I wanted to like Marley, but I was content with simply tolerating her. Thirty minutes wasted explaining the difference between architecture and construction to Marley didn't help that tolerance.
"I thought you left with that Hottie McHotpants, but then I saw you over here."
"Hm." There was nothing to say to that.
She aggressively fanned her face, and I gnawed a chunk of ice to keep from explaining she was not going to cool off by waving her arms. If anything, she'd expend the same energy as bouncing around the dance floor, though getting that point across in a bass-thumping bar was not a challenge I wanted to accept.
It wasn't that I was a bitch. Sometimes, talking to people wasn't easy for me, especially idiots, and Marley was an idiot. And I didn't mean deep discussions of literature or politics, either. I know it sounded terrible, but the girl struggled to rub two thoughts together without setting her hair on fire. But she was a warm, sweet idiot, and she was an incredible friend to Jess.
Growing up along the coast of Maine, I did not have many options when it came to friends. I wasn't slamming Jess—there were only forty-six other kids in our graduating class. We've always had an easy relationship where we could go months without seeing each other yet pick up where we left off without a shred of awkwardness.
But the fact remained, close friendships were not my strength and I was exceptionally picky about the people in my circle. I possessed enough self-awareness to recognize that keeping people at a certain distance was a measure of preservation formed from years as an outsider. I've always been a little out of the ordinary.
I didn't have the opportunity to meet others who embraced me and shared my interests until arriving at Cornell, and when faced with the option between people who could hold an intelligent conversation and people who grew up on the same frozen tundra, I'd chosen conversation.
Jess accepted this about me, and I accepted that she believed a billionaire would see her across a crowded bar, decide he couldn't live without her, fuck her in an alley or the back of his limo, and demand she move into his mansion to be his wife and sex slave.
She spent a lot of time fucking skeezy guys in alleys. It wasn't particularly reasonable, but at least she was upfront about it.
Patrick, should he choose to speak in more than a few words at a time, had the makings of an incredible conversationalist. His thoughts on architecture, history, ecology—all of it interested me, and I was comfortable saying he'd enjoy talking to me, too.
Getting a drink and chatting with Patrick after work would cross an entire quartile off my bucket list. While I'd initially pegged Patrick as a beer drinker by virtue of his rugby player looks, I'd guess his tastes ran closer to rich wines and whiskey or scotch. Sipping some fifteen-year Macallan, we'd bitch about the minimalistic modern craze and speculate about those early craftsmen who built a city on a hill.
His hand would stroke my leg, squeezing above my knee when he laughed at my pithy takedown of all things laminate. As the night wore on, his fingers would tease under my skirt while he debated the value of preservation legislation. He'd argue that, while well intentioned, much of current regulatory guidance prevented preservation from being in line with sustainability as his fingers slipped beneath my panties and into my wet heat. He'd make his point while he brought me to the edge, his eyes sparkling with the secret knowledge that he was wrist-deep and getting me off in a crowded bar. He'd press himself against me when I found my release, swallowing my cry with a smoldering kiss and a promise for much more when he got me alone.
"What was that?" Marley asked, her hands frozen mid-wave.
"What was what?"
"You made a sound. Like…like a sex sound. Did you see a hot guy?"
Oh, shit. Oh, shit.
I needed to lock that shit down. No more mixed shots.
I gave Marley a confused shrug, clearly indicating I thought she was hearing things. When she resumed fanning herself, I pressed my glass to my forehead in an attempt to temper the Patrick Walsh as Sex God fantasy playing behind my eyes.
And I thought vodka would sort me out. This called for stronger liquor. What was the right potion to quell spontaneous sexy fantasies about an off-limits man who spent more time scowling than speaking?
Absinthe, my voodoo priestess.
Maybe Jägermeister, my favorite frat boy.
Probably a lethal combination of the two with a chaser of tequila, my Mexican medicine man, followed by a good, old-fashioned stomach pumping.
"So where are you from?" Marley shouted.
I glanced at Marley, her fanning slowing. "Wiscasset. Jess and I went to high school together."
"Yeah, I know," she said, nodding quickly. "But like, where are you from from?"
She squinted at me, and I groaned inwardly. I got the 'you don't look completely white but I can't tell whether you're something else, so what are you?' question more than I should.
Every time I avoided an explanation of my genealogy and opted for vague responses that illuminated the inappropriateness of the inquiry. A backhanded quip was on the tip of my tongue but I swallowed it, remembering Marley was one of two friends I could currently name in Boston, and she was letting me stay at her place.
"My dad was Persian."
"Where is that? Is that a country?"
"He was from Iran, but lived in London and Istanbul." Marley didn't seem to notice my tone was beyond condescending.
Her eyes widened then narrowed, and I wondered which part she was struggling to understand. "Was? He's not alive?"
"No. He died when I was young."
"Oh my God, that's awful. What happened? Wait. I've heard about Iran. Wasn't there a war there? Aren't there a lot of terrorists over there? Was he like…involved with that?"
And there it was.
My raised eyebrow offered Marley an opportunity to backtrack and revise. Sensitive I was not—but assuming every Middle Easterner was a terrorist wasn't a matter of sensitivity. It came as no surprise that she continued gaping at me, waiting for my response to a question she considered reasonable. I'd prefer a scowly conversation with Patrick to another round of 'so how many virgins did your dad get for being a suicide bomber?'
"No," I responded, the word sharpened to a point. "He was not a terrorist."
"Oh." Before she could continue, Jess wedged between us and wrapped her arms around our necks.
"Where my ladies at?"
"Woohoo!" Marley replied. "I am going to be so hungover tomorrow!"
Jess stood and pulled us with her, smiling. "Then we better enjoy it!"
We occupied the center of the dance floor, and I redirected every guy who approached me to Marley. The attention thrilled her, and I couldn't risk another Patrick Walsh daydream at the hands of Tight T-Shirt.
4
Patrick
It wasn't possible for my arms to cause me any more distress than they were causing right now.
I leaned against the mantel above the fireplace in Shannon's office while she walked Andy through paperwork and handed her an armful of documents, equipment, and a fleece vest embroidered with our logo while I wrestled with my limbs like a newborn giraffe.
I crossed them over my chest, and Shannon stopped her explanation of our underground garage access system to tell me I looked 'angry' and 'intimidating.'
I shoved my hands in my pockets, and then clasped them behind my back. Both seemed wrong.
I was trying Matt's 'one arm across the chest, chin on the fist' thing and feeling like a moron when Shannon turned to me.
"Patrick, why don't you take Andy upstairs? Get her settled before the meeting?"
Shannon glared at me, her eyes fiery and lips pursed, silently willing me to get my act together. I held her stare as long as possible to avoid eye contact with Andy. If I didn't look at her, I wouldn't think about her hair, and how I wanted it in my hands. Or her eyes, and how I wanted them wide and hungry. Or her mouth, and how I wanted it on my cock.
I glanced at the ground,
my eyes landing on her feet. Steel-toed boots. Seemed appropriate for the girl with the spine of steel.
And I wanted them over my shoulders.
"Now?" When I didn't move, she pivoted to face Andy. "I'm sorry, Andy, my brother is a bit of a bear in the morning. Especially when he hasn't had his happy pills or a swift kick in the ass. I'll make sure he gets an extra dose of both today. If there's anything you need, please feel free to ask Patrick's assistant, Marisa. She's right upstairs."
Marisa. It was probably too late to worry about all the times I called her Melissa.
"No worries," Andy replied, effortlessly juggling the laptop, tablet, cell phone, keycard, and vest. She was the picture of composure while I struggled with the existence of my arms. By all accounts, a fantastic way to start a Monday.
In the week since her interview, I never stopped to consider where she would spend the majority of her time or how we'd work together.
I spent a fair amount of time thinking about her naked in every conceivable position, and if this morning's erection from hell was any indication, I was enthusiastic about all of them.
She'd be a meter away from me all day, every day. What happened with that case of gin in Sam's office? Was it too early to start asking?
"This way," I grumbled, striding out of Shannon's office and up the stairs to my office.
I took the stairs two at a time and she was on my heels with her lavender scent. We stood in the middle of my office for a long moment while I crossed my arms, uncrossed them, tucked my hands into my pockets, and then propped my fists on my hips. She stared at me, that tiny smile tugging at the corner of her lips as if she knew exactly how she shredded me.
There were tons of stunning women out there, but it wasn't her beauty that tipped the axis for me.
Andy was exotic and mesmerizing, but she revealed nothing. She moved with aloof confidence and it was clear she gave not a single fuck about anyone's thoughts of her. Since the moment I met Andy, I wanted to know what she was thinking under that unapproachable shell.
I gestured to the redwood conference table and drafting desk. "All yours."
I also wanted to see how quickly I could destroy that cool reserve when my head was between her legs.
She blinked at me before moving and my stomach lurched when I realized I needed to give her something to do. Mind blank, I called up the calendar on my computer and glanced at the week ahead. Five minutes together and my head was already fucked up. Squatting beside the milk crate holding the on-deck projects, I selected twelve canisters and dropped them on the table.
"These are work-in-progress. We'll walk them all at some point this week, and these," I grabbed three, "today." Andy nodded, and our eyes met when she accepted the canisters. I didn't immediately let go, and we stood frozen in a tug-of-war.
Before I could continue with instructions, a quartet of voices rang down from the attic conference room. "Seven thirty!"
"Jesus Christ," I murmured, releasing the canisters and darting to my desk to snap my laptop shut and tuck it under my arm.
"Should I go with you?"
"No," I stammered, and though I was far from certain about my response, I did not possess the strength to run a staff meeting with her at the table. That prospect heightened the brain-dick explosion probability, which was already quite high. "Figure out the plans."
I leaned against the wall at the landing, sucking in a deep breath to clear the haze from my mind before climbing the stairs.
Some of my favorite memories in recent years were seeing three—four, since Riley finished school—heads bowed around laptops and bluelines at seven thirty on Monday mornings in the attic conference room. The stress of managing a small business kept me up most nights, and spending an hour with my partners every week brought me a few kernels of sanity, especially when our work took us in so many different directions we barely saw each other outside of this time.
The familiar scene should have been a calming force, though the lavender-induced chaos in my system left me more impatient than ever. Most days, impatient was the best word to describe me. I didn't have Matt's tolerance for the unexpected, and I never managed to captivate anyone with talk of solar panels like Sam. I was impatient and intimidating, and there wasn't an easily accessible memory of when it was any other way.
Shannon rolled her eyes when I slipped into my seat, and she leaned to my ear. "I don't know what the fuck your problem is, but you need to fix it. We are not losing Andy because you're a moody son of a bitch."
"I didn't want to hire her in the first place."
Not entirely true. I didn't want to spend the next few months working alongside a gorgeous woman who pushed all my buttons when I knew damn well I shouldn't touch her.
"You need to have your head examined. Learn to know a good thing when you see it." She leaned away and sipped her coffee before returning. "Why didn't you bring her with you?"
"Isn't this a partners' meeting?"
She waved her hand dismissively and glanced at a new email on her screen. "Sure, boss, whatever. As if that means anything around here."
"If we don't start these goddamn meetings on time, there's no reason for me to be here on time, and I'm gonna start sleeping an extra ten minutes," Riley loudly whispered to Matt, who mouthed something back to Riley that I didn't catch.
It was good to see them working together, and Matt keeping Riley in line. God only knew what I would have done if I had to put up with his computation errors and inability to keep coffee off his clothes.
"Nice to see you all again. I'm super happy today because Andy Asani started this morning," Shannon announced. "She'll be working directly with Patrick as we try this apprenticeship model on for size. Please be nice to her. She's very smart and I think she'll add tons of capacity for Patrick because he really, really needs it, but he insists on being a dick to her and I'm concerned he will ignore her and she'll quit before Friday."
"That sounds about right," Matt murmured.
He looked tan and more relaxed than usual, if that were possible. The love of a good woman suited him, and a trip to Mexico to meet Lauren's parents during their winter RV trip didn't hurt either. It was especially nice that her father, Commodore Halsted, didn't dropkick Matt's ass into the Pacific Ocean for touching his one and only baby girl.
"Is there a specific issue that you have with her, or are you just being an inveterate ass?" Sam asked.
I ignored them both while I called up my master workflow spreadsheet to track progress against milestones. "Riley. Bunker Hill. Make it fast."
He flipped his head, tossing his shaggy hair away from his brow. "We were on fire last week. Banged through hardwood refinishing, moldings, and plaster on all properties, and interior paint is on deck today."
"When should we expect to be down to punch lists?"
"Two weeks. Maybe three, depending on inspections." He shrugged and glanced to Matt, who offered an approving nod. Matt was good at mentoring, taking Riley from a useless heap of disjointed architectural skills to managing four concurrent builds with success.
"Fine." I turned to Shannon and glanced at the Multiple Listing Service map of Charlestown's active properties on her screen. "Put the word out. Get some traction. I want to unload those properties the minute we have the green light on occupancy. I don't want these on the market more than a week past a clean CO."
"Yeah," she murmured as she typed. "Riley, let me know when they start on punch lists and I'll go check it out. Let's not have realtors walking through construction sites again." She glanced pointedly at Matt and he held up his hands in surrender.
Working around the table, I tracked updates and flagged issues in my spreadsheets. For the moment, Andy wasn't in the forefront of my thoughts.
We were in a strong position despite a freak Thanksgiving blizzard that brought progress to a standstill for over a week, not to mention our father's fatal stroke. We bounced back from all of it as best we could, but Angus's shadow lingered over us.
&nb
sp; I counted seven investment restorations that would be hitting the market within the next six weeks, plus a full slate of client projects launching in March, and three dozen new queries for our services in the past week.
"So when are we going to read Angus's will?" Riley asked.
Shannon minimized her open screens, leaving a picture of the five of us after we finished last year's marathon. The envelope arrived from Angus's attorney by messenger last week during my standing budget meeting with Shannon. We stared at each other and the delivery for longer than logical before she stowed it in her safe. We didn't say a word on the subject.
"I have it in my office." She looked up. "Sealed."
"Isn't there a timeline or something?" Riley continued. "It's been over a month since the miserable bastard shook hands with Satan."
Shannon rolled her shoulders as all eyes turned to her. "Yes, but…I think we need to be suitably drunk before that envelope opens. And set a few ground rules."
My sentiments exactly. It was anyone's guess what Angus had in store for us, but I knew he wasn't finished fucking us over. For all we knew, he left his assets to a stray Jack Russell terrier he befriended at the Alewife T station, leaving us with a few bags of rusty nails.
"Does Erin need to be here for this?" I kept my eyes on my screen to avoid withering under the glare I knew Shannon was shooting at me. My attempt to end the feud between my sisters was proving more complex than anticipated.
"No. Not when she couldn't be bothered to show up for the funeral." Shannon's eyes swept the table, inviting a word of dissent. We all knew better than to go there. "I'll FedEx her copy to her in Spain or Morocco or wherever the fuck she is now."
"Friday," Matt offered. "At the house."
"No. I'm not driving out to Wellesley and getting drunk in the Haunted Mansion. That's how the Blair Witch Project started." Riley shook his head. "And I won't ride the commuter rail back in, not drunk, and especially not since a goddamn python went missing on one of those trains."
"Now that's a coherent argument if I've ever heard one," Sam deadpanned, twisting the titanium ring on his thumb.
The Walsh Brothers Page 29
