Shot At Love

Boy's Shack Up, Men Build Homes: Chapter 6

• Kerry Brett

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What happens when you swipe right on a contractor who builds homes and hearts with the same dedication? Built to Last: When Love Meets Construction, that's what! Meet Rory Remington, a 47-year-old professional builder from Scituate, Massachusetts—a man as solid as the foundations he lays.

During the harshest winter Massachusetts had seen in a century, with record-breaking snowfall burying my world both literally and figuratively, Rory appeared like a beacon of warmth. After plowing Scituate's streets all day, he'd show up at my driveway, engine running, ready to shovel my roof without ever asking to come inside—because he wanted to meet my daughter "when we were official." Here was a man who had given his dream home to his ex-wife so his children wouldn't suffer, while he lived in homes he was rebuilding. A man who, when my card was declined buying painting supplies, arrived early the next morning with everything I needed and painted my entire first floor in a day.

Rory checked every box on my "top ten list" of qualities I wanted in a partner. He remembered I disliked roses on my birthday because it fell near Valentine's Day, sending unique flowers with a card saying, "You're all seven on my list." Yet I made the devastating mistake of leaving him when my ex returned, begging for reconciliation—only to discover more lies and deception waiting for me.

The painful irony? When pipes burst in my studio and I had nowhere to turn, Rory still showed up, created detailed documentation overnight, secured me exactly the insurance money I needed, and disappeared without even saying goodbye. He didn't need to help, but that's who he was—a man of honor who never let people down.

Through heartbreak and regret, I learned that relationships, like houses, require solid foundations. Sometimes the best partners aren't the flashiest or most familiar—they're the ones who show up consistently, tools in hand, ready to build something lasting. Don't wait to recognize quality when you see it; great men don't stay available for long.

Ready to transform your perspective on love? Grab my new book "Shot at Love" on Amazon and join the community at ShopLoveBook.com for exclusive updates on upcoming events.

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Chapter six Boys Shack Up, Men Build Homes. Omrada Krishnaya Namaha is a devotional mantra dedicated to the divine couple of Radha and Krishna, who are considered to embody divine love in Hinduism. The mantra to find your husband. Studs. Meet Tinder's Bob the Builder, Rory Remington. Rory, age 47, Northeastern University, self-employed, six foot, one inch, diehard Pats fan, weekend golfer, ten miles away. Rory, an upstanding townie, is a professional contractor who owns Remington Construction in Situate, Massachusetts. Situated precisely halfway between Boston and Plymouth, it has the best natural harbor between the two, a town rich with over 500 years of history. Its nickname is the Irish Riviera, according to the census. It is the most Irish town in America. They even vote for their mayor right before the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade. Rory is a typical shoreline builder, lives on the ocean, swims daily at Minut Beach, and jumps into the Atlantic after building in the heat. A person who roofs houses is probably one of the toughest people around. Rory comes from a huge family, one of six, and the whole town knows who he is and loves him. He was a simple, all around, nice guy who went to the same bars to watch the New England Patriots and wouldn't dream of missing a sporting event for his kids. He is a hard worker who broke his ass seven days a week for his children and the child support he gave his ex wife. He was as solid and dependable as they come. His famous line was heavy as the head that wears a crown. That was him, the bearer of much responsibility, and he would have easily added to his plate Morgan and me. He was the quintessential family guy. I knew when he was married he was a terrific husband and most importantly, a man of his word. Rory was built like a brick shit house, truly made of iron. If you've ever dated a builder, they are so strong and resilient. Rory taught me that building a house is like building a relationship, one brick, one wall, one room at a time. Back then, Rory was truly a gift from God. The universe was telling me to wake up, Carrie, you've been through so much and suffered endlessly. Please use this opportunity to save yourself. Foundation. Our first date was at the Ocean Kai, a dive bar on the town line, because I didn't want Giovanni to find out as he was living on my street and watching my every move. Choosing to go to the Kai was a sign that maybe it was a little too early for me, but I didn't care. I was going to get busy living instead of getting busy dying. I was in the game, ready or not. Off I went. I came roaring into the parking lot, singing at the top of my lungs, Diana Ross's, I'm spreading love. There is no need to feel. I jumped out of my car with my heart full of promise. I heard Rocky, Rocky in my head as I stepped into the Tinder dating ring for the first time. I confidently strolled into my new honky talk haven. The bar was packed with men, who glanced up as I entered through the door. I was completely overdressed and looked ready to host the country music awards. I ponied up to the bar and gave a big hello and hug to my handsome Tinder date. Rory asked, Can I get you a glass of wine? I said, No, I don't drink wine. I'll have what you're having. He says, A martini it is. He handed me my glass, I grabbed it nervously and spilled the entire drink all over my dress. I laughed loudly at myself. He leans and says, I like you already. Rory and I continued to date during that harsh winter, the most brutal winter I have ever lived through, and the highest snowfall we had seen in over a hundred years. It wasn't the snow and ice that were slowly killing me. Hingham was a ghost town, and the snow never let up. The only people who were working were the guys who were out ploughing and the sub shops feeding them. I hadn't seen the rooftop of my studio for months. No one was coming to get photographed, and those dark days were downright depressing. Rory would plough Situate's entire town for extra money if he wasn't doing construction all day. After work, his truck would appear in my driveway, engine running as he texted me, letting me know he would shovel my driveway and roof. A labor of love he would do in the dark after a long day's work where he froze his ass off and was probably starving. But no matter what, he wouldn't come into my home because he wanted to meet my daughter Morgan when we were official. Again, the universe was showing me a real man. I tried as hard as possible and used all of my might to get away from Giovanni. Unfortunately, I wasn't as strong as I thought. Rory knew my ex was a huge problem, but he was willing to work with me because he liked me. He gave me a lot of leeway because his life had also been filled with turmoil. However, that story is not mine to tell, but the pain had left a mark on him, leaving scars that he buried well. Despite being heartbroken by his ex wife's decisions, he rewarded her by giving her his dream home that he built with his own two hands. He made this sacrifice while he lived in homes he was rebuilding because he loved his kids so much and didn't want them to endure any more than they already had. Rory wasn't the only nice person left holding the bag who got majorly screwed over. At one point he was living in his brother's basement in Hangham. To get back on his feet while he wrapped up his divorce, learned to adjust to being a single dad, and handled things way better than I did. Even after working all day in the cold, he would cook me dinner, take me to fancy restaurants, or take me anywhere in the world that I wanted to go. This guy was the ultimate giving tree, just like me. Blueprint. Rory was a silver lining, but I couldn't look at it as that. I was down about my current situation and I was always sad because I was getting ready to sell my home and studio. Rory told me not to worry about it because he would build me a castle. A castle. I needed to get my house ready to put on the market. The one thing that needed to happen was painting my entire first floor, something I couldn't afford to do, but I was determined to paint myself. In the meantime, Rory wrote a list of things I would need and painting supplies I would pick up after work. I went to Hingham Lumber, the closest hardware store, filled my cart with paint supplies, and again my card was declined. I was juggling way too much and certainly wasn't watching my finances. Ashamed and horrified, I scribbled my name on a piece of paper the clerk gave me and left it in the cart. On the way home, I called Rory, bawling my brains out, totally defeated. I said, Rory, you should go out with that rich girl. Her parents own some ski lodge in the Swiss Alps, the one chasing you on Tinder. She'll make your life way better. I'm a mess and I'm just dead weight for you. My life is filled with too many problems, too many issues for anyone to handle. He just sat there on the other end of the phone and said nothing, just listened as I cried and cried. Before he hung up, he said, What happened to all the paint supplies I gave you to get on the list to get? I answered, They're in a cart with my name on it. I asked Hingham Lumber to hold the supplies. I would figure out a way to come back tomorrow. Then I said, Maybe I'll dance on a tabletop tonight for three hundred dollars. He laughed and then I apologized and said, I wasn't thinking, Rory, I was too upset, and I just ran out of the store. I can't even talk about it. I need to go. Like a lunatic, I rushed off the phone and hung up. That night I went right to bed and cried myself to sleep. That was on a Friday. The next morning at 720 AM, I heard someone knocking on my door. I come running down the stairs in an oversized concert tee with Pat Benatar's hair. I see Rory standing there smiling at me. I open the door. What are you doing here? Rory said, Kingham Lumber opens at 7 AM. I found your cart and paid for everything. I'm going to paint your first floor because it's not gonna paint itself. So let me in and get out of my way. He finished painting my entire first floor that day, even the ceilings. While I made him laugh and danced around, helping him paint to my favorite band Fish. Patch and plaster. That night, once Rory left, I cried to my sister Erin. I couldn't believe a guy like this existed. How was I so stupid to put up with someone mistreating me for so long? One night I stood in Rory's kitchen during yet another blizzard and told him he had checked every box on my top ten list. He laughed and said, What's your top ten list? My top ten list is a list I write daily about the man I want to manifest. This sounds crazy, but okay. He listened intensely as I told him about the list. Can you try it? Can you write a list for me? You know, write down everything you would in your dream girl? Rory said fine, but he could only think of seven things. He handed me a scribbled on the fly list of seven simple things. I glanced at the list and just looked at him, smiling, because he liked me enough to try one of my self-help vision board inspired nutty ideas that I believed at the time helped manifest your soulmate. Now I know for sure that it's the most powerful tool you can have in your Tinder toolkit. It's the golden rule in my swiping soiree seminar. I stayed with Rory during that snowstorm, which lasted a week until the snow finally stopped and the roads cleared. Rory went off to plough some slippery, situated sidewalks while I went home. I needed to get back. Morgan was away in Florida at Disney World with her dad for February vacation, but would be coming home soon. The day I left Rory was my birthday. My ex noticed somehow in a blizzard that I wasn't around. The visibility was so bad I couldn't see my mailbox, yet Giovanni noticed my car had been missing for a week. When I got back home, my ex was at my house waiting for me. Giovanni had shown up on my birthday to beg for me back. He told me we would get married and that I was the one, and it took losing me to know. I stupidly believed him. Then the doorbell rang. It was Winston Flowers, the most expensive florist in town. I stood there watching as my ex boyfriend got handed a three hundred dollar arrangement that he didn't send. There was no gift from me from Giovanni, but here was the gift from Rory. Rory also remembered that I don't like roses because my birthday is a few days before Valentine's Day. I love super creative arrangements and unique flowers. I could see orchids in the bouquet from afar, and my eyes started to well up. Attached to the spectacular floral arrangement was an enclosure card that read these special words. Harry, you're all seven on my list. Love Rory. After all of that, how did I end up in the most gut wrenching rose ceremony on the Bachelorette season? I broke things off with Rory. I did. I made a very regrettable mistake in learning one grueling painful lesson. Like the world's biggest loser, I did. I was an absolute fool to end things with Rory and go back to my ex, even though I knew returning to an ex was like reheating fries from McDonald's. It's never as good. It killed me to end things with Rory and he was devastated. We were good people who were left heartbroken, and here we go again. Rory told me he couldn't eat or sleep for weeks after the breakup. I told him it was all my fault, it was too soon. I didn't mean to hurt him, but I had spent eight years of my life with my ex and I had to see it through to the end, and boy did I do that. The last thing I said to him was I don't know why these things happen, but things happen for a reason and work out the way they're supposed to. Cock and cracks. A few weeks later, my mister Unavailable, noncommitting ex started blaming me, expressing rage and anger over my short-lived relationship with Rory. Giovanni had his mind made up. He couldn't get over the fact that I was with someone else. He loved me, but how dare I find happiness with another guy? In an attempt to put a band-aid on the situation, I went into supportive girlfriend mode and decided to go to Giovanni's gig and Mr. Dooley's in Cohasset. After the show, I found out the truth about Giovanni. This time it didn't show up in a text thread on his phone. It showed up in a false positive. Results I stumbled upon when I opened up a piece of mail left on the kitchen counter of his temporary rental in Cohasset Village. This oversized manila envelope was the only thing on the countertop. I harmlessly peered in thinking it might be information about a listing of a potential new place Giovanni would rent, as he wasn't very forthcoming about what he was doing. My eyes popped as I stood seeing stars staring down at an ultrasound of a girl named Susan. Some crazy chick from CrossFit, who had an abundance of free time when she took matters of the heart into her own hands by creating a fake ultrasound with Photoshop. It seemed desperately seeking Susan expressed her feelings not in a song like Taylor Swift, You Belong with Me, but swiftly in an arts and crafts project she bought at Michael's an attempt to trap Giovanni into staying with her. They say you can't see the picture if you're in the frame. But it would take more than adobe to make Giovanni commit to anyone. This twenty four year old child from CrossFit worked as a nurse when she wasn't working out. She was so shook up after her shift that Susan thought it was a good idea to borrow without asking one of her patients' thirteen week ultrasound and Photoshop her name after removing the original as a way to illustrate or spell out in black and white imaging that Giovanni wasn't going anywhere, hoping with the baby on the way he would stay. I thought I was the expert in Photoshop. Who knew a picture of an ultrasound would say a thousand words? This wasn't any honeymoon to live through, nor was it a baby moon, and I didn't need Illustrator to realize that I was dealing with a bunch of babies. I shot right to the moon processing the Suzy Q psycho, and my stomach sank as I wondered if Giovanni had gotten someone pregnant or if this girl's baby bump was even real. I'm not a mathly, this had to be made up because the math wasn't mathing. Or the size of the child, which I saw right away would be impossible having had a baby myself. The craziness that ensued during this time left me questioning what was real. I'm not an obstetrician, and there was obviously more than one baker here. This was not a time of renewal or new beginnings. The birth of the phantom altar son would be the end of us. I guess I wasn't the only one in a new relationship. At the same time, for the past two weeks, I was being blamed for trying to move on after Giovanni cheated on me God knows how many times. Giovanni's unhappiness wasn't with me, it was because Nurse Ratchet was blackmailing him and I was starring and one flew over the cuckoo's nest. I realized now that if Giovanni couldn't have me, no one could. That was the only point of the exercise. I called Rory, told him that Giovanni was gone for good, and begged him back. Rory was a Tinder catch and by this time was long gone. Rory was now happy in love and was off living the dream with the rich girl who had been chasing him on Tinder while we were dating. Rory said very few words. He listened to me cry and beg. Then he so kindly said Carrie, please stop crying. Remember what you told me. Things always work out the way they're supposed to. You taught me that. Occupational hazard. During that winter I experienced a level of loneliness I hadn't felt before. Three blizzards dumped over thirty inches of snow back to back. We had over a hundred and ten inches of snow in three months. I didn't have anyone to plough me out or shovel snow. I felt like I was Jack Nicholson in the shining. A pipe burst in my studio, leaving me with tons of damage. The woman firefighter who arrived knew who I was because she was also sleeping with Giovanni or was, at the very least, sexing him. I made an appointment with an insurance adjuster for the claim. I texted Rory. I'm so sorry, but I have no one else to call. I know you have a new girlfriend, but could you represent me? Could you be the builder who will rebuild my studio? No answer. Jesus, how bad could things get? Now I was getting ghosted by Rory, the nicest guy on the planet. I did what any desperate girl would do with zero self-worth. I text Rory a second time so he would have the date and time of my meeting with the appraiser. Still nothing. The following day, I sat in my studio by myself, so incredibly alone, thinking about what message these broken frozen pipes were sending me as I waited for the adjuster to show up. I sat quietly, holding back tears, waiting to get screwed by the insurance company. It was clear I was losing everything, so what was the point? I was so defeated and so low. Concrete. Like Superman, my Tinder hero appears. In walks Rory. He quickly walks towards me, all business, and hands me a stack of papers. Rory had spent all night itemizing the square footage and making lists of everything that needed to be fixed. He said, Let me talk to the appraiser. Harry, go back to your house and edit. I'll handle this. I didn't see or speak to Rory again. He saved me in so many ways, but he didn't even say goodbye. I don't blame him. It would have been too painful. After all, I did break his heart and he still won't speak to me today. About a month later, I got a check for$23,000, the exact amount I needed to cover my bills. Rory didn't need to do that for me, but that's the kind of guy he was. He doesn't let people down. He's a man of honor, and I had an awful long way to go to learn what kind of man I truly wanted, needed, and wished to put on my top ten list. As sad as I was about my unfortunate situation, I was happy that Rory had found love because no one deserved happiness more than him. Meanwhile, I had to put on my tool belt, pick up my safety gear, and head to another construction site whether I liked it or not. The tinder takeaway is to look for those who see you as their first and only choice, rather than being someone's backup plan. Lesson Great men don't last online. Strike while the iron is hot. If a house is structurally sound and has great character and charm, don't hesitate to put in an offer. And for me, I guess even Tinder's Bob the Builder couldn't fix our relationship. So much for can we fix it? Yes we can. Not this time, Bob. The nuts and bolts. It looks like this fixer upper needed a different kind of builder. For now, it was back to the drawing board for this girl! Looking for love, my brand new book, Shod It Love, is out now. You can grab your copy today on Amazon. If you'd like to stay connected, get exclusive updates, and be the first to hear about Shod It Love Live Table events, join the mailing list at ShopLovebook.com. Don't miss your chance to change the way you see love and yourself.

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Kerry Brett

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