Chapter 7
T he three contractors sat at the table in the break room at KBS, comparing notes about their day.
Small, tattered notebooks lay before Tomas and Vincent.
Carl used his cellphone. The older, experienced contractors tried to convince him that an old school, wire-bound notebook and a pencil, had a longer lifespan on a construction site, but Carl was determined to prove them wrong.
Vincent and Tomas recorded their job notes on paper first and then typed them into a computer file at a later time, but Carl wrote his notes in an email, which he then stored in the cloud.
Their age difference was not that great—a matter of a dozen years, but Tomas and Vincent had learned their trade in prison without access to smartphones and weren’t convinced that technology was always the best way to go.
Hilary, their boss, didn’t care which method was employed as long as detailed notes were kept on every job they did for KBS.
“Hey, you ready to go?” Vincent picked up his notebook and pencil when he spotted his wife at the door of the break room.
The slim, attractive woman shook her gray curls and held up a file folder. “Not quite. Iris forgot to sign a document. I’m stopping by Keeney Works to get her signature before heading home.”
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” It was close to six o’clock, and Vincent looked annoyed. He’d been telling Tomas and Carl about the time-sensitive meal he’d planned for dinner.
Tomas watched the interplay between the couple, happy for his best friend, knowing that was what he wanted.
A relationship. A wife. Someone to go home to.
Sensing Vincent’s frustration with the delay in his evening’s plans, Tomas said, “I’ll take care of that.
” He ignored the three sets of eyes staring at him.
He didn’t have to explain himself. “If I leave the file on your desk first thing in the morning, will that work?”
Hilary nodded and stepped forward to give Tomas the folder. “That would be great. I’ve flagged where she needs to sign.”
Vincent rose and clapped Tomas on the back. “Dude, I owe you.” He followed his wife out the door. They’d barely gone five steps before Hilary giggled.
Tomas narrowed his eyes at Carl, who smothered a grin and stared down at his phone.
He sat in his truck, rubbing his hands up and down his thighs.
He pulled down the visor and checked himself in the mirror.
No food in his teeth, he’d need to shave sometime soon, but he looked okay.
He made a face. Why is this so damn hard?
She’d apologized for not calling. Before yesterday’s meeting, he’d caught her staring at him. She was interested. Right?
The meeting itself made him hopeful that there was a way for him to get to school, to be able to study architecture.
He wasn’t stupid. If he were to expose his learning disability, accommodations would be made.
But that felt like…cheating. He had to do this like everyone else.
But a scholarship…that would mean he could go to school exclusively, not struggle through work and school at the same time.
College wasn’t something he’d ever aspired to.
After squeaking through high school, he’d gotten one job after another until discovering he liked building things, so construction it was.
He had a boss he liked and who liked him, and had made him a crew boss shortly before Tomas went to jail.
As shitty as that was, jail had led him to where he was now.
Sitting in a KBS truck, trying to get up the courage to go into Fiona’s office.
He knew that she knew some of his history, but all of it? If she did, what would she think of him? She was brilliant. An MBA, head of a non-profit. He’d never met a person so smart and so…sexy.
Wrong word. Fiona didn’t ooze sex like his former girlfriend, Gloriana, who made old men drool when she walked past. No, Fiona’s small, feminine form encased in prim clothing was a package he wanted to unwrap.
He remembered the night of the kiss. Fiona, drunk, barefoot, hair wild about her shoulders.
He wanted to be the man who got to see that woman again.
Would she let him? Not if she found out he was lying to her.
Was he lying to her, though? Not exactly.
Just…withholding information. He’d have to tell her eventually that he was the other student.
But not right now. Now was a chance to get to know each other.
This was the perfect opportunity to start fresh.
He’d knock on her door, casually ask her to go for coffee sometime, get the signature from Iris, and get out of there. Piece of cake.
He climbed out of the truck, grabbed the file, and strode across the parking lot. Pulling open the door to Keeney Works, he smiled at the receptionist, pleased that she was the same one he’d met before. “Hi. I need to get a signature from Iris.”
The woman reached for the telephone. “I’ll have her come out for you.”
“No need. I helped her move into her office. I know the way.”
Before the receptionist could protest, he smiled again and walked quickly to the hallway leading to the back offices. Rounding the corner, he stuttered to a halt. Fiona’s office door was closed.
An hour later, Tomas sat in his truck, the signed document in its folder beside him.
The job was done, but it wasn’t exactly mission accomplished.
Sitting in Iris’s office while she chattered away at him, Tomas had angled his chair to watch the closed door across the hallway.
When it finally opened, two people left, and he had a view of Fiona at her desk.
Scowling intently at her laptop, she hadn’t seen him.
He waited impatiently while Iris searched for her glasses, located a working pen, and signed the paper.
Folder in hand, he turned to the door to see the back of Fiona’s head.
She’d turned her chair around, deeply engrossed in a phone conversation.
Unwilling to interrupt, he left, and now, he was sitting in his truck, mentally kicking himself for being a coward.
The ball was in his court, and he hadn’t dropped it, he’d run away from it.
But dammit, he was gonna go after it. When Fiona emerged from the building, he pulled the keys from the ignition and opened the door of the truck.
Motion from the other side of the parking lot halted him.
A man climbed out of a late-model sports car and approached Fiona.
Glued to the seat of the truck, Tomas watched the man pick Fiona up and spin her around.
When she wrapped her arms around his neck, threw her head back and laughed, Tomas took that as his cue to leave.
“ P ut me down! Joseph, I mean it.”
Grinning, Joseph Han lowered his sister to the ground. “Is hugging your brother in public too undignified for the executive director of Keeney Works?”
Fiona narrowed her eyes and smacked him on the arm, thrilled to see him but annoyed at the mess he’d made of her outfit. She dropped her bag to the ground, tucked in her blouse, and smoothed her hair back into place. “You are such a pain.”
“Yes, but you love me.” His grin was unrepentant as he picked up her tote bag. “Where do you want to go to dinner?”
“How about following me back to my place? If you don’t like what I have in the fridge, we can order in.” Joseph would be the first guest in her new home, and she was eager to show it off. The first place that she had ever decorated solely for herself.
“Sounds good. Do you want me to pick up drinks?” He opened the passenger door of her car, placing the bag on the floor.
“I’ve got white wine. If you want something else you’ll have to get it yourself.” She climbed into the driver’s seat and buckled the seat belt.
“I’ll get some beer. I have your address so I’ll meet you there.” Joseph closed the car door and turned toward his own vehicle.
With a wave and a smile Fiona exited the parking lot and headed home.
Home was the upper level of a two-story house that had been converted into two apartments.
Iris lived in the lower apartment. The house was at the end of a long driveway on a quiet street.
The large yard, surrounded by a mix of conifers and deciduous trees, was quiet and private, but enough sunlight came through so that if Fiona wanted to sunbathe in the nude—not that she wanted to—she could do so.
Fiona parked her car on the left side of the driveway, leaving the center open for Iris to get in and out of the detached garage.
The right side of the driveway was available for additional parking, reserved for another tenant.
At the back of the property stood a tiny house.
Originally a garden shed, Vincent Ortiz had renovated it after completing the renovations to the main house.
The pretty, little, tiny house now stood vacant while Iris took her time finding the perfect tenant.
Fiona climbed the stairs leading to the upper deck and the apartment’s French doors.
She smiled in appreciation of the freshly mowed lawn and the abundance of flowering shrubs edging the property.
The upper deck contained a wooden outdoor table and seating that had been built by Darryl, Iris’s dead husband.
The table had become Fiona’s favorite place to have her morning coffee as well as a glass of wine in the evening. At times, Iris would join her.
Both women had been wounded by Eddie, a self-centered, entitled man-child presently serving time for embezzling from his mother and attempting to lay the blame on Fiona.
Eddie’s path of destruction was wide. Considering what he’d done to Vincent, it was a testament to the strength of the bond between Iris and Marcia that their friendship hadn’t disintegrated.