"My place," Matt said.
We nodded quietly but didn't meet each other's eyes. We were better when we lived in the present, in the lives we created for ourselves. We struggled with the lingering gore of our history, and true to form, we coped by ignoring, avoiding, and evading.
And alcohol. Lots of alcohol.
"Only if Miss Honey's going to be there," Riley said. "And she orders me some paella."
Matt shook his head as he turned to Riley. "My fiancée lives there, and I'll order paella, but do not call her that or any derivative of that."
"You call her that," he retorted.
"Right. She's my Miss Honey. It's part of the deal when I put a ring on it."
"All right," Shannon muttered. "Enough. We'll figure this out on Friday. I'll put Tom on catering duty. You all go do what you do, and be wonderful at it."
"Damn straight, sister," Riley hollered. I continued typing notes while my siblings shuffled out.
I had at least two major issues to handle at jobsites and a short lifetime's worth of prep for the next wave of projects, but I reviewed emails from my general contractors and tweaked four bids before sending them to clients.
Twelve stairs and a landing separated me from Andy.
I was stalling.
5
Andy
"Thoughts?"
Patrick approached me when he was finished discussing the terrace excavation necessary to fix the main drain issues with the plumber, welder, and mason. I learned more about managing subcontractors from Patrick's twenty-minute conversation with his team than in any other field experience.
It was equal parts humbling and horrifying. I was tempted to write a letter to Cornell requesting a refund.
Standing in a brick Greek Revival off Newbury Street, I bit the inside of my cheek to prevent a monologue of questions and ideas from exploding out of my mouth and onto Patrick. I turned in a circle, taking in the Quincy brick fireplace and built-in shelving niches with ornate carvings and imagined walls where the studs stood bare.
"The ceilings," I said, gesturing above my head. "They're low. Too low for this style. Off by three, maybe four inches yet the plans don't call for an adjustment."
Patrick's eyebrows lifted and he fought a smile. "Yeah, that's right. You saw the plans?"
"Yes."
I walked past him into the kitchen, and he narrowed his eyes at me. "I don't remember giving you this one."
While Patrick was in his partners' meeting, I furiously studied the bluelines. I scribbled pages of notes and sketched drawings, and listed important design elements and preservation techniques. When Tom dropped by to say hello and warn me about Patrick's revolving door of assistants, he mentioned their Monday meetings often ran closer to ninety minutes.
I took it upon myself to flip through the other plans nestled beside Patrick's desk. I might not have been a Girl Scout, but I knew a few things about preparedness.
Since my interview, I cleared out my apartment in Ithaca—no more lake effect snow for me, thank you—and devised a plan to keep all thoughts about Patrick strictly PG while moving into my new place. Although the plan was limited to 'don't think about Patrick as Sex God or hot, sweaty rugby player,' I was determined to succeed.
I attributed most of my X-rated thoughts to the extra time on my hands since graduating in December. Once work consumed my time, I'd forget all about Patrick's narrow waist and muscular arms. As soon as I got my hands dirty with projects, I'd forget about getting dirty with Patrick.
I'd definitely stop looking at his ass, too.
"Hm," I murmured, measuring the distance between the countertops. "You didn't give it to me. I read this one, and all the others, anyway. Can we talk about extending this island six more inches? Is that something you're open to considering?"
"You read them all anyway?" His voice rang with disbelief and he continued squinting at me.
"Yes."
"You didn't know we were coming here today."
"Hm." I shook my head. "The island. Six more inches?"
He stared at me before studying the empty shell of the kitchen. It materialized in his eyes—the keen awareness of space and dimension that allowed him to see the form and function of design before him—and it was exactly as magical as I hoped it would be. It was what I spent years imagining and it didn't matter that I wanted to lick his entire body because I finally knew how design looked in his eyes.
"I would agree with you, but I see this," he gestured to the spaces marked off for cabinetry, "as a stress point in the flow."
Crossing the kitchen, I stood beside Patrick and tried to see the shapes.
"If this is the primary route in from the mudroom," he pointed between us, "and there is a breakfast bar coming to here, imagine barstools backing up to here."
While he described the kitchen, a picture formed in my mind and I saw everything. Three-dimensional shapes sprang from the ground, and I felt their presence in the room. It reminded me of the fuzziness between dreaming and waking where I was aware of my dreams and they still made sense.
"Do you see it?" he asked, his voice deep and rough in my ear.
I didn't realize we were standing shoulder-to-shoulder until tilting my head to look up at him. I smiled, nodding, and his eyes brightened. My 'no fantasizing about sex with the boss' project was doomed if I had to stare into his eyes at this range every day.
"What do you want to do about it?"
Dismissing the sensuality in his voice and the sense he wasn't referring to the island anymore, I stepped away from Patrick's force field. I stared at the floor for several minutes, yanking my measuring tape from my belt and testing a few hypotheses before responding.
"Half-moon. It would cut down the bottleneck over there while still providing the seating and increasing the functionality of the room."
Patrick considered my suggestion and strode into the front room and up the stairs. "Since you've already rifled through the plans," he called over his shoulder, "make the changes to the development drafts this afternoon and we'll reprint tonight."
"Why aren't you blowing out the ceilings?"
He stopped at the landing and faced me with his hands on his hips. Afternoon sun shone through the two-story window and illuminated the shades of red and brown in his hair. "You tell me."
I cycled through reasonable explanations while he gazed me. His phone alerted several times, but he never tore his eyes away from mine. It was fantastically unnerving: my dream apprenticeship was exactly as ideal as I hoped and being this close to Patrick was nearly overpowering.
"Windows," I answered slowly. "The only reason you'd leave the ceilings intact would be the windows on all the other floors. You'd have to reposition them or they'd be oddly low, and that would mean destroying the stone façade."
"Not bad." His eyes flashed with surprise. "I'll buy you lunch if you can solve that problem and make those changes."
"This is the best taco truck in Boston," Patrick said, gesturing to the van parked between Harrison and Concord in the South End. "The best. No pickled beets or arugula. Real tacos. You like tacos, right? If you don't, this isn't going to work out."
"Haven't met a taco I don't like," I replied from the passenger seat of Patrick's Range Rover.
"If you tell anyone about this, or put it on Twitter, and then everyone and their uncle shows up and I can't get a taco? You'll be pulling permits at City Hall for the next six years."
"I can handle that."
With a nod, we headed toward the van. We ordered the day's special, barbacoa de costilla, and he inclined his head toward the park across the street. It was cold but the late afternoon sun seeped through my skin, and I turned my face toward it when we settled on a stone bench.
The tacos were delicious, and when I told Patrick as much, he grunted in agreement. It was a raw, beautiful sound that annihilated Operation Don't Think About Patrick Walsh Naked.
I wanted to hear that sound again. I wanted to cause that sound. I ate my ta
cos, staring at a bronze statue of a rider on horseback, reminding myself to stop thinking about sex.
"Any other food trucks you'd recommend?"
Patrick nodded as he chewed. "Plenty. There's a Vietnamese truck that I could hit every day. The best banh mi ever, and there are a few awful banh mis in town. And this one truck that only does grilled cheese, but wicked amazing grilled cheese."
I offered him an appreciative smile. Patrick was speaking in complete sentences and we were talking about the only thing I liked more than architecture: food. "You're quite the foodie."
"Nah," he laughed.
"Anyone who can distinguish banh mi quality is a foodie," I said, directing a raised eyebrow at Patrick.
"There's a sriracha fried rice and braised beef dumpling truck I've been meaning to try," he said, his hazel eyes hard and reserved despite his light tone.
"Sign me up for that."
Taking the last bite of my taco, I nodded enthusiastically while he stared at me. I needed sriracha fried rice in my life, and it sounded like Patrick did, too. Sauce dribbled over my lip, and his eyes darkened when my tongue scooped it up.
"All right, Asani." He stood and started toward his car, his steps urgent. "Back to the office."
He navigated traffic while I made notes about each jobsite we visited, recording unique characteristics of each home and specific restorations I wanted to observe. Though I was comfortable with the silence, I felt Patrick glimpse at me every few minutes and I caught his scowl in my peripheral vision.
I was growing accustomed to the scowling. It appeared to be his default setting and I didn't let it bother me. Considering I didn't feel it was necessary to smile all the time, my default setting wasn't much better.
We rolled to a stop in the underground garage. I loved this garage. Parking my MINI Cooper alongside the row of black Walsh Associates Range Rovers induced a squealing giggle this morning.
And those were not a regular element of my repertoire.
When we approached his office door, I reached out at the same time as Patrick. His hand covered mine, his fingers layering between my fingers. He was warmer than I expected, his large hand simultaneously soft and rough as we held the antique glass knob. Pale freckles dotted his skin, and I doubted ever seeing such freckled fingers before. Electricity coursed from his touch into my veins, and despite every voice in my head, I couldn't pull away—I didn't want to pull away.
I lifted my eyes from the knob to look at him, and his face was inches from mine. If I rose to my toes, our lips would meet. His expression was tight and I couldn't read beyond the seriousness in his eyes. A shiver built between my shoulder blades when his fingers rubbed over mine, our eyes locked on each other. The shiver rolled down my arms and shook my fingers, and Patrick blinked, breaking our connection with a step backward.
"Sorry," he stammered, shaking his head quickly. "I have to go find sin—I mean gin—uh, fuck, I mean Sam." He paused, both hands running through his hair. "I have to talk to Sam. About something. You should…make those changes we discussed. Head out when you're done."
Inside Patrick's office, I softly banged my head against the door. I needed a mild headache to distract me from the fact I embarrassed the hell out of my boss by gazing at him like a smitten teenager wanting nothing more than her first kiss.
Project No Sex For You needed an overhaul. Fast.
6
Patrick
"Do you still have that case of gin in here? From the people with the Chestnut Hill project?"
Sam pulled his glasses down his nose and propped his elbows on the drafting table, frowning at me as I burst into his office and slammed the door.
"Sure. I don't often drink entire cases of liquor inside a season."
"I need some."
I hated the desperate, breathless sound of my voice, and I especially hated that she affected me so much. Andy fucking Asani was turning me into a madman. Not your run-of-the-mill madman, either. The kind of madman who dedicated half of his brain space to concealing erections.
"Yes, it appears that you do." He stood, staring at me for several beats. "I presume you'd prefer it on the rocks, so…" His voice trailed off as he rolled his eyes at me and left his office. I dropped onto his tufted leather sofa with a thud.
It was an accident. I apologized. Simple as that. It's not as if I grabbed her ass or put her hand on my throbbing cock. I just rubbed her fingers while every cell in my body tingled with awareness and unquestionably perverted thoughts inundated my mind.
And I smelled her hair.
Honest mistake.
"G and T?" Sam asked upon his return, gently closing the door behind him. I knew he was making a point about me being a noisy bastard and clambering around the office like a Neanderthal, but I didn't care.
Scrubbing my hand across my face, I tried to wipe the memory of her intrigued expression but it appeared every time I closed my eyes. She wanted to know why her creepy boss was touching her, and she definitely did not give me that face because she felt anything other than supreme discomfort. Creepy was the only sensible explanation.
"G hold the T," I groaned. She didn't watch me with those dark eyes because she enjoyed any part of my assault on her slim hand or my proximity to her mouth. "We should build a liquor cabinet."
But God almighty, those fingers were like satin.
"Yeah, I'll get right on that." Sam busied himself at the built-in cabinets behind his desk while I stared at the ceiling. "Did Larry bust your balls over St. James Avenue again? I can send Alberto out there to consult on the—"
"No, no. Definitely not Larry. Not an inspector."
Just an incredibly hot apprentice who was spending altogether too much time saying "hm" and solving irreconcilably difficult problems in eight seconds flat and licking drops of salsa off her lips.
Fuck. My. Life.
It wasn't bad enough her legs were actually a mile long, but her tight little ass demanded an altar in its honor. Did she not know how she looked in those pants? How could she not?
Or that every time she knelt to measure or inspect something, the fabric pulled across her slender backside and exposed a sliver of skin above her waistband? Growing old staring at that inch of skin sounded like my new retirement strategy.
Sam handed me a tumbler, and I sucked the liquid down in three gulps. I coughed, instantly regretting that decision and feeling the spicy tang of the barbacoa sauce bubbling up my throat.
"Are you going to be okay?" Sam sat across from me in a club chair, his legs crossed while he angled his head in confusion. "You just shotgunned straight gin."
"Fine," I coughed, mentally negotiating with my stomach to keep its contents from coming back up. Sam would hire a crew to strip his office to the studs in the event I vomited in his pristine space, and send me the bill.
"Are you going to read me in?" He picked at a speck of lint on his trousers and arched an eyebrow. "Is this about the new girl?"
I shook my head vigorously and leaned forward, propping my elbows on my knees and running my fingers through my hair. I probably looked like I escaped from the asylum. "I'm fucked, and I'm a fucking asshole."
Bemused, his gaze darted around the room before stopping to study me. "Has something occurred that you'd care to share with me?"
Sighing, I flopped back against the sofa and rested my head on a burlap pillow printed with names of T stations. "No, dude. Definitely not unloading any of this shit on you. Safer that way."
It really was safer if all the insanity lived in my head and mine alone.
"Reasonable, if not a tad cryptic," he murmured, pushing out of his seat. "I have two projects teed up, and I'm finishing them before the game tonight. I have box seats, and I'm not missing that. By all means, make yourself and your issues comfortable."
"Thank you," I murmured.
"Anything else you need before I get back to drafting? A blanket? Some Xanax? A priest?"
"Some fucking willpower wouldn't hurt."
I closed my eyes, only to have a vision of Andy's face greet me while her tongue brushed across her full lips.
My mother always told me I needed to pay better attention to my hands and feet because I was too damn big for my own good. For the first time in my life, I heeded her advice.
It was too easy to brush against Andy while we leaned over plans at a jobsite or studied a model on my iPad, and it was even easier for my knuckles to graze the back of her hand when we reached for our drinks in the car.
Making it through the week without touching Andy was a greater accomplishment than finishing the Boston Marathon with a respectable time.
Thankfully, our work fell into an effortless rhythm. Routine made it easier for me to keep my hands to myself while delegating projects and overseeing Andy's work. Her willingness to roll with any rock in the road quickly earned the respect of my general contractors and their crews, and I was in awe of her enthusiasm when it came to demolishing those rocks.
Within the span of a few days, I trusted her thinking and relied on her to handle many of the issues arising from my GCs, which provided me the time to dive into long-abandoned strategic projects.
I didn't expect her to find a fix for the low ceilings on Monday, and I selected increasingly complex challenges for her each day. She solved everything I threw at her without so much as blinking. The prize was always lunch with conversation, and Andy ended the week having visited five of my favorite eateries and becoming my best foodie friend.
She was also intelligent and sexy and impossible to interpret, and I was obsessed with her. I preferred to think of our little problem-solving game as legitimate mentoring rather than a means to furthering my obsession. Before she arrived on Friday morning, I drafted a list of adventurous lunch spots for next week, eager to get her take on some new gastropubs.
She asked sharp questions and offered unconventional solutions to many issues that left me scratching my head, and her raw talent made itself known. Smart wasn't the word to describe Andy. Her work needed polish and she'd benefit from more experience, but she was gifted. Brilliant. She knew answers to questions before I asked them.
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