Jon cleared his throat and sat forward. “Conservative, actually. Once we have the final plans in hand, we’ll need at least two weeks to advertise the bid and prepare to receive bids, and then two more weeks before bid day. From there….”
Valerie listened to Jon speak with half an ear while she made notes in her tablet. As she finished her to-do list, the meeting ended and she stayed in her chair, waiting for the room to clear so she could corner Mr. Cooper and schedule a meeting directly with him.
While she sat there, a reminder of a meeting in fifteen minutes vibrated from her phone. She swiped the screen of her tablet to pull up the details and see what kind of mental shift she needed to make.
“How’s it going?”
She glanced up, expecting to see Brad, but instead found his brother. “Good, just a little overwhelmed. I was handed this project two days ago and didn’t realize the owner would be in this meeting today.”
Jon tapped the top of the specification book. “This isn’t even the right project.” He laughed.
“I know,” she said with a smile. “That’s the next meeting. I need to sit down and seriously organize the projects I have. I don’t want to drop any balls, but I don’t think I could be handed another one.” She gestured with her chin toward the head of the table where Brad and Mr. Cooper spoke with Philip. “What about you? I didn’t realize you were staying in Atlanta.”
He shifted so his hip propped against the table. “I have no desire to stay in Atlanta. I want to get far away and stay there as long as possible. However, until a project comes up, I’m kinda stuck. I teased Brad about trying to get rid of me. I’m afraid I gave the impression I want to stay.” He picked up a paperclip from the center of the table and gradually unbent it. “I love my family like nothing else. But, after my trip to Egypt, I very much desire to create my own identity away from them.”
“I’m sure there are specifics that pertain to you and not to me. But just know that I understand what you’re saying so much more than you probably even realize,” Valerie said. With his raised eyebrow, she laughed. “Of course, I’m not a triplet, so maybe I don’t completely understand.” She stood as Philip left the conference room. “Excuse me,” she murmured to Jon, and made her way to the head of the table. “Mr. Cooper, do you have a minute now to schedule a meeting?”
Brad checked the time. “We’re on our way to talk to the soil testing company.”
He said it without emotion, and without room for any kind of argument. When she looked at his face, she watched his lips tighten and his eyes slightly narrow. Frowning, she wondered at the entirely out of character but clearly hostile attitude. Mr. Cooper kept her from having to ask. “It will only take a sec to check my calendar, Brad,” he said, pulling his phone out of a clip on his belt. “Is there a day you have in mind?”
Valerie smiled, her calendar already pulled up on her phone. “I have a staff meeting Monday mornings at nine.”
They worked through dates until they found one that gave them a full two hours to work together. She held out her hand and he took it in his firm grip. “Thanks, Mr. Cooper. I look forward to meeting with you then.”
“Likewise,” he said with a wink, and turned back to Brad. “Ready to go find out what kind of soil we have to work with?”
When Brad left without even a goodbye, she frowned at the door. What in the world was wrong with him?
Deciding she couldn’t worry about his particular mood, she gathered the set of plans and specifications she’d brought into the room with her and carried them over to the conference room next door. Even though the two conference rooms shared a media wall that retracted, she had to exit the room, enter the main floor, and then enter the adjacent room through another door. The other three walls of each room were made of glass and looked out on the cubicle work areas of the floor with hallways on either end of the rooms and the elevator area. Controls in the room would allow the walls to become opaque if needed.
When she entered the second conference room, she saw half the team there. After greeting everyone, she went to the computer and accessed her file for her time of presentation. Syncing her tablet to the presentation, she finally sat back down in her seat, ready and waiting for her turn to present.
Brad shifted his weight andlifted the granite countertop. “There,” Ken said, leaning down to look directly at the bubble in the level. “Just hold that.”
Instead of replying, Brad grunted. He had a good stance with this angle, so the slab didn’t feel too heavy.
“Okay, good,” Ken said, sliding the level into his tool belt.
Brad very gently released his hold on the slab of granite. He ran his palm over the smooth surface. “Nice. Beautiful.”
“I agree. Got it for a steal, too. Someone miscut it for another job. So, I just had to custom build the cabinets around it.”
Brad stood back and looked at the kitchen. Visually, he couldn’t see anything different between the cabinets on this side of the kitchen and the ones on the other side. “How far off scope are you?”
“Three-quarters of an inch. Easy fix.”
Brad looked around the room. “What else?”
Ken shrugged. “Post-construction cleaning. We’re done. House goes on the market as soon as the landscaper lays sod and the cleaning crew makes it shine.”
The front door opened, and Jon walked in. “Hey,” he said, “landscaper Billy followed me in from the highway and the sky is quickly turning black. Do you want us to help him?”
“It’ll go faster.”
Brad followed his brothers outside and lifted a hand in greeting to Billy. He looked up at the dark sky and felt the cool breeze against the heat of the day. In the background, he could hear the forklift removing the pallets of sod from the back of Billy’s truck. “We have to hurry if this is going down,” he said.
“That’s why I headed over,” Billy said.
