“Well, well, well ...” Davey -- or Mr. Fix It -- said in a low drawl as he surveyed the apartment’s kitchen and marbled tile floors. “This is a doozy.”

“You’re telling me.”

I leaned against the wall outside the kitchen. My neck smarted and so did my thighs from carrying a crib to the sixth floor, and then setting it up again. I’d told Mr. Fix It, or Davey as he truly liked to be called, snippets of the story as I met him in the foyer fifteen minutes ago. Most of it was to brace him for the mold he was going to see, since that was a health risk I wasn’t entirely sure the rental company had told him about, but he seemed to be dimly aware.

He was also downright attractive. Not in any formal way, not in any way I could truly articulate since I’d spent my life up until this point being mostly into women. I didn’t have the vocabulary or language to say that I liked his broad shoulders, the hefty way he held his large body, at least sixty pounds heavier than my own. I just knew that I liked it. I liked his hair, brown and wavy, and graying at the temples. His skin was rough, like the skin on his hands, and was filled with laugh lines around his mouth. He was probably in his forties, which wasn’t that much older than me in my mid-thirties, but his body was harder. He used it more than I’d ever used my body, and just the thought of how he’d built up the muscle and layers of fat and lines and wrinkles and all those imperfections made me shudder. Made me want him that much more.

Because I really did want him. I’d jerked off so much the night before, though I was exhausted from all the work I’d done to get the new place ready for the budding family, but I’d told myself I needed to jerk off because I had to test myself. Did I want to pursue anything? Did I want to touch the man I’d listened to and jerked off to already?

I wasn’t sure. But I figured if I emptied myself of desire the night before, at least I could go in without being too sex-starved. I even jerked off in the shower that morning, just to continue with my experiment.

I still wasn’t sure what I wanted -- then I saw him in the foyer. He leaned against the glass doors, examining his phone as he waited for me to come down. His eyes perked up when he saw me coming towards the door and he gave me a nice smile. Professional, kind. We shook hands. And then I started to tell him the story of Sheila and Nick, as a final tester. A way to bond between myself and him, along with laying out the stakes of the matter.

“So it’s been a tough last couple days,” I said. “Though I know I’m not working nearly as hard as Sheila is right now.”

“No doubt.” He stared at the dishwasher, and then floor, before he turned back to me. He gave me another smile, one that made my stomach flip. “I got a couple nephews and one niece. So nice when they’re born. I didn’t see it, but oh, I heard about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh-huh.” A small grunt. Just like the ones on the videos. “You think they’ll be back soon?”

“No, they have a place down in 607.”

“Right,” he said. “Sorry, you mentioned that. I just mean that I’d like to get this done for ‘em as fast as possible. Nice to have the temporary home, but these guys deserve a place.”

“I think they’re still in the hospital.” I had a message from Nick saying something similar, asking about the keys for 607. I’d left him a message back with instructions, but it was piecemeal. “I can check, if you want?”

He waved away my concern. He lifted his tool bag off his shoulder and added it to the floor before he sat on the floor. “Should just get to work. If I need ya, will you be around ...?”

“Derek. And yes,” I said without hesitation. “I’ll be around.”