“You just eat it?” Jordan asked, his brow lifting a hint her way making her smile. “No questioning, no worries that it’ll take like crap?”
“That’s the fun in it. Not knowing if you’ll take one bite and fall in love with the flavors or if you do and feel like…”
“Okay, I think I get the picture,” he said when she used her hand to motion the act of throwing up rather than say it. “It sounds like the two of you are close, maybe even closer than with your grandmother.”
“My grandmother hasn’t been well for a long time, she had issues getting around long before she really got sick,” she lied, crossing her finger again, the lies were getting harder to get out when he looked at her the way he was—with concern and just a little something else in his eyes. “Tate is like a brother to me. He knows all of my secrets and refuses to tell anyone else. I know I could rely on him to come pick me up at three in the morning if I needed him without a question.”
“You love him.”
“I do but it’s strictly platonic. The idea of kissing him again…”
“Again?” he asked as the waitress set their order down in front of them.
“He kissed me once; it was my thirteenth birthday. He was still twelve and sick as a dog, but he refused to postpone my birthday celebration and then he kissed me and it was gross. He probably turned me off boys for years, plus I ended up sick as an added bonus,” she stated rearranging the topping on her burger, setting the pickles and tomato aside before putting a bit more ketchup on it.
“What?” she asked as he watched her with a hint of a smile on his lips.
“No tomato but extra ketchup?”
“I don’t like the taste of them or pickles, at least not this kind of pickle. I’ll eat the little sweet midgets but that’s it.”
“You’re a very odd girl Melinda Taube.”
“I know, but it’s part of my charm. But now it’s your turn, what have you discovered about Henry and his project?”
“You were right. The way the plans are set up even the strongest set of support beams won’t help it. There should be at least twice as many throughout the complex as well as in the foundation than what they’re calling for in the plans.”
“In other words if they were able to bribe someone into giving them a pass on the inspection sooner or later it’s going to come down.”
“It might hold for a bit but the more people you put in it, the more equipment, the longer it stands, the more storms that buffer it…” Jordan said and she shuddered a bit knowing what a collapse of a building the size of the one that Henry wanted built could do, not only to anyone inside it, but also to those next to it, even down the block from it, because he wanted it in the middle of town.
“How do you stop it from happening?”
“We go over Tracks’ head and the head of the safety division. I slipped a copy of the plans to a few friends over at the code board and they looked over it too, coming to the same conclusion.”
“Meaning?” she asked when he stopped.
“Meaning it’s done, there is no way Tracks is going to be able to build that structure without adjusting the plans and without a full inspection by two outside inspectors that the board will randomly choose.”
“You’re kidding?” she said as her eyes lit up with happiness.
“Nope, and I could also mention that the bank wants to see the plans before they approve the loan and that I happen to be related to a member of the board who has a copy of the original plans to compare to the revised ones.”
“Jordan!” She laughed getting up and moving to his side to hug him before she could stop herself. “Thank you.”
“You’re the one who noticed it in the first place Mel. Which I might add is pretty impressive, your calculations were spot on.”
She returned to her side of the booth praying that she wasn’t blushing from her dumb move.
“Thank goodness for that,” she said trying to play it off as nothing.
“Mel, I know guys from my classes who couldn’t manage to figure out load capacities and theydidstudy engineering. Are you going to tell me how you managed to?”
“Tate forced me to take a shop class with him; he wanted some more time to hang together, and he wanted to take the class. I had a free period and discovered I was good at it. That made the rest of the guys a little mad, especially when Tate and I managed to build the winning birdhouse. It had to withstand winds up to sixty miles an hour, we managed eighty.”
“Maybe I should hire you on as a junior engineer then,” he teased before nodding towards the empty pool table. “You play?”
“I might just a little,” she answered hiding the truth behind her closed eyes.
