Starting Over (A Linstead Story)

Chapter 13

Ever since his party, Kevin Atwater had been wanting to call Jess Sutton and ask her on a date. Dinner and a movie was his plan. Having a plan was one thing. Having his offer of the date accepted was another, and the fear of rejection was strong despite the fact that he was pretty sure Jess had enjoyed the party.

Tonight was the night to call her, he had decided. But plucking up that last bit of courage to actually make the call was the hardest part.

While working on that, he had the idea to look up the YouTube channel Jess had told him about. To him it seemed borderline ridiculous that a channel about cleaning advice could draw millions of views. Cleaning wasn't exactly difficult, he thought. But then it occurred to him that while he considered his house clean, it might not look clean at all to Jess. After all, her job and her side gig both involved cleaning to an impeccable standard. That was bound to be an anxiety if he made it as far as inviting her to his place.

She hadn't told him the name of her channel, but he figured it could be hard to find given the apparent popularity of it. Logic suggested it had to be the biggest cleaning channel on the platform. Entering a search for 'kitchen cleaning' soon confirmed that. Both of the top two results were from a channel called Clean With Jess. The top result was a twenty minute offering called 'A Professional Cleaner's Kitchen Cleaning Routine'. It was three years old and had over a million views. The thumbnail had Jess standing by a sink with a smile on her face. Even in that picture, he saw beauty personified.

He tapped on the video, wanting to see Jess in action, but also to see what more than a million people had come to learn about cleaning a kitchen.

Jess appeared standing in her kitchen. She was wearing a simple back t-shirt, white shorts and blue rubber gloves. His attention was immediately drawn to her shapely, slightly muscular legs. Working as a crime scene cleaner kept her in shape, he saw.

"Hi, I'm Jess and I'm a professional cleaner. Today I'm going to show you my kitchen cleaning routine," was the video's opening.

Kevin sat and watched the video, not really taking in the intended content of the video, which showed Jess cleaning what to him looked like an already clean kitchen. Some of the actual cleaning footage was sped up, with segments of Jess talking about what needed to be done next edited in. The production quality was high, he had to admit. But what really held his attention was Jess herself.

"How is she so gorgeous?" he asked himself. And he had a chance of getting her to go on a date with him. That much had been made pretty clear at his party a few nights back.

Telling himself to stop procrastinating and make the call, he closed the YouTube app and summoned all of the confidence he could find. He needed to sound relaxed and confident when he called, even if it felt like his asshole was twitching like a rabbit's nose.

The seconds dragged by as he listened to Jess's phone ringing. He was facing up to his call not being answered when she came on the line, only just beating voice mail to the call.

"Hello?"

"Jess, it's Kevin Atwater. How are you?"

"Hey! I'm doing okay. Just got home from work. How about you?"

"Yeah, the same, all round." He took a breath and went for it. "Jess, I was wondering if you'd join me for dinner and a movie one night? My treat."

"Sure, we can do that," she said without any hesitation. "Might have to be next week though. I'm finishing up with my job for the city and I've got a lot to do towards getting my new company launched. Can I call you when I've got a better idea when I'll be free?"

"Please do," he said, confident that she would. If he was going to get brushed off, that was not how it would have happened.

"Great, I will. So, are you doing much tonight?"

Not only had she readily agreed to the date, she was continuing the conversation.

"Had a long day at work, so I'm going to chill and listen to music. I find it relaxes my mind."

"Sorry to hear about your day. You're right, music can relax your mind. It can fire you up. Honestly, music can make you experience any emotion you can think of if you find a song that does it for you. That's why I like to sing. It provides such a release of emotion and energy."

Kevin laughed. "The only energy my singing would release is my neighbours coming round here to kick my ass. But I understand what you're saying. Do you sing often?"

"I haven't at all since my mom died. I've been invited to go sing with my friend's band though, so I'll do that soon. They know someone who can get them studio time cheap. Often when they're down there, I'll go down and do one song with them and it'll end up on YouTube on my singing channel. I credit them obviously."

They talked for a while about her friend's band. Kevin learned that like her they did music as a hobby not a source of income. But they had recorded some stuff to sell to family and friends, none of it involving Jess.

"Hey, you should come down and meet Reggie and the guys? Reggie's the only person I'd call a good friend. That's pretty pathetic, huh? But he's a great guy. We've known each other since school. I've been meaning to tell Jay about him too. They definitely need to meet each other."

She was getting excitable talking about her singing, but he hadn't missed the fact that she had just invited him to go with her to a recording session. Apparently she already intended to see him again after their first date. Unless he blew it of course.

"I think I'd like that," he said. "What kind of stuff do you sing when you perform with them?"

"They like me to do dark songs. They say I have the voice for it. I do sinister well, was I think how it was put. There might have been a compliment in there somewhere."

Kevin laughed. "I think there was for sure. I'll look forward to hearing what you can do."

"So what about you? What do you do when you're not policing?"

Tough question, Kevin thought. The honest answer was not much. The long days with Intelligence often left him feeling like he didn't want to do much apart from listen to music or watch sports when he got home. Although he knew Jess was a workaholic and would understand if he was honest, he didn't want to sound boring when they were getting early impressions of each other.

"I like sports. Catch a White Socks game when I can, although we're hot garbage right now."

"White Socks? What is that, football?"

Kevin's eyes rolled. She was not a sports fan, clearly. "It's baseball," he said, allowing some amusement to show. "I'd invite you to a game but I don't believe in torturing people."

Jess giggled. "Well, that's good to know. One thing I've been trying to tell myself since I lost my mom and met Jay is that I need to work a little less and live a little more. Pretty dumb when I'm about to launch a business, huh? But I'd like to go to a baseball game one day. Although be warned that I know absolutely nothing about it."

"A bit less work and a bit more living is something a lot of people should aim for in life, including me. So with that in mind, you go ahead and launch a business while I try for detective."

They both laughed.

"Okay, I'll let you get back to your music, Kevin. I'll be in touch about my schedule."

"I'll look forward to it. Have a good night."

"You too."

The call ended, and Kevin went right to analysing it. It couldn't have gone much better, he thought. Not only had one date been agreed to, there had been mention of getting together on at least two other occasions. There was only one reason that would have happened: Jess was as interested in him as he was in her.

Holy shit, he thought, a big smile on his face.

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A/N: Quite a realisation there for Kevin. Might there be a future for him and Jess?