Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96752 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96752 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
“I would love to see that,” Jeremiah replies. “I’d send you some of our work, but you’ve probably seen it.”
I wince.
His eyes widen. “Seriously?”
I shrug. “I prefer Real Housewives. But I’ll look it up and watch a couple of episodes.”
“Let me know if you want company for that.” He looks up at the building. “I can tell you all the background stories. Well, I know you have friends over. I’ll let you get back to them.”
For some reason, I get the feeling he’s lonely. And I can put Ani’s fears to rest with one kind gesture. “How do you feel about pizza? Let me warn you, you might have to fight a hungry coder for the meat lovers.”
He offers me his arm like he’s an old-school gentleman. “I think I can handle it.”
We walk up the stairs, and I think I might have made a friend.
Chapter Three
“Oh, a cookie bouquet. Isn’t that cute?” My mom looks down at the recently delivered confection of chocolate chip and sugar and shortbread.
It came with a note.
Apologies.
Nothing more. The man knows how to keep it brief. Anyway, I decided I can ignore him and mostly deal with Jeremiah—who I’ve come to adore in a short time. He sat with us two nights ago and we watched what he called his greatest hits. Four episodes that let me know that Reid has some deeply minimalist tendencies, and Jeremiah likes to make things pretty.
The houses they design are actually nice. They do a good job of marrying form and function, and it seems like they help a lot of people love their homes. The truth is I’ll mostly work with them on camera. It’s not like they’ll be standing over me watching me restore the hardwoods and making the original marble in the foyer shine.
So I’m cautiously optimistic. At least I was until my mom showed up this morning. I wish she showed up alone.
“Are you dating someone? You know when I dated I tended to send flowers.” My cousin Paul. Paul is my father’s brother’s son. “Cookies might send the wrong message.”
I hate Paul. By “send the wrong message” what he means is they could make it sound like the man who sent them to me thinks it’s okay for me to get fat. He’s always on his poor wife to stay in shape. I’ve seen her at family functions while she’s pregnant telling everyone she’s on a diet because she doesn’t want to gain too much baby weight or she might not get another baby.
I was actually quite close to Uncle Alan when he was alive. I sometimes preferred him to my father. My cousin, not so much. “He’s a guy from work.”
Paul’s brows raise. “You’re dating someone from work? Seriously? Who? Is it the new guy?”
My mom gasps. “You’re dating? That is exciting. Do I know him?”
I need to shut this down. If I thought Ivy siccing Emma on me was bad, this would be so much worse. And I never heard why Emma thinks Reid and I might be compatible. We were interrupted by Jeremiah and didn’t get back around to the subject. It’s been bugging me all morning, but I have things to do. “I’m not dating. I didn’t mean from the construction crew. I meant from my side job.”
“Oh, from the fancy project of yours,” Paul says with a sneer. “You’re going to be a TV star.”
My new project is something of a controversy at my main job. I have my group of supporters. Paul is not one of them. “I wouldn’t say that. I’m helping a friend, and it could help the company.”
His eyes roll. “You doing fancy shit with moldy old homes isn’t going to bring in any clients. We don’t do single-family homes, and we’re not going to any time soon.”
I have to agree with him there. We need big jobs for the foreseeable future. My father left me with fifty-five percent of the family company and all of its IRS debt. Dad was great at construction, but Uncle Alan handled the money. When he got cancer, my dad didn’t pay much attention to anything but making his payroll and getting new jobs. He let things like taxes slide away. Mom wasn’t much help. When they asked her to take over for Alan, she shook her head and said she was just a housewife and wouldn’t have any idea what to do in an office.
She’s still in a house, but she’s not a wife anymore since Dad passed. So she moves around helping with everyone else’s kids and making comments about how she’ll never have grandkids of her own. Always the babysitter but never the nana is her catch phrase. I’ve thought of getting her a T-shirt.
“Is there a reason you’re here, Paul?” I don’t waste time on my cousin. He’s bitter and angry, and he has reason to be neither from what I can tell. He’s married to his high school sweetheart. They have two adorable kids, and my uncle left them a paid off condo in Little Italy.