by Plakcy, Neil
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Learning the Code
Change Orders
Getting Wet
Sunday Dinner
A Little Raw in the Morning
Rendezvous with Roberto
Site Work
Physical Assets
Site Specifics
Conga
Broken Glass
The Kiss
Every Minute
Tiny Pockets of Beauty
Domestic Drama
Weekend Plans
Punch List
A Thief in the Night
A Whole Lot of Horny
Never a Choirboy
A Ripe Peach
Muddling
Mojitos
Smoke Rings
Have Faith
Lover Boy
Partnership
Drama Queens
Who’s the Boss?
Loose Id Titles by Neil Plakcy
Neil Plakcy
LOVE ON SITE
Neil Plakcy
www.loose-id.com
Love on Site
Copyright © October 2013 by Neil Plakcy
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
eISBN 9781623005351
Editor: Maryam Salim
Cover Artist: G. D. Leigh
Published in the United States of America
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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning
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* * * *
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Dedication
To Marc. You best believe I’m yours.
Acknowledgement
Thanks to my terrific editor, Maryam Salim, who provided invaluable help in banging this manuscript into shape. I appreciate all the help I get from Loose Id in copy editing, proofreading, cover design, and marketing. Thanks to all the baristas at Starbucks who keep me caffeinated, and to Brody who gets me up from my chair and out into the world. And of course to all those cute guys on South Beach whose dreams and aspirations fuel my fiction.
Learning the Code
“Now that’s a hunk of man,” my roommate Gavin said as we idled at the traffic light at the corner of Alton Road and Seventeenth Street on Miami Beach.
I looked where he was pointing. A shirtless Latin guy with tattoos decorating his biceps and his pecs sat on top of the cab of a pickup that was towing a pair of Jet Skis on a trailer. He was about our age, early twenties, with a mane of flowing dark hair and a grin that said he was on top of his world. He looked a lot like Gavin, though my roommate’s hair was a golden blond and his muscles weren’t quite as big. But both had that sense that they knew they were handsome.
“He’s okay,” I said. “Not my type, though.”
“Manny, Manny,” Gavin said. “We’ve got to get you over this thing you have for daddy types.”
“Just ’cause there’s snow on the roof doesn’t mean there isn’t fire in the fireplace.” The light changed, and I gunned across Alton Road. It was true; I had a thing for older men, with more maturity and more going on than guys my own age.
An old lady in black tights and an electric blue tank top strolled out into the crosswalk, despite the fact that I had the green light. She had a pink-tinged bouffant that had been lacquered in place, and carried a purple yoga mat. I slowed to let her cross, even though Gavin yelled, “Hey, Yogi, try this position!” and gave her the finger out his window.
“Gavin,” I said. “Don’t you know it’s seven years’ bad luck if you run over a yogi?”
The old lady stepped onto the curb and pressed two fingers of her right hand to her mouth as we passed. Then she turned and showed us her hefty butt, pressing the fingers there.
I guffawed. “She told you, bro. Probably show up and order a latte as soon as you start your shift.”
I accelerated onward. My beat-up sedan wasn’t much, but it had kept me going through four years of college, and I loved having wheels of my own.
Gavin knew a rich snowbird who had bought a three-bedroom condo on South Beach as an investment. As he and I were preparing to graduate from Florida University in Miami, he’d wrangled a deal for us to rent the place for a year, along with Larry, another of our frat brothers.
We had all met when we pledged Lambda Lambda Lambda, or Three Lambs—the gay frat at FU. Larry and I were ready to get started on our careers—he had a gig as a computer geek with a South Beach startup, and I had been able to parlay my bachelor’s in construction management into a job with a real-estate developer.
Gavin had done some modeling while we were in college, and he was trying to build a career based on his fabulous looks—and while he did so, he prepared lattes and mochas at Java Joe’s, a coffee shop on Lincoln Road. I turned off Seventeenth Street, alongside the parking garage, and dropped Gavin at the shop’s back door.
“Good luck,” he said as he hopped out. “I’m sure you’ll kill it.”
“Your mouth to God’s ear,” I said, echoing something my abuela said in Spanish.
I was extremely psyched to be heading out for my first day of my first real job. Loredo Construction had recruited at FU, and when I’d walked into the tiny interview room and shaken hands with Walter Loredo, I knew his was the company I wanted to work for. Not just because he was killer handsome, with a smile as wide as Biscayne Bay, but because he was only thirty-two and already very successful.
We’d talked during the interview, and he’d seemed impressed with my résumé. Then his secretary called and invited me out to the site of his new project—a warehouse complex west of Miami International Airport—for further interviews.
* * * *
I cooled my heels in the construction trailer for a half hour as a succession of men in T-shirts and faded jeans walked in and out, carrying hard hats and rolls of blueprints.
I got quick glimpses of Walter that reminded me of how he floated every oar in my boat. So many Latin men I knew were short, topping out around five-nine or so, but Walter was six feet tall, an inch taller than I was. If I ever had the chance to kiss him, I wouldn’t have to lean down. He had silky black hair with a gentle curl to it, and when he passed by in an open-necked shirt, I glimpsed the way his chest hair frothed up around his neck. I loved hairy men.
He had an air of confidence, from his firm handshake to his quick brain. He was the best-looking guy in the room and the smartest too, and he knew it, but not in a cocky
way. He said a brief hello to me, and my skin tingled when his hand touched mine.
“I’m glad you could come out to see us, Manny,” he said. “If you have any questions, let us know.”
His voice was deep, with just the hint of a Spanish accent trailing through the words, and when he spoke to me I felt my heart leap. Though maybe that was just nerves. And after all, I was there for a job interview, not a date.
I spent most of that afternoon with Walter’s two superintendents. Camilo was in charge of site work—a wiry Cuban in his late forties, about five-seven, who spoke to me exclusively in Spanish. My command of the language is pretty good, having grown up speaking it at home and with friends at school, but I stumbled over some of the technical terms he used, because all my education had been in English.
He took me out to the big, empty lot, hot and dusty, with planes taking off from MIA roaring above us. The first of four warehouses planned for the site was already under construction, though all I could see were the trenches for electrical conduits and plumbing pipes. Back at the construction trailer, Adrian, the interior super, walked me through the plans: four cavernous warehouses, built in succession.
Adrian was Colombian, but he spoke English with only a slight accent. He was about thirty, solidly built but not fat, with a skimpy mustache and a pair of aviator sunglasses perched on his buzz-cut head. “Not the most exciting stuff to build, but at least it’s a job, and Mr. Loredo’s a good boss,” he said.
I ended the afternoon in Walter’s office. I was glad I had been given a promotional folder about the project so I could lay it over my lap to cover the hard-on that just looking at Walter Loredo gave me.
“What do you think about what we’ve got going on here?” he asked.
I noticed him appraising me and felt self-conscious. “It’s very impressive,” I said. I had studied the area in preparation for the interview. “The property is large, with excellent access to the highway, and I understand that rental rates in this area are on the rise again.”
“You’ve looked into that?” he asked, and a smile played on his face.
“I may be an engineering student, but I’ve taken some business courses too,” I said. “I wanted to pick the area with the best growth potential, and I think this kind of light industrial land use will grow in this neighborhood.”
I had the oddest sense that Walter Loredo and I were flirting with each other, but maybe it was just my imagination. We talked for a few more minutes, until his secretary buzzed to remind him of his next appointment.
“I wish I could spend more time with you, Manny,” he said when he stood and shook my hand. “I hope the future gives us that opportunity.”
That was supposed to be my line, I thought. “I appreciate the chance to meet with you and your staff,” I said. I was proud that I managed to get out of the office without stumbling or showing off my hard-on. When I got out to my car, I sat in the parking lot for a minute with the air-conditioning on full blast. It cooled everything except the tingle in my hand where Walter Loredo had touched me.
I must have made a good impression, because Walter called the next day with a job offer, and followed it up with an impressive package FedExed to the frat house, full of forms and information on benefits.
* * * *
After I dropped Gavin off on that mid-May morning of my first day on the job, I navigated through South Beach to the MacArthur Causeway—the highway that would lead me west to the airport. Everywhere I looked I saw construction—old art deco hotels on South Beach being rehabbed, highway expansion, cranes towering over the landscape, erecting new condo towers. It was so cool to think that I was finally going to be a part of that, after four years studying the way buildings came together.
I pulled up in front of the double-wide construction trailer a few minutes before nine. I took a deep breath and checked myself in the mirror. I only owned one suit, and thought that would be too formal to wear for my first day on the job. But I’d put on a crisp white shirt, starched at the local laundry; my best dress slacks; and my black loafers, spit-shined that morning. I’d added a navy tie with the university logo.
I stepped out of the car and nearly got run over by a backhoe zooming across the parking lot. I stumbled against my car, and my legs suffered a rough spray of pebbles. The asshole driver never even apologized, just kept on going.
It was already nearly eighty degrees outside, so I hurried into the cool of the trailer. Walter’s pretty young secretary Estefani was on the phone, but she waved hello and pointed me to a hard plastic chair near her in the lobby. I sat there and fidgeted as she gave directions to a lost delivery guy.
Estefani was about my age, with coal-black hair pulled into a knot at the top of her head, tanned skin, and dark eyes with a lot of mascara. Her top was tight to her body, showing off her cleavage and her impressive assets. She didn’t do anything for me, but I figured that she was nice eye candy for the guys who worked on the site.
I was still sitting there when Camilo walked in. “Good afternoon,” he said, sneering. “You think this is the time you come to work?” His Spanish accent was so heavy it took some figuring to realize what he was saying.
He was wearing a sweat-stained T-shirt that advertised a brand of tractors, a pair of well-worn jeans, and shit-kicking cowboy boots. He had a raspy cigarette voice and, as I came to learn, a potty mouth that would make a sailor blush.
I sat back in my chair. “That’s what my offer letter said,” I said. “Nine o’clock.”
He barked out a short laugh. “We start work at seven, cabrón. And we don’t wear no ties or sissy shoes. You gotta get yourself some boots and jeans.”
I stood up. Cabrón was one of those words with an innocent meaning—goat—but a lot of negative connotations, from coward to bastard to cuckold, depending on where in Latin America you were from. It was certainly not a nice thing to say to a new employee.
I had about six inches on him, even though he was wearing a hard hat. “I’m nobody’s cabrón, pendejo.”
Pendejo always means asshole. I was determined not to let anybody push me around at work, not after getting teased for years in high school as a pretty boy or a maricón—faggot—depending on the mood of my tormentors.
“Now, now, ladies, play nice.” We looked over to see Walter Loredo step out of the office behind Estefani. He looked a lot rougher than he had when he’d interviewed at FU—no Hugo Boss suit or Ferragamo loafers. Instead he wore a pair of pressed khakis and a dark green polo shirt with Loredo Construction embroidered on the breast, and he hadn’t shaved in a day or two.
He was still killer handsome, though. Dark, wavy hair that curled over his brow, laughing green eyes, a generous mouth. Broad shoulders that tapered to a narrow waist. I forced myself not to stare.
“Sorry if I didn’t convey the dress code clearly,” Walter said. “Estefani can give you a couple of polo shirts. You don’t need to worry about looking as scruffy as Camilo, though you won’t get far on-site with those shoes. You must own a pair of boots.”
“I’ve got Docs,” I said. I had a worn pair of Doc Martens in brown leather that I’d snagged at a thrift shop a couple of years before.
“They’ll do starting tomorrow,” Walter said. “You’ll spend most of today in here. I want you to know the drawings before I send you out to do anything.”
I could handle reviewing plans. I’d spent years studying them, taking classes in estimating, project management, and on-site safety issues. And I hoped that would mean I’d be spending some time one-on-one with Walter. If I could only tame my rampaging dick, I’d be very happy.
“Camilo, I need you in here,” Walter said, nodding toward his office. “Estefani, get Manny set up in the conference room.”
Camilo went into Walter’s office with him, and Estefani stood up and looked at me. “You’re a medium, right?”
For a moment I thought she meant the kind who can see into other worlds. It was starting to look like this construction site wa
s a whole other world from the one I was accustomed to. “Yeah, medium shirt,” I said.
She walked over to a storage cabinet and pulled out five dark green polos like Walter’s. “Don’t copy Camilo,” she said. “He has the fashion sense of a toad. I think every T-shirt he owns has the logo of some company on it. You can get by around here in a one of these and jeans or khakis.” She had the faintest trace of a Spanish accent, and I was sure that she was, like me, the child of immigrants. I pegged her as some kind of South American, from the color of her skin and the way she carried herself.
“Got it,” I said. I pulled my tie off and folded it up.
“The conference room’s over here.” She led me down a narrow hallway, past a couple of small offices—all of them empty—to another trailer connected by a doorway. It was a rectangular room with an oval table in the center and a cluster of rolling armchairs around it. A slanted table stood at one side, with shelves of oversized construction drawings beneath it. Estefani picked up a set of drawings attached to a long pole and set them on the plan desk.
“Oof, these are so heavy!” She wiped her hands on her very short skirt. “There’s water in the fridge over there. We order lunch at eleven thirty for the managers’ meeting at twelve. I have the menu at my desk.”
After she left I stripped off my starched white shirt and slipped on one of the polos. I used the narrow window as a mirror to make sure my hair was all right. Like Estefani, I was Hispanic, but my family hailed from Spain and had only made a pit stop in Cuba for a generation. When it’s tan, my skin is the color of light coffee, but if I’ve been inside for a long time I look as pale as a ghost. My hair is black and straight as a ruler.
My abuela and my tías have always cooed over me, saying how pretty I am because I have long eyelashes and a delicate mouth. But being pretty isn’t always a good thing for a Cuban boy, especially one with a father who regularly spouts off about maricóns.
I had been struggling to keep my sexuality a secret from my parents since I was fourteen. I worked hard at school and kept my interests to myself. I never put up a poster in my bedroom, never told my parents who my friends were or what books I read or what movies I watched. I was a good little Cuban boy.