Blue-Collar Boys - Repairs & Maintenance (Book 2: Steamy Erotic Romance Stories) by Aria Hawthorne Read Free Book Online

smiled.  She smiled.  Then, she glanced over to her dishwasher, which was now still and silent. 
    “How do you like your new dishwasher, Sassy?” he suddenly asked, catching the bubble in his palm and guiding it towards Angela.
    Angela sat up on her elbows, accepting the bubble into her own hand. “I like my new dishwasher,” she replied before popping the bubble with her fingernail.  “But I like my dishwasher delivery man even more.”

Bruno
     
    Lydia Simpson suffered from agoraphobia.  Her sister said it sounded like a fancy excuse for refusing to be set-up on blind dates.  But Lydia knew the sensation of sweaty panic was more than a fancy excuse.  It was a crushing fear that gripped her heart and squeezed it into her throat every time she stepped outside to face the callous, insensitive world of strangers and their judgments.  It was an acute fear of unfamiliar people and places that haunted Lydia like an oppressive shadow.  It was an anxiety that made her so ashamed of herself that she couldn’t even make eye contact with the grocery store cashier after he brushed her hand while depositing her change into her palm.  Her agoraphobia prevented her from venturing into public situations beyond her control.  She preferred to remain inside her house, where she felt protected from the bustling chaos and random unpredictability of life.  Life was something that happened to everyone else.  For Lydia, life was a controlled routine within the protective walls of her single-family home—which ironically kept her hopelessly single. 
    It wasn’t as if Lydia was a complete prude.  She had tried internet dating.  But the process of finding someone compatible was hindered by the fact that Lydia never showed up for any of the dates.  Although she spent hours and hours online, posting in chat groups or surfing the profiles of eligible men, Lydia never had having any intention of making those online connections a reality.  It was merely entertainment, a silly distraction from the financial necessity of day-trading stocks.  Without a real job, or a real boyfriend, or a real life, Lydia twiddled her hours away on the computers—shopping for groceries and clothes, downloading music, and researching exotic travel destinations of all the places she’d like to see if wasn’t terrified to leave her house.  Her computer was Lydia’s only portal to the outside world.  In fact, the only thing Lydia spent more time doing than surfing the internet was day-dreaming while gazing out her bedroom window. 
    Sometimes, her mind would drift away from her computer and settle on the large oak tree in her neighbor’s yard.  Its massive sturdy trunk flanked her house, just along the property line.  Lydia liked to imagine that if it was her tree, she would escape her house at the stroke of midnight, and plant purple sage and red chrysanthemums around its base under glistening sheen of moonlight.  And even though the old oak tree wasn’t hers, she loved it like it was.  She took comfort in the stamina of that tree, and its ability to stand strong under the threat of urban sprawl, surviving so many forces outside of its control.  At the start of dusk, twilight dappled its tangled maze of branches.  Lydia would stop her internet surfing and listen to the swaying canopy of its rustling leaves, contemplating the fact that she had passed another day without leaving her house.  The tree served as a reminder to Lydia that even though she didn’t have the strength to face the harsh uncertainties of the life outside her home, nature had somehow found the strength.  And that strength was beautiful.
     
    * * * *
     
    The next morning, Lydia awoke to the vrooming grind of a chain saw.  The chisel of the saw was quickly followed by the shrill peel of steel scissoring against wood.  There was a cracking snaaaaaaap —a joint popping out of its socket—followed by a thunderous crash, as the amputated branch dropped through the air