Free Strictly My Husband: It's funny, it's romantic and it's got dancing - what's not to love! by Tracy Bloom Page A

steel-toecapped boots and neon jackets he knew what they were thinking: that you’re not a real man if your job doesn’t require you to wear a hi-vis vest.
    Tom tiptoed around the huge muddy tracks in his immaculately polished, on-trend brown brogues and prayed that he wouldn’t fall over. The humiliation, surrounded by so much testosterone, would be too much to bear. Breathing a sigh of relief, he reached the Portakabin which acted as the site office and hoped that it would be empty apart from Jerry and he wouldn’t get the an-alien-has-landed looks from the real workers.
    Thankfully Jerry was sitting there alone with his steel toecaps up on an untidy makeshift desk, his red hard hat set at a jaunty angle and a mobile phone glued to his ear.
    He motioned Tom to take a seat and stood up, hauling his canvas trousers up over his protruding belly. Somehow, despite his outfit, Jerry never intimidated Tom. Probably because Tom knew that Jerry never really got out there and dirtied his hands doing the real work. Jerry was definitely the outward face of the company; his skills lay in schmoozing prospective clients rather than any of the actual heavy lifting.
    ‘You are an utter dog,’ cackled Jerry into the phone. ‘And a dirty dog at that. If I’d been Kempy I’d have left you there, I can tell you. At least until you’d dried out . . .
    ‘No way was I as bad, you lying fucker,’ he continued down the line after a comment. ‘I was completely sober . . .
    ‘Fuck off. I never did that, did I?’ Jerry collapsed in hysterics. ‘Pair of dirty dogs, you’re right. Now, I can’t waste any more of my extremely valuable time chatting with you, my next appointment’s just arrived.’ He winked at Tom.
    ‘Yes, it’s someone way more important than you. Now piss off and I’ll get the office to send those contracts out today. See you. Bye.’
    ‘Who was that?’ asked Tom, wandering over to a site plan on the wall.
    ‘Richard Marsh. Ops Director for Horncliffe Hotels. I think I hooked him for another new build during that shooting thing I went to at the weekend.’
    ‘Good.’ Tom nodded. ‘When do you reckon our chalets will be done then?’
    ‘Chalets!’ exclaimed Jerry. ‘We don’t build chalets, Tom, these are dreams. This development is fulfilling every middle-class family’s desire to shell out a fortune to stay in a wooden shed.’
    Tom smiled.
    ‘Honestly, this project is the most bonkers thing I have worked on,’ Jerry said in amazement. ‘All our conversations are about de-speccing to fit in with this so called “Rustic Theme”. We’ve downgraded the toilets three times and your bosses still aren’t happy. But it’s hard to source a rustic toilet. Where would you go for a rustic toilet?’
    ‘The loos in the Celebration Theatre could be described as rustic, if not decrepit. Take one of them out and show them. Put new loos in the theatre.’
    ‘Do you know what? I might,’ said Jerry, getting up. ‘Rustic toilets – I ask you. Tea?’
    ‘Yeah, decaf please.’ The minute he said it he knew he’d made a mistake.
    ‘For fuck’s sake, Tom, decaf?’
    ‘I know, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.’ He looked around the empty room nervously in case anyone else had overheard his error. ‘I’ll have whatever you’re having.’
    ‘Obviously,’ replied Jerry, sloshing hot water out of a filthy kettle over two teabags in enormous mugs. ‘So did you get my text?’ he asked.
    ‘Which one?’
    ‘The one I sent you on Saturday morning.’
    Tom cast his mind back. Jerry was a prolific texter. If his ear wasn’tglued to his phone his finger was. ‘Doesn’t really narrow it down,’ he said.
    ‘Why do you never reply to my texts?’ asked Jerry.
    ‘Because I need time to eat and sleep and have a life.’
    Jerry threw him a confused look, picked up his phone and started to scroll through it.
    ‘It said:
What a night. How the bloody hell have you got away with that you sly dog?
’
    ‘And