Have Me

She blinked. Took in a much-needed breath. Looked around. Just like in the movies, sounds returned, the picture in her hand wasn’t the only thing in focus and she was Rebecca once more.

Almost.

She turned the card over, found out Donnelly had been recommended by Katy Groft. Rebecca made her way through the tightly packed crowd and sidled up to Katy, an NYU postgrad studying physics.

“Oh, you found Jake.”

“Please tell me he looks like this picture.”

Katy grinned. “Oh, he’s even better.”

“Oh, God.” Rebecca didn’t dare look to see which category he fell in … marrying kind, dating or one-night stand. Not until she asked “Is he already taken?”

“Nope. You’re in luck.”

“Thank God. Because wow. He is …”

Katy sighed. “It pains me, it truly does. Because he’s a sweetheart and he’s funny, decent and very discreet. But he doesn’t want a relationship at all. He’s extremely private, too, so if that’s going to bother you—”

“Private’s good. Private and discreet is even better. Can you call him? Oh, he’s probably at work now.”

“Did you not read the back of the card?”

Rebecca felt a little blush steal across her cheeks. “Um …” She turned it over.

* His favorite restaurant: Luigi’s Pizza in Windsor Terrace.

* Marry, date or one-night stand: One night.

* His secret passion: No idea. But he’s renovating his father’s house in Brooklyn between jobs.

* Watch out for: Nothing, actually. He was great. I found him through my uncle whom I trust beyond measure.

* Why it didn’t work out: Nothing scary here. Hot and fun. He’s not sure what he’s going to do with his life.

Katy laughed, which made Rebecca tear her eyes away from Jake’s picture.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Katy said. “I’ll call him right now.”

“That would be very, very good.”

THE SINK WASN’T COOPERATING. It was a heavy sonofabitch, and he couldn’t just drop it into the new vanity, but the guy on the DIY DVD was talking too fast and Jake needed to rewind to get that last bit. He shifted the sink in his arms until it was balanced between him and the wall, unfortunately on his bad leg, then reached for his laptop. A second before his finger reached the touch pad, his walkie-talkie squawked. “Jake?”

Jake swore, which he’d been doing a lot this morning. This week. This month. It was his father. Again. About to tell him another idiotic cop joke.

Jake would have preferred not to hear another joke. Not while he was installing his old man’s sink in the new master bath. In fact, not while he was still able to hear. But that’s not how this gig worked.

He paused the DVD, lowered the sink to the floor and pressed the transmit button. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

There was a muffled giggle, a hell of a sound coming from a man who was sixty-three years old. “How many Jersey cops does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

Jake sighed. This particular joke seemed to be stuck on repeat, as this was the third time he’d heard it in so many days. “How many?”

Now the laughter wasn’t subdued and it wasn’t only his old man laughing. The other two voices belonged to Pete Baskin and Liam O’Hara, all old farts, retired NYPD, bored out of their stinking minds and drunk on nothing but coffee and dominoes. “Just one—” his dad said.

“But he’s never around when you need him,” finished Liam.

The three of them laughed like asthmatic hyenas. The worst part about it? Someone had to be pushing the transmit button the whole damn time in order for Jake to hear it.

“Yo, Old Men?” he said, when he could finally get through.

“Who you calling old?” Pete yelled.

“You three. I’m trying to put in a sink. You know how much this sink weighs? I don’t want to hear one more goddamn cop joke, you got it? No more. I swear to God.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Liam said. “Mikey always said you had no sense of humor.”

“Well, I think he’s damn funny looking, so I guess he’s wrong about that, too.”

“I can still whip your ass, Jacob Donnelly,” his father said, “and don’t you forget it.”

Jake went back to the computer, replayed the section about the plumbing, then squared off against the sink. It hung off the wall, so the wheelchair wouldn’t be an issue. In fact, the spigot was motion-controlled so his dad wouldn’t have to touch anything if his hands were acting up.

Jake had already widened the door leading into the new master bath. It used to be a guest bathroom before his dad’s rheumatoid arthritis started getting so bad. The wheelchair wasn’t a hundred percent necessary yet, but soon his father wouldn’t be able to make it up to his bedroom on the second floor, even with Jake’s help.

He picked up the damn heavy sink and moved it over to the semipedestal, the plumbing all neatly tucked behind the white porcelain. It actually set easily, and since he’d been getting better with this plumbing business, he didn’t find it necessary to curse the entire time he secured the top to the pedestal.

The problem wasn’t the tools, but the pain. As soon as he could, he stood, stretching out the damaged thigh. The bullet had been a through and through, but what they don’t say on TV is that it goes through muscle and tendon and veins and arteries on its quick voyage into, in his case, a factory wall. At least the thigh was less complicated than the shoulder wound.

Sometimes he felt as if it would have been better for everyone if the bastard had been a better shot. He rolled his left shoulder as his physiotherapist, Taye, taught him to do, then did a few stretches. This DIY crap had never been his bailiwick, but his dad needed the house to work for him, and the doctors had all thought it would be good for Jake to use his body to build something tangible.

Jake had realized when he was widening the wall that he actually liked remodeling. That was quite satisfying. The actual work itself though sucked like a Dyson.

But this was his life now. Crazy old men on the porch, fixing every problem the world had ever known. It didn’t matter that it was March and as cold as hell outside; they kept on playing their bones, the space heater barely keeping them from hypothermia. Of course they had their cold-weather gear on. These men had been beat cops in so many New York winters the cold didn’t stand a chance.

Thank Christ for electric blankets. ‘Cause Mike Donnelly, for all his bluster, was getting on. It would be good when Jake had the new shower finished. Nothing to step over, nothing his crooked hands couldn’t handle. Then he’d be able to jack up the heating bill to his heart’s content, shower three times a day if he wanted.

In the meantime, there was plumbing to do. Jake limped over to the laptop and continued the how-to. Two minutes in, his cell rang. It was Katy Groft, which was weird. They’d gone out, it had been fine, but Jake had been pretty damn clear about his intentions. He wasn’t one of those guys who said they’d call, then blew it off. None of that bullshit. “Hello?”

“Hey, Jake. Got a minute?”

“Sure.”

“I’m sending you a picture.”

“Okay.” His phone beeped a second later. “Hold on.” He clicked over to the photo, and what he saw surprised him even more than the phone call itself. It was … what’s her name, the Winslow who wasn’t called Winslow. Thorpe. That’s right. Rebecca Thorpe. Ran some kind of big foundation or something, was always in the papers, especially the Post. What he didn’t know was why Katy Groft would want him to see Thorpe’s picture. “Okay,” he said again.