9. Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Quinn
For the better part of a week, Quinn couldn’t bring himself to make an appearance at the house. They didn’t ask to meet with him, and it wasn’t like he could do any real good on the work front. They had who they needed, where they needed them.
But when he got the message that they wanted to meet up for more specifics, he had to bite the bullet. So he got the day off from work—cashing in on a lot of good will and saved up PTO—and drove into downtown Springfield. A quick detour before he hit the house.
Ever since that walk-through, Quinn didn’t go a single day without remembering himself snapping like an asshole, getting distant, shutting down. Which was very uncool to push onto the people there to fix things up for him. Do what Quinn was never able to do with his grandpa’s house, and certainly couldn’t have managed on his own.
Try as he might, he couldn’t get that expression of Jake’s out of his brain. He didn’t deserve that when he was just trying to check in. I need to get my shit under control. And try to make it up to them. Hence his trip into town to pick up some coffee for everyone. Four portable carafes was a lot, not to mention the cream and sugar and cups they’d provided, but he got it all tucked into his passenger seat securely—even if it took wedging his coat in to keep things from spilling on turns—and headed back to the work site on Old Aristocracy Hill. It was clean enough inside that they apparently no longer needed to meet at the Hillyard, which in itself shocked the shit out of Quinn. Even having seen the house the other day, the thought that it was already somehow habitable enough they could not only be there, but meet up and film there, boggled the mind.
He pulled up and almost couldn’t get out of the car. When he’d seen it last time, even the outside was a total mess. The garbage bin was gone now, the step ladder had been abandoned for actual stairs and a makeshift gangplank leading across the joists to the actual front door, and the siding was blue once again. The backyard was entirely invisible now, blocked by the newly erected fence.
Quinn’s stomach tightened and tossed and he wanted to pull away, and he couldn’t even say why. His grandpa would have loved to see the porch put back together, and he constantly complained about the fence, threatened to go out and fix it even though there was no way he could have managed that sort of work.
Quinn shook everything to the back of his brain, then got out and pulled the coffee and everything from the passenger side. When he fumbled his keys out to lock the doors, he saw someone approaching out of the corner of his eye. Maybe it’s Jake. The tightness in his stomach changed. Not loosened, but turned electric. A talk alone could let them air things out.
“I hope you kept receipts so we can reimburse you.”
Not Jake’s voice. He turned to see Eliza, wearing a simple, heather blue T-shirt and khakis. She held her hands out and he pressed two of the carafes over to her. “Thanks. But I feel like I need to contribute something to this. Not like I’ve been very useful since we finished cleaning.”
“Your job is just to benefit, not be useful.” She jerked her head toward the door. “We’ll get you set up, then we have to meet and chat details.”
He nodded and followed her, up the stairs—workers were still screwing in and leveling some of the joists at the far end—across the somewhat shaky pathway, and inside, which only redoubled Quinn’s sense of…oddity.
The stairwell to the second floor was back in order, fresh new drywall mudded in to cover the side where the water damage had been. Any holes in the floor were gone, and the underlayment stretched over the entire thing. Light fixtures and outlets were open, wire nuts hanging loose.
But most of all, it was just clean. Even cleaner than before. A blank slate, primed and ready to go.
“Right over here.” Eliza led him into the living room. A folding table had been set up along the far wall, just next to the window. Mason, Evander, and Ozzy sat on small, padded folding chairs. No one else was present, although more chairs leaned against the other wall.
They set the coffee down, then Quinn got set up with his mic pack while Mason went over the agenda. “Thanks for this. We’ll get through this as fast as we can to get you back to your real life.”
“I took the day off, so no worries.”
“Good,” said Ozzy, shooting sharp glances to Evander every few seconds. “We’ve got a lot to go over. Especially with the landscaping.”
“Especially with the interior design, as well.” Evander nodded to Ozzy, smiling in spite of the complete deadness in his eyes. “This part of the process takes the most hands-on effort from the client, usually. But if we don’t do it, we end up with a house that doesn’t suit you at all. Oswald here would probably give you a succulent garden and a fire-spewing tower in the middle of your yard, left to his own devices.”
“Well, any of that would be better than the Boho-Rococo fusion you tried to pull off, Evander.”
“At each other’s throats already?” The electrician, Aras, pulled over a chair and plopped down, resting his arms on the back and leaning forward. “Keep your bickering to a minimum, yeah? Last thing I need is another headache from you two.”
Slowly, the rest of the primary crew shuffled in. But the longer they sat and waited, the colder and stiffer Quinn grew, and he finally had to ask, “Is Jake not coming?”
Mason shrugged. “Been wondering that myself.” He fished out his phone and tapped a few times, then set it down in the middle of the table, ringing on speaker.
Five full rings before it finally picked up. “Hello. What’s up?”
“You coming to the meeting this morning?”
Something clattered on the other end of the line, loud and tinny and staticky. “Shit. Yeah. Yeah, I’m on my way. Definitely didn’t stay up way too late drawing up plans and zonk out at my desk. Fuck. Give me…I don’t know, however long. I’ll be there soon.”
The line cut off and Ozzy shook his head. “Typical.”
He’s working so hard he fell asleep at the desk. Quinn had to bite his tongue to avoid pointing that out to Ozzy. Better to stay quiet and not rock the boat. However, it didn’t escape Quinn’s notice that he’d immediately felt protective of Jake. Almost a week away and this crush isn’t getting any better.
“Well, we can get most of this done without him.” Mason reached down to his bag and pulled out a large, sleek laptop. He set it up, typed a few characters, then turned it around and pushed it so that Quinn could see it. The screen displayed a whole grid of color swatches, a gradient spreading from pastel pink in the upper left corner down to deep violet in the lower right. A string of monochrome, from white to black, spread out across the top row.
“Am I just supposed to point and pick?”
Mason slid a thin mouse across to him. “Click on any colors that strike your fancy, and right-click any that you know are just not going to fly with you. We’ll adjust as needed, but it’s good to get a baseline of what you actually enjoy.” He leaned over and pointed to some tabs across the top of whatever this program was. “I usually set it up to start with colors, since that’s easier, but we’ve got wood and stone and tile and fabric along here, metal finishes, then a whole grid of sample styles. They all work the same way, and we’re here for any questions you have.”
Quinn nodded, trying to push through his overwhelm. “Is this software you can buy?”
“Website.” Mason nodded, a slight smile on his face, pushing up his cheeks into round apples. “Used it for years on the channel. Then, once we got signed on and started producing the show, Homescapes got us hooked up with their design team and updated it. All publicly available, for anyone who wants to use it.”
Clearly that was for the camera, and clearly when Aras started talking it was not. “You really don’t know anything about our old channel? We always featured this segment when we worked on a new house.”
“I checked into you enough to see what the story was, but I didn’t want to get any preconceived notions about who you were. Especially not from some three-plus year old videos.”
Aras huffed, then nodded once. “I guess that makes sense.”
With that seemingly out of the way, Quinn turned his attention to the screen. Well, most of his attention. He couldn’t help remembering now and then that Jake wasn’t there. On his way, sure, but the possibility that Jake was simply avoiding him couldn’t be ignored.
Quinn struck basically all the warm colors out of the running right away, leaving a palette of mostly greens and blues and grays. Nothing as extreme as black or white, although he made sure to mention that he didn’t mind them as accents. Just not big swaths. Similar with the wood, he just didn’t care for anything with red or golden tones to it. Which also cut metal finishes easily in half. Stone, tile, and fabric ended up being much less about color, and more about finish. Which also meant he didn’t cut much of anything out, or really indicate anything he loved. As long as the colors worked, everything else felt like an afterthought.
“Sounds good. Gives me some freedom, to be sure.” Evander shifted his chair around so he could get a better look. “Think we’re just down to the design style before we start grilling you for information.”
Quinn chuckled, then flicked over to the last screen.
Footsteps slapped against the subflooring and he turned to see Jake, red-faced and sweaty, his hair flung around his head at odd angles, and his shirt very definitely on backwards and inside out. “I’m here.”
“Oh good.” Ozzy rolled his eyes. “You’ve graced us with your presence.”
Jake grabbed the last chair and set it up, sitting in the corner next to Mason. “You could have woken me up. You all have my room number.”
“We knocked, babe.” Bunny shrugged, her expression barely hiding a smile. “You must have been really out of it.”
A tiny, throat-clearing cough sounded as Eliza walked up. “Hey. We need to get your mic on. And your shirt…”
Jake looked down, frowning, then shook his head. “Shit.”
The house slowed as he pulled his shirt up over his head. For Quinn, anyway. Slowed down and showed his well-built musculature, the hair under his arms, his ribs as he reached up and over his head. Quinn’s brain shut down, wouldn’t process anything other than hot, gorgeous, stunning, hunky, beautiful—
Jake dressed himself again and they fitted him with a lav mic. Then he sat. “What did I miss?”
“Almost everything.” Aras sighed. “We’re doing design styles.”
“Well, that’s the more important part for me anyway. Shapes and shit.” He cringed, then looked at Eliza. “We never really established how much cussing we can do on camera. Should I try that with a little less potty mouth?”
She shook her head, a slight smile on her face. “We’re on streaming, and the motto from your channel was…well, I can’t say it.”
“Six fags and a fag hag fix your house.” Robinson said it in his low, quiet voice. Then he looked around and a large grin spread over his face. “What? We all know what it was.”
“I didn’t.” Quinn processed all that info as fast as he could, hopefully without showing anything on his face. If that meant they were all queer, all potentially into dudes…
Not helping my crush at all. Zero percent. Danger, danger, danger.
The butterflies suddenly exploding in his stomach didn’t take that warning seriously. They were overjoyed at the prospect.