I lifted my hands to my still-flat stomach, though I had filled out some since my glory days. “Gotta keep the women at bay so I can get some work done.”
His hands dropped into his pockets as he took a step back. “Ah, still stealing women and breaking hearts?”
Okay, maybe he hadn’t forgotten everything.
“Only on the weekends.”
His mouth lifted at the corners before he had enough small talk. “How are things going here?”
“This is our first day. We’ve got the outer wall framed. Chase was here a couple of weeks ago, getting it ready. I’ve got trusses set to be delivered sometime next week. I don’t anticipate too many issues coming up this summer.”
He nodded. “We never do, though, do we? Listen, I emailed you a change in the blueprint.”
Change in the blueprint. The absolute worst words for a contractor to hear. “What is it?”
He looked past me. “I shrunk the gym down and added more space to that back storage room. It might mean an adjustment to the back wall.”
Though I cringed on the inside, outwardly, I took it like a man. “Alright, I’ll go print it out and have a look.”
I asked him a few questions, but the conversation took a steep dive after I exhausted all my knowledge of Nate Robbins. I knew Tessa much better than Nate. Nate was large and intimidating and, while he sounded happily married, definitely hadn’t forgotten our run-in in high school.
“Anything…new with you?” The question was big of him. It didn’t come out naturally, and I hated to disappoint him. Nothing much was ‘new’ with me. No kids, no wife, no dog. I still slept a solid eight hours at night and was currently living with my parents.
“Not much. Just living the dream.”
He moved closer and pretended to inspect some of the wood. I took that as a sign our conversation was finished.
“I’ll be in and out this summer, checking up on things,” he called after me.
“Sounds good. We’ll be here.”
I called out for Briggs to follow me and walked toward the single-wide construction trailer sitting at the edge of the job site. Chase had bought the trailer for a steal, and his wife, Penny, had spent a few months turning it into an office space, which meant ripping out the orange shag carpet, replacing the laminate cupboards in the kitchen with real wood, and putting in two large desks and a printer station for blueprints.
“What’s up, boss?” Briggs said, following me up the rickety wooden steps and inside the office.
“There’s been a change in the plans.”
He groaned.
“You’ll have to adjust the back wall. Nate wants to expand the storage room.”
“Is this going to be a regular thing with him?” He motioned out the window as Nate got in his truck and pulled away.
What did I know about Nate? He was tall. Athletic. Smart. If he was anything like his sister, a perfectionist. I pulled up the blueprint on my screen. The change wouldn’t mess us up too badly. I pushed print.
“Maybe. I’ll bring you the new prints in a minute.”
Briggs didn’t leave right away like I expected him to. Instead, he leaned against the door frame, peering at me. “You sure you don’t want to double with me and Margo tonight? I hear you can get anybody to go out with you.”
“Shut up.” I threw a pencil at him while he skipped out the door, laughing.
I busied myself, returning emails and phone calls, until the noise level outside of the trailer grew. Ronnie was at the center of it all, of course, doing his own special bald, beer-gutted, and hairy impersonation of Tessa rejecting our whole crew the night earlier. I watched for a moment longer, briefly entertained, until he began using crude female anatomy expressions to add to his joke. Breaking up the crowd before it went too far, I sent everybody off once again to their jobs, keeping a couple of the guys to help adjust the back wall to match the new set of blueprints.
Being in the construction business my entire adult life, vulgar expressions rolled off of me. I usually left well enough alone, but something about them talking about Tessa had my guard up. It felt disloyal to let them say things like that about the girl who had practically grown up at my house. I planned to treat her just as I did my sister—lots of teasing, a few laughs. The end.
I put in a convincing performance of studying blueprints, hammering nails, making phone calls, and keeping the guys on task for the next thirty minutes, though my thoughts kept inadvertently returning to ‘the hot blonde.’
* * *
