Page 2 of The Lipstick Flip

I swallowed what I wanted to say to that. It was Si’s brand. Si was single-handedly running the Rainbow Coalition’s entire construction and handyman services division. Si spent four hours on the internet trying to figure out how to get her horn to play “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga. And great. Fucking fantastic. That worked—for Si.

“No more,” I said.

“Fine,” Si said. “Don’t get your shorts in a knot. Now grab a flashlight and help me look at this.”

“You’ve got two hands.”

But Si didn’t answer, because she was currently pawing at the coverall, trying to find her phone.

Instead of groaning, I grabbed a flashlight. And I even got out my own phone. I had a tripod and stuff upstairs, but most of the good content we shot like this, on the fly.

“Hey, everybody,” Si said into the phone’s camera. “Your lesbian dad here. Howie and I are looking at this joist, and we’re going to see if we can’t figure it out between the two of us. So, what we’ve got is—hold on. Howie, say hi.”

I lost this battle a long time ago. When she pointed the camera at me, I did what had become my schtick on the @yourlesbiandad channel: a single, uninterested wave, a quick glance at the camera, and trying my fucking hardest to let everybody know how very fucking annoying this whole situation was.

As soon as Si turned her attention back to the joist, I brought my camera up and started recording. Si might be the lesbian Michelin Man, but she knew her shit, and this kind of content was gold for my own account—@secondchancewamo. Sure, for the most part, social media was for little dick tuggers like Auggie. But when Si had shown me the numbers she had on her own account, and when she’d explained how the account was her single largest source of clients, I’d decided maybe even little dick tuggers got it right sometimes.

Not that I was going whole fucking hog on it. I didn’t do Si’s dad jokes. I didn’t mug for the camera. I didn’t do twenty different videos about attending the Pride parade, and showing myself with rainbow stickers on my face, and shit like that. My account was professional. My account was legit. I showed people the houses we worked on. I explained the problems we ran into. I talked about how we fixed things, or complications we ran into, or tips you could try if you ran into something similar. It seemed kind of stupid when I thought about it—there were plenty of other people out there, plenty of people who knew more about this stuff than I did, who were happy to make jackasses out of themselves for the camera. But I guess people liked seeing us restore the old houses, because I had lots of followers, and the number kept going up.

“First thing we’re going to do,” Si was saying, “is try to figure out if we need to sister this joist. Howie, give me some light up here.”

I flicked the flashlight on and aimed it up between the joists.

Si made a considering noise. “Scooch it a little more over here.”

I scooched it.

“No, over here.”

I moved around the stepladder.

“Where I’m looking, Howie.”

So, I shone it in her eyes.

Si shouted, put a hand up, and almost knocked herself off the ladder in the process. An instant later, she was laughing, steadying herself, still shielding her eyes with one hand and already talking into the camera. “Did you see what he did? Did you see?”

Her audience would eat it up. They always did.

I flicked the beam of the flashlight back between the joists. Si was still yammering into the camera about how I almost made her break her neck. And then my phone buzzed.

There was a time in my life when I wouldn’t have answered an unknown number, but the job with Si had changed that; subcontractors had questions, clients had emergencies, sometimes shit just hit the fan. I ended the recording on my phone, set the flashlight on Si’s stool, and answered the call as I moved toward the stairs.

Behind me, Si was telling a dad joke for the camera.

“Hello,” I said as I went up to the kitchen.

“Yes, hi, I’m trying to reach Howard Cartwright.” It was a woman’s voice, confident, a little husky.

“This is him.”

“Mr. Cartwright.” The woman laughed. “You’re a difficult man to find.”

Which was…strange. Because sure, there’d been a time when that had been true. When I’d been, well, gone, for lack of a better way of saying it. But it hadn’t been true in a long time. I had a business. I had property. I had a driver’s license. Anybody with five minutes on their hands could find me. And the old part of my brain, the cop part of my brain, rolled over in its sleep.

“My name is Amanda Martinez. I represent Jonathan Reynolds.”

Which was a name I hadn’t heard in a couple of years. “Oh, God. Is he—”