Chapter 8
8
MASON
“Pia thinks we renovate in phases but prioritize the ground floor and kitchen so that, by spring, we can begin hosting bigger events, including weddings.”
The guys and I sat around the kitchen island, takeout containers and empty beer bottles littered everywhere. Thursday nights didn’t get any better than this. The only exception would have been if my dad were to walk through the door and say something like, “Looks like a beer bath in here. Get it? Beer bath, not blood bath?”
“Look at him smiling when he talks about Pia,” Parker said.
“Yeah, like you’re talking about a fish you caught.” Beck reached for a cold French fry in a Styrofoam container. He kissed the fry. “You gorgeous thing.”
“I haven’t once kissed a fish. Or called it ‘gorgeous.’ You’re ridiculous.”
“That’s more like you,” Cole added, drinking beer instead of Scotch for a change, “with any marginally pretty customer.”
“Marginally pretty?” Beck popped the fry into his mouth. “My standards are much higher than that.”
“Too high with Pia. Not sure if you noticed.” Parker took a swig of beer. “But she’s not into you. Despite your best efforts. She is, on the other hand, very into the boss man.”
It took all of my discipline not to ask, “You think so?” like some eager fifteen-year-old. And that was the exact reason I shouldn’t have hired her. Instead, I said, “First of all, that’s not true. Second of all, it doesn’t matter. She’s my employee.”
“Third,” Cole said, “she isn’t going to be for long if you sell, so what does that matter?”
I hated when Cole got logical on me.
“I got the leave,” I reminded them. “And intend to follow through as if that leave might be extended. Or maybe Pia will be so good I can keep the place and my job.”
“Is that what you want?” Parker asked.
“Who the fuck knows?” I reached for my beer. “In the meantime, what does your calendar for the next few months look like?”
Parker screwed up his face the same way he always did when he was thinking. I could practically see steam coming from his ears. “Busy. But I have a thought.”
“Look out,” Beck teased.
“What if I stay here? Work on the place in my spare time. With the rent money I save, I can work for materials only.”
“No way,” I said, automatically rejecting the idea. “You can stay, of course. But you’re not doing a job without getting paid.”
“I will be getting paid cause you’ll be feeding my ass too. Honestly though,” he added quickly, knowing I was going to refuse again, “I’ve been talking about starting my own construction company for too long. Renovating Heritage Hill would be my job alone, something to put on the resume if I do venture out.”
“Oh shit.” Beck looked impressed. “I honestly never thought you’d pull the trigger. No offense, but I thought Jack had you by the balls.”
“Jack does have me by the balls,” Parker said. “As bosses go, he’s not great. But he’s also the biggest player in town and pays the bills.” He shrugged.
Parker was being nice. His boss, the owner of the construction company he worked for, was a total dickhead.
“Anyway.” Parker actually looked serious. “Let’s do it.”
I could tell he was for real. Being friends for an entire lifetime with someone meant you could read them pretty easily. Though I didn’t love the idea of him working for free, I needed the job and was short on cash. But I did have a place for him to stay and guests’ mouths to feed for breakfast anyway, and if it was a stepping stone for Parker…
“I’m in.”
“Hold on a second.” Beck leaned forward. “In case you forgot, we’re roommates. You honestly think the two of you are going to recreate college days here in this massive inn without me?”
Funnily enough, the second Parker tossed out his idea, I knew Beck was going to want in. Thankfully there were four rooms in the main house, and none were occupied. “You can take number three.”
He pretended to be offended. “The smallest, nice.”
“Also far enough away,” Cole added in his typically dry manner, “no one has to hear the”—he cleared his throat—“guests you take home.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And maybe you can make yourself useful with the renovations too.”
“Of course.” He did not sound at all convincing. “I did spend two days cleaning a damn basement.”
“True.” And I appreciated it, even if I didn’t say the words. The guys knew saying such things out loud made me uncomfortable.
Cole took off his glasses to polish them. “If only I could partake in this interesting adult male bonding experiment.”
“Whatcha mean?” Beck asked.
“I mean,” he said, as if giving one of his famous lectures, “it’s one thing to declare we will remain bachelors for life. But quite another to actually live together at our age.”
“You say that like we’re seventy.” Parker shifted on his stool. I looked down, unable to unsee the brightest pair of pink and blue socks imaginable. Even though it was sort of his thing, those had to go.
“It would be more acceptable if you were seventy,” Cole said, popping his glasses back onto his face. “It would be like a retirement home.”
“And this will be like a very fancy frat house,” Beck said.
“Exactly my fear.” I took a long swig of beer.
“Frat brothers are not thirty-one and thirty-two,” Cole pointed out.
“You should totally join us.” Beck was unrepentant.
“Sure. Great idea. Maybe O’Malley’s is hiring.”
Beck could have taken offense to that, but he didn’t. With a college degree and parents who had more money than God, Beck chose to sling drinks because he liked it. Not because he had no other option, which would also be fine in my opinion. My father taught me never to look down on a person because of how they looked or what they chose to do for a living, and it was sage advice. I’d met cops who didn’t deserve the respect they got and custodians who deserved a hell of a lot more.
“You hate the city almost as much as Mason,” Beck accused instead.
“Clarification,” I added. “He hates it more.”
Cole was more like Parker. Loved the outdoors, played ice hockey growing up and in college. His family moved from Cedar Falls when his dad got the position at Yale, but of all of us, Cole enjoyed small-town living most. But when Columbia came calling, he answered.
“That’s neither here nor there.”
“Sure it is,” Beck pushed back. “Being a tenured college professor is your father’s dream, not yours. You can leave anytime.”
Now we were treading in dangerous territory. “We’re getting off track,” I said, refereeing. “Are the two of you actually moving in? What if I decide to sell?”
“Apartments in Cedar Falls aren’t that hard to come by,” Parker said.
“So we’re really doing this?” Beck asked.
“We’re doing this,” Parker said, looking back and forth between Beck and me.
“Can we please remember the end game?” Cole broke in. “No wives.”
The bachelor pact had been his idea, and anytime one of us had come close to breaking it, Cole stepped in with one of the myriad of reasons marriage was a bad idea. As if we had to be convinced.
I was allergic to the kind of lifelong heartbreak my father suffered. Parker’s dad cheated and his parents divorced, making him as bitter about the institution of marriage as any of us. Beck’s had divorced too. Ironically, Cole’s were the only set of parents intact, but it was almost worse because everyone knew it was for appearances and convenience only. Cole basically resented his parents almost as much as he resented people who didn’t read for pleasure, which included me, but… whatever.
“Who the hell wants a wife?” Beck asked, bottom on the list to ever actually settle down.
“Not me.” Parker stood up and went to the fridge for another beer. “Someone to complain I’m fishing all day? No thanks.”
“Mason?” Cole peered at me through his dark-rimmed glasses.
“Cole?”
“You’re still on board?”
“Obviously.” Was that really a question?
“Even if a certain dark-haired inn manager makes the move on you?” he countered.
“Seriously? Not you too.”
“Sorry, buddy, I’m with them on this one. I’ve seen the way you two look at each other.”
I sighed. “How many times do I have to remind you she is my employee?”
“So you don’t mind if I take a shot with her?” Beck asked.
He had no chance. She wasn’t interested. “Not at all. But please just don’t do it here. This may be your new home, but it’s work for her, and I won’t have her be uncomfortable at work.”
I caught Parker looking at me strangely. “What?” I asked him.
“What about me? There’s a lack of hot women in Cedar Falls, if you haven’t noticed. And Pia fits that bill very well.”
My chest tightened. Parker was every woman’s type, unless she hated the outdoors. As good-looking as Beck without the cockiness. Pia could easily go for a guy like him. Not that it mattered. Except, the thought of Parker and Pia naked in bed together made me want to vomit.
But with all of the guys, Cole especially, looking at me so intently, waiting for my answer, there was only one to give. “Same as I said to Beck. Keep work and play separate, please.”
“You sure?”
I couldn’t tell if he was serious or testing me. Either way, the answer was the same. Even if I didn’t like it much. “I’m sure.”
With that matter dropped, Beck and Cole went back to fighting about whether or not Cole liked his job. For my part, I tried like hell to get Pia with any of these guys out of my mind.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work.