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.”
*
