Chapter 4
Gage
Friday night had made me think hard. I’d taken Cooper home—the snoring, slobbering mess he was—and dumped him right on the living room floor.
Mom had demanded help getting him to bed, but I’d turned around, gotten back in my truck, and left.
I shouldn’t have even picked him up from the bar, in fact.
If Cooper had woken up on the cold floor with a crick in his neck, he’d deserved it.
I’d mulled over Logan’s story the whole weekend. How he’d had to crash completely before he’d pulled himself from the toxic cycle. He was clearly a good man now. He held down a job—in a bar, no less—and was emotionally mature enough to give a stranger some much-needed advice.
God, if Cooper could do what Logan had done…I’d give my left pinky toe for that to happen. Sadly, me wishing for it wouldn’t make the outcome materialize.
However, following the advice Logan had given me might work. He’d walked a similar path. He knew what to do. If I was smart, I’d stick to his words.
I woke up on Monday feeling more at peace with my game plan and avowing to myself all over again I was not going to answer Cooper’s calls. Or my mother’s. I’d talk to them precisely once, to outline my new boundaries, and then let the chips fall where they may.
Me sacrificing myself for them, that stopped now.
I had a consult this morning with Cohen.
After our Monday morning meeting, we both hopped into my truck and headed over to the property.
Cohen sipped coffee while I drove. He looked unfairly perky, no trace of fatigue around his brown eyes.
His olive skin tone was darker than usual because of all the summer sun, and he had sun-kissed highlights in his dark brown hair.
I was seriously jealous. I had to visit a stylist to get highlights.
He was also thinking hard over there. “I know we all said we needed to expand and hire more crews, or freelancers, but we’ve had a fifty-fifty success rate.
We found those three—the handyman brothers, the fledgling construction company, and Bob.
But the framers were a complete wash, I’ll never hire that electrician again, and the one plumber still hasn’t shown up or even texted. ”
“We’re certainly weeding good out from the bad,” I said, letting out a sigh. “But the three we found are solid. Good workers, they keep to a schedule, and that’s all I really care about. With them on board, Riggs was actually okay with taking on another project.”
“We need to keep weeding through people, though, ’cause we’re growing faster than I expected. A lot of people have been burned by renovation companies. I think that’s why our reputation is spreading so fast, why so many are calling for estimates.”
“I mean, considering the fiasco I saw on Friday with the framing, makes sense.”
Riggs and Cohen had tackled said framing problem and basically threatened small claims court if the framers didn’t pay us for the wood.
It was a ton of wood, and most of it wasn’t reusable.
They’d tried demanding payment, which Riggs had shot down, and after threatening to file a lawsuit, they’d backed off.
Those guys needed to find another line of work if they were going to be so sloppy.
The foreman had to pay for our labor lost in fixing the issue, which he wasn’t happy about, but he also realized paying up was the better outcome for him. We could have gone after him harder than that. Trust was burned, though, and Cohen was not going to use him after this, either.
Anyway, the issue was resolved in my mind, and also not something I had to deal with. That was the beauty of having colleagues.
“So this project is by a bar owner, huh? Wanting his own building.” Cohen reviewed notes on his tablet and grunted. “I think the building he’s looking at is a smart choice. Great location.”
“He’s only moving a few doors down,” I pointed out as we passed the bar in question.
Blackbird was currently in the old Starbucks location, right on the corner, which made pedestrian traffic a win for sure.
Parking was a bitch, though, as he had a small parking lot tucked in next to the building. I spoke from experience.
I could see why the other building appealed, as it had a large parking lot and was a much shorter walk. A smart move all around, assuming he could do the renovations he wanted. We were coming to answer that very question.
I parked in the basically empty parking lot, getting out and picking up my toolkit. I didn’t have a ton in there, mostly my tablet so I could take notes, a measuring tape, and a flashlight, and Cohen grabbed my stepladder. I’d need it to access places. Maybe.
Two people waited by the front door, one of them being Melissa, a real estate agent I’d crossed paths with many times. She was a good sort, easy to work alongside, so I was happy to see her.
Standing beside her, to my surprise, was Logan.
Wait. Wait a damn minute. I knew Logan worked at Blackbird, but did he actually own it?
My first impression of Logan had been of a thoughtful man who just so happened to be sexy as fuck.
I didn’t know what it was about long hair and tattoos, but apparently I was a sucker for the bad boy look.
His hair flowed past his shoulders, an almost dirty blond color, and he had a neatly trimmed beard of the same shade.
I liked the look of him, the way he moved, the casually defined muscle decorated with gorgeous art I could see peeking out of shirtsleeves.
Throw this man on a motorcycle and I’d be on my knees sucking cock before the date ended. I definitely had a type. I had also stopped dating said type. All they did was talk sports and motorcycles, tended to work dead-end jobs, and were only good for sex.
Majority of the reason I’d stopped dating was because the kind of guy I was attracted to looks-wise never panned out well for me. I wanted an actual partner, not a boy toy.
Holy hell, if this man owned a bar at his age, he was in a whole different league. The help he’d given with Cooper, not to mention such sound advice, told me this man had his head on straight.
Shit, knowing my luck, he was straight as an arrow. Asher got a gay-for-you situation. Was it too much to hope it would happen for me, too? Pretty please? I’d make the appropriate sacrifices to the gay dating gods if someone told me what they were.
“Hello again.” Logan’s smile made my knees go weak.
His smile held a bit of mischief, and had I mentioned I was a sucker for the bad boy type?
Plus his brown eyes had flecks of green to them in this lighting, and I could stare into those for a while, no problem.
“What’s the opposite of long time no see? Short time, did see?”
I laughed and extended a hand. “Thanks again for the other night. Let me properly introduce myself this time. Gage Banachek, structural engineer with Gay 4 Renovations. This is my colleague, Cohen Woods, our contractor.”
This man’s hand was all calluses and strength, and I felt a fantasy building in my head of having those hands on me. Down. Down, boy. Do not go there, not when you’re in a professional meeting.
Logan and Cohen shook hands.
“Melissa, I know. Hi, Melissa.”
“Hi,” she said while smiling. “So, honestly, when Logan told me what he wanted to do with the building, I suggested you guys. I can’t think of better hands to place him in. You tell him the right words, we’ll close the deal today.”
“Hopefully I can say the right words, then. Now, from the intake I saw, you’re wanting to open up this whole bottom level into one big room, the exception being bathrooms in the back. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“And the second story, you want to half open so you’ve got a party room upstairs, but the other half will be office and storage, also correct?”
Logan nodded. “Also correct. I know this building has gone through many lives, but I’m hoping a lot of what I’m seeing were just additions and not structural.”
“You may be right, but that’s what I’m here for. Melissa, can you open the door for us?”
“It’s open, we were just waiting on you two.”
Melissa led the way inside. The building had sat empty for a few years now—and smelled that way—but it was mostly clean.
Dusty, which was to be expected. There wasn’t any furniture left inside, at least. Not much to clear out, which made demolition easier, for sure, and something I knew Cohen took note of.
I could tell the space had been renovated into apartments. There was a tiny foyer in the front, with stairs to my immediate left leading upstairs. Someone had put a dropped ceiling in this area, and I started praying. Maybe I could do this the easy way?
I opened the foyer door to look inside and found a narrow hallway beyond it that went about five feet in, just enough for two doors on the inside, facing each other. Then an interior wall I felt sure the two apartments had shared. And that dropped ceiling, still in place.
“Cohen.” I gestured for the stepladder. “I want to pop out one of these tiles and look around.”
“Sure.” He handed the stepladder to me even as he said to Logan, “These walls here look pretty surface level to me. They were clearly added on later, as this tile under our feet looks like the best of the fifties, and I’ll bet it runs under the wall.”
Looked that way to me, too, but I was most interested in how the beams ran. I opened the stepladder and climbed up, popping a ceiling tile out of the way as I went, then carefully eased up so my head could go past the tiles, my flashlight coming into play.
My survey only took a second and I cackled evilly. “Everyone, I have excellent news. The downstairs was originally one big room.”
Melissa cheered while Logan demanded, “Are you absolutely sure?”