In the week since I’d left home once again, I felt a new kind of emptiness consume me. Even though I had only been there for a day—actually, it had only been a night—my venture home made me realize just how lonely I was.
The nights were the worst. Tossing and turning for hours at a clip, missing his warm body next to mine, I’d become as lifeless as I was long ago. So I did just likealways. I worked. And worked. And worked.
That was all there was in my life. Making homes for other people took the focus away from the fact I had no one in my life with whom I could share one.
After my morning run, I showered and went to work. Though I usually split my day between the showroom and whatever project the builders were working on, time still dragged like nothing was going on. Soeven now, standing in the corner of a busy work site, I felt alone, stuck in the quiet vacuum of this shitty life.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. As I pulled it out, the one name that would make any day shittier popped up on the screen. “What do you want?” I snapped at my brother.
“Well, hello to you, too.” He attempted to joke, but it came out hard and cold, just like the man who’d spoken thewords.
“I’m busy, Patrick. What do you want?” We hadn’t spoken since the wedding and while I knew Mom and Dad were angry with me for leaving, I didn’t care one bit what Patrick felt about it.
“We need to talk.” A digital olive branch wasn’t going to be enough to fix a lifetime of distance between us.
“I don’t have anything to say to you. I thought you’d be smart enough to figure that much outby this point.”
He took a deep breath and I wondered if Sarah was there next to him, trying to calm him down. “I know I don’t deserve your patience, but maybe one day you can give it to me.” He paused, took another deep breath, and then returned to me. “I owe you an explanation—”
Unable to stand the river of bullshit flowing from his mouth, I cut him off. Angrily, I spat, “Go fuck off, Patrick.”After I hit the icon ending the call, I still had a barrage of curses sitting in my mouth. I was already a fucked-up ball of a mess since I’d gone home against my better judgment. Hearing from Patrick was seriously the last thing I needed.
“Everything look okay, boss?” Carl, the lead project manager on the Caruso build cut through my anger, bringing me back to the here and now.
Pretending tobe reviewing the clipboard in my hand, I tried to read some lines and appear interested in the words before me. “Looks great,” I lied. For all I knew it could be weeks off track, but if it was, Carl would have let me know when I arrived on site. That was how he worked. Told me the problems up front and already had a handful of solutions worked out to fix them all.
If only real life came withits own Carl to fix all its own problems.
Just as I was about to hand the papers back to him and sign off on his progress, something caught my eye. “Wait,” I said, stopping to read the rest of the plans for the kitchen. “This is wrong. She picked the other counter. I thought we changed it on the plans. The white soapstone, remember?”
Forgetting he had one on, he scratched the top of his hardhatas if it was his head. “No, boss. Sorry. This is the only plan I ever had.”
“Shit.” This was all on me. Recalling the day they made their final decision, I remembered exactly where I had gone wrong. It was because of the Quinn look-alike. He screwed with my head so much, I must have forgotten something along the way. And now this damn project would be days behind, yet again. “Okay, maybe it won’tbe a big deal. I’m going to head back to the office and see if I can pull some strings with the stone guys. If they can help me out, we can work on the tiles and backsplash in the bathrooms while we wait on the right order.”
“Sure, we can do that,” Carl assured me. Handing me back the clipboard, he said, “Give this one more look and let me know about any other changes. Just in case.”
I tookit from his hand, chastising myself inwardly at my screw up. “Thanks. I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”
The entire ride back to my office, I thought about that day I saw the Quinn look-alike in the showroom. Catching a glimpse of someone who only resembled him brought more of a spark to life in my chest than had been there in the last twelve years. I guessed screwing up a countertop was the least ofwhat could have gone wrong.
By the time I made it back to the building, everyone else had left. The parking lot was empty and the showroom lights were off. It never got old seeing my name written across the storefront. It truly was the best thing I’d ever done with my life. Masterson Builderswas what I created when the rest of my life fell apart, so no matter what I didn’t have in my life—aman to love, a family to grow—I would at least have this.
Punching my code into the keypad stopped the annoying beeping of the alarm. The lights slowly came on, row after row illuminating the way to my office all the way in the back. There were stacks of papers all over my desk. “No wonder you lost it,” I said to myself. “Slob.” The Caruso files were nowhere to be found. I walked over to thedrafting table set up behind my desk. Hopefully their plans would be back here and I could nip this problem in the bud. “Come on,” I urged as I flipped files through my hands. “Where the hell are you?” I asked myself, as if talking to the files was going to make the one I needed magically appear. “Please.” Maybe if I begged it would just show up. Working through the seemingly endless stacks of folders,I had no clue where else to look if it wasn’t here. Then, just as I was about to give up, figuring it must be at home, I saw it sticking out from the bottom of another stack of designs. “There you are,” I spoke to the file in my hand as if I’d just won the Hide and Seek Championships.
As I turned back around to my desk, all the air left my lungs. “Found what you were looking for?” Quinn stoodin the doorway of my office, leaning the left side of his body against the doorframe. Long and lean, he was the epitome of desire. His arms crossed over his chest, making his muscles bunch and pull. With his legs crossed at the ankles, he looked poised and in control.
He was the exact opposite of me.
After a stretch of remarkably awkward silence, my ability to speak returned. “How did you—”
“Get in?” he asked, pushing himself away from the frame. As he walked toward me, the room became smaller and smaller, his massive presence eating up all the space. “Or find you?” He extended a hand, inviting me to sit at my own desk. As he pulled his own chair out on the other side, I caught the glimpse of a small smile breaking apart his full lips, revealing his blindingly white teeth.
“Both,”I answered, gaining back some of my composure. I was mesmerized by his presence. His long hair, bright eyes, shining smile. His gorgeous face and warm confidence. It took every fiber of my existence not to drop to his feet and beg his forgiveness.
As he crossed his leg, ankle to knee, he laughed, explaining, “You didn’t lock the door behind you.” Tipping his head back toward the entrance of theshowroom, he answered the first question. The second answer was as much of a surprise as it was to see Quinn here. “And Patrick told me where you were.”
Having heard his name enough times recently, I couldn’t help but respond with a laugh. “What a nice guy, right?” Sarcasm dripped from my words.
“The best.” Quinn’s reply was covered even more heavily in cynicism than my own. “But let’s not focuson that,” he demanded. “I’m not here to talk about your brother.”
