“Hey, lover boy!” one of them shouted.
Aiden looked incredulously around the group. “How thehelldo you all know about that?”
Painter Ben Mendez stepped forward with a shit-eating grin on his face. “My daughter sent me the video.”
“And?” Aiden asked slowly.
“And I forwarded it to all the guys!”
Aiden ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip as he glanced around at the laughing faces of guys he’d worked with for years. A decade, some of them. “It’s not a big deal.”
They responded with increased hilarity that Aiden tolerated for a few seconds before he slapped his binder against his leg and hollered, “Okay then! How about some hard labor, gentlemen?”
The group shifted to good-natured groans as he called out the work teams for the day and rattled off the list of supplies each job site would need. They cleared out in groups of two and three until it was only him and Gene Fitzsimmons, one of the old-timers who’d been with the company practically from the day his old man had founded it. His quiet word carried weight with the other workers.
“It’s good of you to put up with their teasing.” Fitz finished pouring coffee into his oversized travel mug as he spoke.
“They’re worse than a knitting circle,” Aiden muttered.
Fitz slapped a massive hand on the lid. “Naw. They’re excited for you.”
“Come on.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “They’re excited because I got tricked into kissing a woman at a hockey game?”
“Tricked?” His gray caterpillar brows inched up his forehead.
A hasty yes danced on the tip of his tongue, but if he was being totally honest, he hadn’t beentricked. He’d been the one to reach for Thea, to ask if it was okay with her. It hadn’t been his choice, but it had been his idea.
It had been a fucking great idea. Until the aftermath anyway.
God, that didn’t even make sense. He scrubbed a hand through his hair in frustration, and when he looked over at Fitz, he was chagrined to see the older man chuckling softly. “That’s how it starts, young man.”
“How what starts?”
Those brows gyrated again. “Ah, it’s more fun if you find out for yourself.” Without another word, he snatched up his coffee and left the room. Grumbling, Aiden retreated to his office to review the permits he needed to submit to the city that week and return client email with links to products and design inspirations for their renovations. The morning flowed in a productive blur until three quick raps on his door pulled his attention from his laptop.
Aiden smiled at the sound. “Come in, Mom. You don’t have to knock, you know.”
“I don’t want to just barge in.” She bustled into the room and set a container on his desk. “I brought you some lunch. You never stop for lunch.”
He glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that it was after noon. He and his dad were supposed to meet with the Sappersteins at two thirty, so he had plenty of time to eat and chat.
He pried the top off the container and moaned when the scent hit him. “Chicken and dumplings? You’re the greatest.”
She just dimpled and handed him a fork. As a kid, he believed his mother was a sorceress who could conjure any item that the men in her life requested. As an adult, he wasn’t totally convinced that this wasn’t still the case.
As he demolished the food, his mother folded her hands in her lap and announced, “I was hoping to talk with you.”
He swallowed his mouthful and bit back a groan, readying himself to launch into another round of “that thing with Thea isn’t what it looked like.” But instead, she said something much worse.
“It’s your dad.”
Appetitegone. He should’ve recognized the homemade dumplings for what they were: a ploy to soften a hard blow. His mom had made the same meal after his grandma’s funeral and when he’d been home with a broken arm when he was supposed to be at baseball camp for a week.
“I know you’ve seen it too,” she said gently. “His memory, his temper. He’s not himself at work, and he’s not himself at home.”
“Home too?”
She nodded once and pressed her lips together, and he moved to sit next to her so there wasn’t a desk between them. His mom rarely got upset, so this was worrisome.
