Rent-A Husband

by Everly Ashton

  Rent-A Husband

  Everly Ashton

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Deep Thoughts

  About the Author

  Also by Everly Ashton

  One

  Lucas

  “Another customer tried to seduce me today.” I take a swig from my beer bottle.

  My youngest brother, Josh, grins. “Did you let her accomplish the mission?”

  I narrow my eyes. “What you think?”

  “I forgot.” He shakes his head. “Always the consummate professional.”

  His response doesn’t bother me, but it does worry me. “You better not sleep with any of our clients.”

  “There’s a first time for everything.” He shrugs, and I glare across the table.

  Josh, our other brother Travis, and I co-own a handyman company called Rent-A Husband. Because of our moniker, most of our customer base is single women, which is exactly the niche market we’re trying to capture. I’ve done a lot of research and more and more women are choosing not to get married these days. Even those who do have husbands who are better suited to typing keys on a keyboard than driving nails into wood.

  As a result, there are always a handful of customers who try to take advantage and get us to perform extra “husbandly duties” once we’re done with what they hired us for. When we started the business three years ago, I found the flirting flattering. Now, I find it annoying, which makes it harder to decline in a nice way.

  “Hey, boys.” Travis joins us at the high-top table at The Third Rail, our usual hangout.

  “Hey.” I nod. “Josh was just about to tell me how he hasn’t slept with any of our clients.”

  Josh laughs off my comment, conveniently neither confirming nor denying, likely to drive me crazy.

  “That’s a little too much to hope for, don’t you think?” Travis says and sits down with us.

  “Hey.” Josh has the audacity to look offended.

  Travis scoffs at him. “You’re the one who’s always flaunting your conquests. You and Brady constantly talk about how much pussy you get.”

  Josh holds up his hands. “I’m merely capitalizing on the opportunities that are presented to me.”

  I shake my head and finish my beer. Josh still has a lot of growing up to do. But then again, he’s only twenty-eight. I was just starting to get my head out of my ass when I was his age and suggested we start this business together.

  “I’m gonna head up to the bar and grab a beer. You want another?” Travis motions toward my empty bottle.

  “Nah, that’s it for me.”

  He nods while Josh scoffs and shakes his head. They don’t need to ask what I’m up to. When I head home, I’ll be reconciling the week’s invoices and the expense receipts. Yeah, I know, it’s Friday night. Why not let loose and have fun? But I’m determined to grow this company, and neither of my brothers can make heads or tails of the business part of the business. It’s all on me.

  Travis heads over to an empty spot around the bar, and Josh and I return our attention to the baseball game on the screen. A few minutes later, Travis returns and we share swap stories from the week about the different calls we went on.

  “Aw, come on. What a shitty call, ump!” Josh slams his beer on the table.

  “Chill, man.” I flag down our waitress so I can place an order for what are the best wings in the history of wings.

  “Hey, Lucas. You ready for your wings?” our waitress, Mel, asks with a teasing note.

  We’re regulars, so I’m not surprised she knows what I’m after. “Sure am.”

  “Two or three dozen tonight?” She props her tray on her hip.

  “Just two. Gotta try to keep myself somewhat trim.” I pat my stomach, and she rolls her eyes.

  “How about the rest of you?” She looks between my brothers.

  “I’ll take another beer,” Josh says, holding up his near empty one.

  “What about you, Travis?” Mel asks. “You need anything from me?”

  His forehead wrinkles. “I’m good.”

  Disappointment flashes across Mel’s face, but she hides it well, so it’s gone in a flash. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

  Once she’s back in the kitchen to deliver my order to the cook, I look at Travis. “You know she likes you, right?”

  I feel bad for Mel. She’s always trying to get Travis’s attention and he barely says two words to her.

  “Yeah, why haven’t you nailed that yet?” Josh asks.

  “Because I’m not a manwhore like some of my brothers.” He sends a cutting look over to Josh, who chuckles.

  “I’m not a manwhore.” He pops one of the nacho chips from his plate into his mouth. “I’m just incredibly irresistible and I hate to disappoint.”

  Travis shakes his head and goes back to watching the baseball game on the TV over the bar.

  “Listen, we need to talk,” I say, my tone turning serious.

  “About what?” Josh’s forehead wrinkles.

  “About Gram and Gramps’s anniversary gift. We need an influx of cash if we’re gonna be able to buy them that cruise. I talked to the travel agent this week, and with what we’re setting aside from the business, it’s not going to be enough. Prices have gone up.”

  “Shit, really?” Travis pushes a hand through his hair.

  When we were kids, our parents worked long hours to support the family, so our grandparents stepped in to help raise us. Their fiftieth wedding anniversary is coming up and the three of us planned to send them on a month-long European cruise. It’s something they’ve always longed to do but could never swing financially. They aren’t getting any younger, and the three of us agreed that we want to make it happen for them.

  We’re already directing some of the profit from our business into the effort, but we can’t swing anymore. At least, not with the plans we have for the company over the next year.

  “What are we gonna do?” Josh asks.

  I shrug. “Maybe if we all take some side jobs, we can make up the difference. The option to take more from the company isn’t there if we want to stay on track with opening more locations this year.”

  “I’ve got a buddy who runs a brewery. He said they were looking for delivery drivers last time I spoke with him. Maybe I can grab a few evening or weekend shifts or something,” Josh says.

  “You’ve got a guy for everything,” Travis grumbles.

  Josh shrugs. “I’m a man of the people, what can I say.”

  Travis rolls his eyes. “I have some pieces I’ve been working on. Was gonna put them in my place, but I can sell them. Maybe make some more before their anniversary.”

  My middle brother is a talented furnitur
e maker. He could make a living at it, but he insists that he enjoys it as a hobby and doesn’t want it to become a job to him.

  “That’ll work.” I run my hand up and down the side of my face. “I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll figure something out, don’t worry.”

  “Of course you will. You’re Mr. Responsible.” Josh tosses back a swig of his beer.

  I narrow my eyes at him. “One of us has to be.”

  “I’m no fuckup,” Travis says as though he’s offended.

  “No, but you’re not exactly Mr. Personality,” I say.

  Josh and I chuckle.

  “Yeah, you’re the grump,” Josh says.

  “And what’s that make you?” Travis looks at Josh with one eyebrow raised.

  “Easy, the fun one.” He gives Travis his million-dollar smile and Travis shoves Josh’s shoulder. Josh’s phone rings in his pocket before he can retaliate, and he pulls it out. “Which one of you assholes forwarded the lines to me? I thought it was your day?” He nods at me.

  I grin and laugh. Our official hours end at five, but the lines are always forwarded to one of us in case a customer has an emergency. It’s not something any of us enjoy doing, but our after-hours emergency service does draw in a lot of new business—plus we charge double time for any calls we have to go out on after hours.

  Josh hurries out the front door of the bar to take the call. Travis and I watch the game in silence, and Josh returns a few minutes later with a resigned look on his face.

  He sits down and takes a pull off his beer. “We’ve got a live one, boys.”

  “Who was it?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Some woman named…” He brings up the notes app on his phone where he must’ve input her info. “Camila Wright. She broke something in the shower and the water is spraying out and she can’t get it to turn off. One of us needs to go over there right away.”

  Travis and I groan at the same time.

  “You couldn’t walk her through how to turn the damn thing off so we could just go out in the morning and take a look?” Travis grumbles.

  Josh raises his hands. “I tried, man. She was a little high-strung and freaking out. She didn’t even seem fazed when I explained she’d have to pay double for one of us to go out there on a Friday night.”

  “Well, who’s it gonna be then?” I ask, hoping one of my brothers will step up. But as I expected, no such luck.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Travis says and brings his beer to his mouth.

  “I took the last one,” Josh says, which unfortunately is true.

  “I have my wings coming.” My mouth waters at the mention. The three of us exchange looks for a moment before I sigh. “Guess we’re gonna have to use the app.”

  Travis and Josh groan in unison.

  When we can’t decide who has to go on a shitty call, we use an app I downloaded to randomly pick one of our names. We’ve all agreed that no matter who the app picks, it’s like gospel to us.

  I pull my phone out of my back pocket and pull up the Randomizer app, then enter our names into it. “You guys ready?” My thumb hovers over the “Pick Now” button.

  “Just do it already,” Travis grumbles.

  I hit the button and the names flash on the screen.

  “Here you go.” Mel slides my wings in front of me, so I lean back and let my hand fall down to the side of the bar top table.

  “Thanks so much.” The scent of the wings wafts up to me and I inhale deeply, ready to gorge on them.

  “Forget the wings. Who did it pick?” Josh asks.

  I raise my phone and see my name flashing in block letters on the screen. “Shit.”

  “Woo-hoo!” Josh high-fives Travis. “Looks like you and I are gonna have to finish these for our big bro.” He grips the edge of my plate and starts to slide them his way, but I stop him.

  I look around for Mel and see her helping to clean up a glass someone must’ve dropped. Great, I can’t bother her for a take-out container now, and I can’t wait around for one. I let go of the plate and Josh slides it over between him and Travis.

  I point in both of their directions. “You guys owe me.”

  Those pricks just laugh at me while I make my way toward the exit, pissed off and starving. This call better be worth it.

  Two

  Camila

  As I pour myself a glass of wine, I mentally chastise myself for needing to drown my sorrows in the first place.

  I want to be all “I am woman, hear me roar,” but I can’t muster the enthusiasm. I consider myself to be a pretty independent woman. I’m intelligent, accomplished, a lot going for me—but right now, the rejection that was so fresh nine months ago has swallowed me back up and I just feel sad and disappointed and angry with how everything turned out.

  Today is the day I found out my ex is newly engaged to the woman he left me for.

  Elijah—that’s my ex—used to work with me at Morton Headhunting, one of the largest headhunting firms in the Pacific Northwest. As irony would have it, he was headhunted away from our firm to one of our competitors.

  It was a relief when he took the job a couple of months ago. I no longer had to see him in the halls and pretend I was unaffected, no longer heard what’s going on in his life through brief snippets of conversation I’d catch in the employee break room, and no longer had to glare daggers at the screensaver on his computer that showcased a picture of him with a beautiful blonde draped all over him, kissing his cheek.

  I’d been doing much better at getting past the hurt and the deceit—out of sight, out of mind sorta thing—so when Emily, my coworker and one half of a couple we used to hang out with when Elijah and I were together, came into my office and told me that Elijah got engaged last week, it felt like being hit by a car. I was flying through the air, spiraling out of control, and when I hit the ground, the shock set in and the pain consumed me.

  I mean, who gets engaged after only nine months? Whenever I pressed Elijah about what the future held for us (which, by the way, I think was fair after dating for two years) he always insisted he wasn’t even looking at marriage until he was in his early thirties. He’d just turned twenty-nine, for god’s sake.

  It shouldn’t matter to me. After all, we broke up nine months ago. I think back to me ruining a perfectly good set of dishes as I threw them at the door after he left and add a little more wine to my glass.

  So even though we’ve been broken up for some time, the news still felt like I was losing him all over again in some strange way. It made me feel unlovable and insecure, something I’ve dealt with ever since my dad went out for cigarettes when I was eight and never returned.

  My best friend, Amber, said I should look at it like a blessing because now I can get on with my life. I know she’s right, but doing that is harder than I thought it would be. There’s no part of me that wants to move on and put myself out there again. Elijah’s betrayal cut me to the core, and even nine months later, dating is the last thing I have any desire to do.

  My cell phone rings, so I snatch it up off the kitchen counter and see Amber’s name.

  “Hey,” I answer, sounding mopey.

  “On a scale of listening to sad music and writing in your journal to being elbow deep in a tub of ice cream while you watch the Notebook, how bad are you?” she asks.

  I can’t help but chuckle, which was probably her goal. “I skipped dinner and I’m pouring myself a glass of wine before I turn on the episode of Dateline I taped last week.”

  “As long as you’re not looking for a way to get away with murder, I’d say you’re not too bad then.”

  “If I was going to murder him, I would’ve done it by now.”

  “And he would’ve deserved it.” She pauses and sighs. “Do you want me to come over?”

  I take my wine into my living room and plop down on the couch. “Nah, I’m okay. I know you and Henry have something planned tonight.”

  Amber and Henry have been dating for almost a year, and he’s taki
ng her into Seattle overnight to see her favorite band play.

  “Hos before bros, you know that.”

  “Well, this ho will see you later this weekend after your big date. I’m sure I’ll still be just as miserable then. You won’t miss anything.”

  She huffs. “You should be celebrating the fact that some other woman will be stuck with that piece of shit for eternity. I’m telling you, Cami, it’s for the best.”

  I take a slug of my wine. “I know it is. I do. I think a part of me thought that maybe one day he’d realize what a mistake he made in letting me go. And honestly, it’s not even that I would’ve ever taken him back after what happened. I think maybe I just wanted him to think I’m worthy or something. It’s stupid.”

  “No, it’s not. He hurt you deeply. That’s not something you just get over. That said, who gives a shit what he thinks? You have to think you’re worthy of someone great.”

  I sigh and take another big gulp of my wine. “I do. I know I’m a decent catch, it’s just… it’s hard to bounce back after what happened, you know?”

  “I know, sweetie.” She’s quiet for a moment. “You sure you don’t want me to cancel and come on over?”

  “Don’t you dare.” I flick on my TV. “Go have a magical night with Henry, and call me tomorrow when you get home and tell me all about it.”

  “All right. Well, don’t get any ideas when you’re watching Dateline.”

  I chuckle. “No promises. Have fun and tell Henry I said hi.”

  “Will do. Luv ya.”