“Yep. I was hardly going to leave you here trapped in the dark.”
“Considering you did this kind of thing all day ...”
“This is not a big deal.”
“What were you doing today?”
“Wiring. At that new complex that’s going in next to HomeGoods.”
“Oh. Neat.”
“You don’t have to pretend to be interested in my job for me to fix your blown fuse. It’s literally going to take less than five minutes.”
“Thank you,” she said again.
“Yeah. It’s just too bad that ...”
“What?”
“Nothing. It bothers you when I bring it up.”
“Oh. The slander of the electrician who did the house?”
“Yes. The slander of the electrician who did the house. Because he did a piss-poor job, which is one of my issues with Jonathan McNamara as a contractor.”
“Yeah. Well. I think your issues are likely founded in truth, since it turns out he cuts a lot of corners in his personal life too.”
She felt a little bit bad gossiping about Daisy when they’d had a pretty genuine conversation earlier. But Sam wasn’t going to tell anybody. Plus, it would feed his contractor beef, which seemed like great payment for services rendered.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I visited Alexandra in the hospital today.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“Not really. She’s my neighbor, and she’s a huge part of the Creative Kids program.”
“True.”
“Daisy McNamara was there. We went to lunch afterward. She told me that Jonathan left her and moved into a new house with his twenty-five-year-old girlfriend.”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered as he opened the fuse box.
“He told her they were done. No discussion. It was all about him having to find himself—” She winced because it sounded close to what Ben had said, but it wasn’t quite. “And of course finding himself meant finding himself in another woman’s bed. He just left her with three kids.”
“That sounds about right, based on the kind of work he does. No commitment. Sloppy. Lazy. Plus, I’m willing to bet he overcharged you. Because this electrical work is cheap shit.”
“As far as I know, nothing about this house was cheap.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t.”
She didn’t really know, because the person with the money was Ben. A realization that made her uncomfortable all over again.
It had felt like it all belonged to them. Because they had gone through college together, and built this life together, and ...
It was his.
What was going to happen if he came back and decided he didn’t want to get back together?
