediately.

Instead of smiling, his gaze went over my shoulder and his face blanked.

I heard a car pull up at the kerb, and turned to follow Kevin’s gaze.

It was a white Nissan Juke and I wondered crossly why the driver had decided to block my drive when there was plenty of street parking available. I stopped wondering when the door opened and Craig Henderson climbed out.

I didn’t think I’d ever seen him not in his work gear. Dressed as he was now in chinos and an apricot polo shirt, he looked like he was off to play a round of golf, or else was about to try and sell me something.

Behind me, Ali said, “Uh-oh,” quietly. He raised his voice. “Hey, Charlie, can I use your loo?”

“Yes, of course,” I said. “First door on the—oh.”

Ali bolted into the house. Okay. I’m sure he could find it on his own.

“What’s all this, then?” Craig said, bluff and hearty. He hovered at the bottom of the drive. “You didn’t tell me we had a new client, Kevin! Morning, Charlie. Been meaning to catch up with you and see what we could do for you for a while now. You’re in good hands with Henderson’s Handymen.”

I could practically hear the ka-ching in Craig’s head from here.

“Craig,” I said with a short nod.

Before I could continue, Kevin came over to stand beside me where I was, somewhat unfortunately, still on my knees holding his screwdriver.

Phil, being a shitty judge of character, looked at Craig Henderson and thought the exact same thing he thought when he looked at anything with a pulse, be it squirrel, goose, or grifter: new friend!

He heaved to his feet and got all of one step towards his new friend before Kevin reached down and caught his collar. “Phil.”

Phil looked up at him.

“No,” Kevin said firmly.

Phil wavered, then sat at Kevin’s feet.

“Good boy,” Kevin said.

“That’s a nice big dog you’ve got there,” Craig said, sounding a bit disappointed.

“He bites,” Kevin said.

With all eyes on him, Phil decided that this was the right moment to slump to the lawn and expose himself, with his usual drawn-out groan.

“Right,” Craig said. “He looks, uh. Dangerous.”

He looked like an utter muppet, belly-up and sweeping the lawn with his tail, his unfocused eyes going from (vaguely) Kevin to (nearly) me and back again.

“So.” Craig clapped his hands together briskly and strode on up the drive. “Looks like we’re starting with a front door replacement? Back door after that, obviously. What were you thinking next, Charlie?”

Before I could reply, Kevin dropped his hand to my shoulder and squeezed.

I was still kneeling at his feet.

I went to scramble up. Kevin squeezed more firmly and applied downward pressure.

He clearly wanted me to stay where I was, but he was shit out of luck with that. I wasn’t going to be on my knees around Craig Henderson in this lifetime, thanks. I swatted Kevin’s wrist and squirmed out from under him, pushing up to my feet.

“Got quite a few things on my list,” I said, “but don’t worry about it. I’m not your client.”

Craig waved a hand behind him at Kevin’s Land Cruiser with that stupid decal on it. “Looks like you are.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

Craig made another vague wave, this time encompassing Kevin and his tools.

I waited.

Craig cleared his throat. “Well…” he said slowly, feeling his way. “My work vehicle is parked up outside your house and my guy is working on it using my tools.”

“Is that so?” I said.

“Uh. Yes?” Craig said.

I did not like this man. I had never liked this man. He had a reputation for doing decent work but he also had a reputation for doing that work on his own timetable, and not his clients’. What really annoyed me was the way he treated Kevin.

“Right,” I said. “Except that is Kevin’s personal car, not your work vehicle, these are Kevin’s tools, not your tools, and Kevin is my guy. Not yours.”

Craig sent Kevin a wounded look. “You’re moonlighting on me, Kev? Is that it?”

“No.”

Craig squared his shoulders and said, “Seems to me like you are. I’ve already had to talk to you about that once.”

“Yeah,” Kevin said flatly. “Except painting my dad’s living room isn’t moonlighting.”

“That’s bullshit, Craig,” I said with a laugh, “and you know it.”

He shrugged as if to say, Eh. Worth a try. “All right. Charlie’s not your dad, though, is he?”

“Charlie’s my boyfriend,” Kevin said.

I didn’t know who was more surprised to hear that, me or Craig.

It should have been Craig, considering I’d had Kevin’s hand down my trousers and his tongue in my mouth, but still. I rather thought it was me.

“He’s your…?” Craig frowned. “You’re not gay, though.”

“No, I’m not,” Kevin said.

Craig seemed stumped.

“And would it be a problem if he was?” I demanded.

“What? No, of course not.” Craig sounded genuinely baffled at the thought. “I’m just used to his endless parade of girlfriends. Didn’t know he was branching out.”

Endless parade? I turned to Kevin. Branching out?

Kevin’s face did something then that I’d never seen before.

I’d seen him sweet, happy, and cheerful. Recently, I’d seen him focused, aroused, and determined.

I hadn’t seen him angry before. I’d rather not see it again.

His brows lowered, his jaw tightened, and his gentle brown eyes turned into hard, glittering slits.

Craig took a step back. “Calm down. I said I don’t care if you’re gay.”

“I’m not gay and I’m not branching out,” he said.

Craig’s gaze bounced to mine. I almost felt sorry for him. “It’s all right, Kevin,” I said.

“It’s not all right. I’m not branching out . That makes you sound like an experiment, and you’re not.”

“I know.”

Kevin took hold of my shoulders and turned me to face him, saying earnestly, “You’re not , Charlie.”

“I know.”

I knew now, anyway. It was one of those many questions about him that had crossed my mind. Of course it had.

While I wouldn’t categorise it as an endless parade , I had seen Kevin with plenty of girlfriends over the years. He was popular.

I’d seen him notice women. I’d seen him very much not notice men.

Even Adam.

I still had no idea why he was interested in me, but if Kevin said I wasn’t an experiment, I trusted him.

“Great!” Craig said. “That’s…great! Glad we’ve got that all cleared up. Charlie’s your, uh, boyfriend. Great. You’re allowed to do a bit of work on the side for your boyfriend?—”

“I’m allowed to work for whoever I want,” Kevin said. “As long as I’m off the clock.”

Craig hesitated before he said, “Okay.” He switched his attention to me. “If you want to fix your house up, Charlie, you should give me a call and we’ll work something out. I’ll give you a discount, since you’re Kev’s boyfriend.”

I turned to face him. “I won’t do that, Craig, but thanks. Also, my eyes are up here.”

He lifted his gaze guiltily from where he’d been staring at my chest, said goodbye, and hurried off.

“Was he checking out your tits?” Kevin said, his voice going high in outrage.

“I think he was checking out my lack of tits, actually.”

Kevin immediately put his big hands on my pecs. “I like your lack of tits,” he said. I smiled, until he added, “Which is odd, because with women, I like them big and soft.”

I was about to smack him away for that, but he shifted his grip to graze my nipples with his thumbs and I gave a shocked bleat of arousal instead.

His eyes flicked up to mine and his lips hitched. “Do you think I’m bisexual?”

“I don’t know,” I said faintly as I grabbed his wrists to pull him away. He circled his thumbs again, and again I shuddered.

“Could be pan,” Ali chimed in, strutting out of my house and sipping from a glass of water. He toasted me. “Hope you don’t mind, Charlie,” he said. “I helped myself. Come on, Kev, stop groping your man and let’s get on with this. Aren’t you supposed to be helping Griffin take his stuff to the tip later?”

“Pan? Hmm. I don’t really care what I am,” Kevin said. “Other than your boyfriend, Charlie. I am your boyfriend, right?”

“Yes?”

“Cool.” With that sorted, he pecked a quick, casual kiss to my lips, fixed my front door, and a couple of hours later, roared off to meet his friend Griffin, leaving me and Phil staring after him.

When I’d woken up this morning, I’d expected a workout with Jasper and a weekend hanging out with Phil.

I’d somehow ended up with a new front door and a boyfriend.

Weird day.