She pulled at a yellow paper sticking out from the top of the stack— the receipt— and shoved it in her pocket. If she lost that, she was so screwed. She hefted a bag of thin-set mortar and carried it through the house to the kitchen.
“There’s three more out there.” She dropped the fifty-pound bag to the floor, dust spattering the air.
Jordan slid down the ladder. “Thanks, Ms. Samantha. Bryan and Pete, go grab the rest of them.”
“Thanks, Jordan.” She smiled at one of the few people that respected her newfound authority. Okay— maybe not respected, but he didn’t find it necessary to call her out on her many mistakes. And there were many.
She made sure she still had the rogue receipt and headed to her truck. Without every single slip of paper, the tally of actual expenses would be off. Her father would be pissed. She’d be pissed. Pulling open the passenger door, she stuck the receipt into a folder and dropped her forehead onto the door— repeatedly— until the sharp pain made her stop.
She was trying, really trying. She was giving one hundred percent— and she still couldn’t get her shit together. How sad was that?
She was sinking in figurative wet concrete, kicking and flailing, her body slowly being consumed by gritty gray paste. She’d like to blame Barry and say he was pushing her head deeper into the muck, but dammit, she was screwing up all on her own. No help needed, thank you.
Of course, it might help if Barry got off his butt and helped her stay afloat. Yeah, right. Like he’d do that. She had a feeling he was waiting for the big screw-up. The massive one, the one that would force her father to put Barry in charge. She wasn’t stupid. She knew the old man was calling her father and giving status reports behind her back.
She’d always known she’d take over her father’s company someday. Hell, he’d put a hammer in her hand as soon as she was old enough to walk. But she never thought she’d be taking over so soon or so completely. Maybe in a few years, after she was established in her own career. When she could focus on both her dreams and his.
But with her father’s health scare…? No. That wasn’t something she wanted to think about right now. When her father finally agreed to take a break, she was surprised he hadn’t put Barry in charge. Apparently, Barry was surprised he wasn’t put in charge, too.
No, surprised wasn’t exactly the word. He was downright hostile.
She hated to admit it, but that hurt. Barry had been her father's most trusted employee for so many years. But it was more than that— he was family. He taught her how to use a circular saw when she was twelve. He let her drive the backhoe when she was fourteen. Her dad was royally pissed, but she’d loved it. And the two of them had shared a conspiratorial soda when Barry let her do it again, a week later, this time without telling her father.
So when she took over, she thought he’d be there to help her, guide her. She should be working on a way to get him on board. But how? Too bad they didn’t have a human resources department that could help with employee issues. Because she had no idea how.
“Samantha!” Barry stormed out of house and over to Samantha’s truck. “The plumber needs to talk to you. There’s a problem.”
Of course there was. “What kind of problem?”
“I don’t know. He wants to talk to the manager.” Barry hooked a thumb at her. “That would be you.”
“Could you please find out what the problem is?” She attached her stylus to the tablet sleeve.
“Fine. By the way, half the boxes of tiles are the wrong color.” Barry pulled a dark-brown tile from his pocket and handed it to her.
Of course they were the wrong color. What else was new? If it could go wrong, it would. She added exchange tile to the list in her tablet of things that still needed to be done. That list seemed to grow longer and longer. Shouldn’t it start to get shorter at some point? “I’ll exchange them later.”
Barry huffed and turned back to the building. “Later? They’re about to start tiling. I need them to get as far as possible before they go home tonight. Can’t you exchange them now?”
“I can’t. I have to talk to the plumber.” The knot behind her eyes pulsed and spread when Barry sighed heavily. She let her breath out and tried for calm. “Fine,” she told him. “If you deal with the tiles, I’ll talk to the plumber.”
“Fine.” He walked back into the house.
“Fine.” Tears clawed at the back of her eyes. Barry slamming her at every turn was getting old. She hated thinking about letting him go. But, crap, what else could she do?
She ran a hand over her face. What else could she do? Tequila. That would work. A couple hours more and she’d grab a beer. Or a shot. A little Cabo Wabo. Yeah, today was more of a tequila type of day. Between the job and Ski, she needed something to relax her, and a few shots of Cabo Wabo would do the trick.
Speaking of Ski… She rubbed her thumb over the dark brown tile. Dark brown with flecks of gold. She’d know this color anywhere. The color of Ski’s eyes.
Disgusted with herself, she walked back into the house and found the offending boxes of tile, dropping the square into one of them.
I’m not into guys like him. I’m not into guys like him. Why couldn’t her brain remember that? He was a jock. No— even worse. A frat-boy jock. He was everything she wasn't attracted to. He was a spoiled, brainless, college popularity-whore. She'd done his kind before. Dated the football star and even the frat-boy. Both experiences sucked. They not only ended, they ended badly. His kind liked to string along the townie until the next woman came along, and she'd been the townie left alone with a broken heart.
Of course, it could have been worse. Her best friend, Carly, dated one of those college pretty boys. Now she was six months pregnant. On her own, no pretty-boy in sight. He’d graduated, leaving her scared and alone with a baby to raise.
No. Thank. You.
Samantha refused to be a part of that statistic, unwed with baby dread. Not her idea of fun. Especially with a football player who'd taken one too many hits. He was probably majoring in alcoholism and coeds. Who needed that?
She had a plan. She was going to get her father’s company on its feet, help it to be self-sufficient, and then she’d have time to do the kind of projects that interested her— namely, the electrical kind of projects.
Her father had thought it was cute when she said she wanted to take classes in electrical technology at a local college, and since she’d done it part-time, he couldn’t really say it kept her from working. But he’d thought she was crazy when she apprenticed part-time with Bob, his electrical contractor, over the winter. That was their slow season, though, and Thunder Construction hadn’t been busy, so he couldn’t complain about that, either.
But after that winter, she hadn’t been able to walk away. Well, she didn’t want to walk away. She wanted to finish her apprenticeship. She loved every part of learning how to safely harness electricity— from the creativity involved in planning the ideal placement of recessed lighting to the simple excitement of installing a new electrical outlet and then actually having it work.
When spring came, Bob had asked her to stay on and complete her training. But without her around, her father worked too hard, didn’t take care of himself— and she almost lost him. So she came back to Thunder Construction.
She’d taken a winter off and the cost had been too high. No matter how much she might want something else, this was her reality— making Thunder Construction a success. This was where she belonged.
No more selfish dreams.
~»ΨΡ«~
Chapter Three
Ski
THE SOUND of the damn power tools the crew was using to fix the front porch roof buzzed and echoed in Ski’s head. And no matter how loud he cranked the TV, he couldn’t win the fight with the whirring and the whining and the pounding from outside.
Didn’t they ever take a break? Gowno. Smoke a cigarette, eat some lunch, take a piss? Do anything that didn’t torture his eardrums?
Gra
nted, the porch roof had been a lopsided mess, and all due to his frat brother, Keith. The dumbass had done one too many shots one night, and decided to show everybody he could parkour. He'd jumped out his bedroom window and landed on the porch roof, putting his foot right through it. And as Keith had sat there, lodged in the shingles, one of the supports cracked and the roof nearly tore away from side of the building. One of the brothers secured the sagging roof, but there was no way it would last another semester. It was the dangling porch roof of Damocles.
Bzzzzzzz... The damn saw screamed and screeched outside the window. He grabbed the remote from the table and jabbed the volume-up button. Fucking useless. The volume was already pushed to the extreme. He jabbed the TV off. What was the point?
Maybe if they had working AC in the house, he could close the windows in his room and muffle some of the sound pollution. He grabbed his water and downed half the bottle. One thing he'd learned in his pre-med biology class— hydrate. Even with all the windows open and a fan spinning in the corner, sweat still dripped down his back. No way was he closing a window. He'd stew in his own juices. Not that he wasn't already.
He dumped the rest of the water over his head, and cool streaks slid down his chest. One thing he learned in ten years of wrestling— soak.
He tossed the bottle in the trash. This was ridiculous. He wasn’t even supposed to be here this summer. But with the frat treasurer hovering over his sick mother, and the president hovering over some horny hotties, neither could break away and— how did Samantha say it? Babysit. Yeah. That's it.
Not that he blamed Ryan. The treasurer had been watching his mother battle cancer for the past couple years. Now that she was finally in remission, he was a little overprotective. Who could blame him? That shit was scary. Ski wouldn't want to watch his mother fight for her life while he sat by, unable to help.
The helping part was one reason he’d wanted to go into medicine. At first. Now he didn't know anymore. He couldn't think of a time when he didn't want to be a doctor like his father. But lately, he wasn't sure if he was following the old man's dream or if he was following his own.
The applications for medical school were sitting on the table, the blank forms howling their need for completion. If his father knew he hadn’t started filling them out…
He’d thought this time alone would help. Time to figure this shit out.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
Quiet would help. But that seemed unlikely anytime soon.
His cell phone chirped to life. Tata. His father’s face filled the screen again. Just what he didn’t need. Maybe he should just let it go to voicemail. It wasn’t like he could talk with all this noise anyway.
He wasn’t the type to ignore the old man, though, and he’d already ignored him once today. He stared at the screen, heartbeat accelerating, and then jumped in the closet, kicking aside bags and trash before slamming the door. The low rumble of power tools persisted, but he could hear a helluva lot better.
“Cześc, Tato. How’s Poland?”
“Fine. We missed you the other day. We had an interesting case over at the hospital…” His father rambled on and on about a mitral valve replacement. The words might have zipped by, but the awe in his father’s voice didn’t escape Ski. That’s all Ski wanted, to feel that same excitement when he talked about something. Anything.
“How is class going?”
“Class?” Right— the only reason his father let him skip the yearly family vacation was because Ski was supposed to be taking Molecular Genetics this summer to get a jump on next term. “Class is fine. Learning a lot.”
“Did you submit the application to Harvard Medical School? Katia over in admissions is on the lookout for your application.”
“Not yet, Tato. I’m still working on it.” Ski could feel his nose growing with every lie. He looked around the closet for that chirpy little cricket, just in case. “But you know I’d rather go somewhere closer to home. University of Chicago has a great program…” and other majors if I decide to drop med school.
“It’s important to keep your options open. A degree from Harvard and you can sign your own ticket. We’re always looking for a good heart surgeon, and that Harvard degree would guarantee you a spot.”
“So, if I don’t go to Harvard, I won’t have a spot?”
“It helps.”
“I’m working on it, Tato.”
“Well, work faster. This is your future you’re messing with here.” His father sighed. Yeah, Ski knew the feeling. “I need to get back to your mama before she falls asleep. We spent the day in the city so she’s exhausted. Do widzenia.”
“Yeah. Bye.” Silence filled the line as he inhaled deeply, the burning stench of lies filling his nostrils. He drew in another breath. Nope. Even lies didn’t smell that bad. How long had the closet smelled so foul? He stepped out into the noise and stared back into the half-empty closet. He picked up his suitcase and slid it past his nose. Nope. He sniffed the three hanging shirts. Nope. April fresh.
Well, maybe not April fresh, maybe more like a late June. He pulled out the garbage lining the floor and dumped it in the trash can. The one thing he hated about frat life was sharing a room with frat brothers, especially frat brothers who couldn’t be bothered with throwing garbage away. Frat brothers that left their shit all over the room. Barbarians.
He slid back in the closet. Ah, that smell. WTF? He peered at the top shelf of the closet. An old Nike bag was shoved into a corner. His own gym bag, no less. That it was his bag and not one of his barbarian roommates was not lost on him. Gowno. Okay, so he took back the barbarian comment, but they weren’t around to hear it anyway.
Putting the bag on the floor, he yanked the zipper and gagged. Rotted sweat and musty death hit his nose. He reached inside and found running gear encrusted with a black moldy science experiment. Shit. Rummaging further in the scary darkness, he pulled out his iPod. Nice. He’d looked everywhere for that damn thing. He tossed it on the table, but there was no way he could salvage the clothes. He shoved the whole bag in the trash and tied it off. Next time he headed outside, he’d get rid of the thing.
The sun beat through the open windows of his room as the workman continued with their ear torture. A cacophony of random loudness banged against his head.
The water he’d poured on his skin earlier had dried, leaving him with a new sheen of sweat. He thought about begging Samantha to start on the AC, but knowing how annoyed she got with him—? Well, she'd probably leave it for last. Call a girl “Sammy” a few times and all of a sudden you were Public Enemy Number One.
Good thing no one was around, because Ski couldn't keep the dopey smile off his face. She was so damn fun.
The nail gun, power saw, and belt sander symphony kept up their never-ending tune. Between the heat and noise, he needed a break. He could head out, but sitting alone at the local bar wasn’t high on his list. He could call some of the local brothers, but the noise-inspired headache made it impossible for him to be civil.
A shower. Showers generally didn't require civility, although he could muster up some civility with a dark-haired, blue-eyed shower companion. Just what he needed, another fantasy running in his mind.
Unfortunately, back in the real world, Samantha would slap the shit out of him for even thinking these thoughts. His head throbbed at the thought of the jarring thwap. No shower companion for him.
But maybe the closed door and falling water of a solo shower would block a little of the heavy metal concert outside. It would definitely cool down his body temperature. At this point, he was desperate. And maybe he’d even wash the stench of lies from his skin, because his father was going to go ballistic.
Ski not only wasn’t taking that molecular genetics class this summer, he’d dropped pre-med altogether.
He was now majoring in business. And when his father found out, the pain he felt in his head today would be nothing compared to the pain of his father’s disappointment.
~»ΨΡ«~
Sam
SAMANTHA STARED at the exposed wiring in the hall and mentally crossed her fingers. Bob had signed off on the electrical work she had done in the kitchen— good thing she’d thought to double-check the hallway last week. It turned out to be the same problem, different circuits. The fact that the downstairs framing hadn’t been charred was a miracle at best. Redundant wiring, overloaded circuits, and uncapped lines had plagued the entire floor.
They’d taken care of the last of the inside wiring before Bob had left last night. When she didn’t finish the complete apprenticeship, she didn’t get her license. So now she could only work on the wiring when she had a licensed contractor watching her every move. She could have had this done a week ago if she didn’t have to wait on Bob all the time. She pulled out a pair of capped wires. She really could have done a neater job. If only she had—
“Ms. Thunder?”
“Yes?” Samantha jumped, poking the offending wires back in place before spinning around.
A middle-aged man, complete with paunch and thick rimmed glasses, leaned toward her, his right hand outstretched. The badge clipped to his collar told her she had better be ready. The badge also told her she had been caught thinking bad thoughts— by the inspector.
“Hi, Ms. Thunder. I’m Doug Johnson with the Building Commissioner’s Office. I’m here to inspect the wiring.” He shuffled through a stack of paper on his clipboard.
“You’re on time.” She sighed. This guy seemed to have his crap together. Maybe she needed to get a clipboard, and then she too could have her crap together.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You are ready for me.”
There was no way she was paying for another inspection, not if she could help it. She pasted on a smile. “Yes. Yes— we’re ready. Please come in.” Please, let us be ready. Please, don’t let us fail.
He walked in the house and stared at the gaping holes in the wall for a long moment. “I was told Bob Schmidt was the electrician on this site. Where is he?”
Major Renovations (Ritter University #1) Page 2
