16. Charlie
SIXTEEN
CHARLIE
I spent the weekend with Abigail and Sophie, trying not to dread Monday. But Monday came just the same, and I found myself at the Monticello with Anderson on one side of me and a local contractor on the other.
I definitely did not think about the fact I’d almost kissed the man trying to wreck my town just a few days earlier. Nope. Didn’t cross my mind. Especially not when he walked in, all sun-bronzed skin and tousled hair. And not when our fingers brushed when I handed him my clipboard with the day’s activities on it. The thought of his hand pressing into my lower back and my breasts crushed against his chest didn’t enter my consciousness.
Instead, I focused on our new contractor. We’d have to move quickly to hire him. Vinnie Sanders had a good reputation in town and we didn’t have many choices.
“Since there are no structural problems, we’ll start with the rectification works to the emergency lighting and back stairs,” he told us, checking his notes. “How are you doing on the carpet and the sconces?”
“Still waiting on a quote for the carpet,” I replied. “Should come in today or tomorrow. The sconces are on order, due in two weeks.”
“I’ll line the electrician up for them,” he said, then whistled to his guys, waved them in, and got to work.
Feeling a little discomfort about the elephant in the room, I glanced over at the man on my left. He wore tan pants and a white button-down along with shiny brown shoes. Meeting my gaze, he arched his brows. A strange energy crackled between us, but all he said was, “I’m not sure nixing the cleaners from the budget was the right call.”
“It’s only a few preliminary tasks. The cleaners are still booked in for two days before we turn the place over to the event planners.”
“Remind me how you roped me into this again?”
“I used my feminine wiles,” I said, then felt my cheeks flush thinking about what had almost happened on Friday evening. Thank goodness for Albert.
I grabbed my bucket of cleaning supplies, expecting Sebastian to come up with an excuse to get out of here without actually doing any work. Instead, he followed me to the ticket booth and started unbuttoning his shirt.
I grabbed a scraper from my bucket and frowned at him. “What are you doing?”
“This is a six-hundred-dollar shirt.”
“I’m sorry. A six followed by two zeroes? You paid that much money for a shirt ?”
He pulled the shirt out of his pants and undid the last few buttons, revealing a white sleeveless undershirt. “I did,” he told me, flicking his eyes up to meet mine. “Clothes maketh the man, as they say.”
“Clothes maketh me broke, at that price,” I said, getting to work scraping the rock-hard gum stuck to the bottom of the ticket booth ledge.
“Says the woman who wore a certain pair of red-bottomed shoes to our first meeting.”
So he had noticed the shoes. I kept my attention on the scraping, but an infinitesimal thrill pierced my gut. I ignored it. “That’s different.”
“Uh-huh. I bet it is.”
“Where does one find a six-hundred-dollar shirt, anyway?” I asked, returning to the topic at hand. I looked up and caught sight of the flex of his shoulder muscle, that spot where it met with his triceps, and quickly glanced away.
Anderson snorted. “The shirt’s bespoke,” he explained, then flung it over the top of the door leading inside the ticket booth.
“What about your pants?” I asked before I could think better of it. “Are those bespoke too?”
“Why? You want me to take them off?”
I spluttered a denial, keeping my eyes glued to a piece of blackened gum, ignoring the way Anderson’s chuckle made my chest warm.
Sebastian started on the glass, digging out the crusty old silicone around its edges. We worked in silence for a while, until I leaned back on my heels and wiped the sweat off my brow.
“Tired already?” He scraped a piece of grayed silicone with the edge of a utility knife, all the bare skin he’d exposed glistening under the warm, twinkling lights of the chandelier.
I rolled my eyes and pretended I hadn’t been ogling him. “You try scraping off calcified gum.”
“Still think this place is worth saving, calcified gum and all?”
I got back to work. “Of course. You don’t?”
“Nope.”
My movements paused, and I glanced over at him. He was bent over a corner of the glass, a strand of hair falling over his forehead. His arm muscles tensed as he scraped at the hardened silicone, and I watched as his teeth dug into his bottom lip in concentration. Light from the lobby doors hit the broad planes of his face, and I found it hard to look away.
“You really hate this place, huh,” I said quietly.
He grunted as the silicone finally came free in a brownish-white strip. Tearing it off, he tossed it to the ground. “I don’t hate it. It’s just out of date.”
“So you don’t care about history at all?” I asked the question with as little judgment as I could, which was hard, because history was everything to me. It represented all the people who had come before. Collective memories of family, of joy. History made me feel grounded, like I belonged somewhere. Belonged here .
Sebastian sighed and pushed the hair off his forehead with his wrist. “I like history. When it’s in books and movies.”
I gave him a flat look. “Come on. You’ve never walked into an old church or cathedral, a big courthouse or a museum, and thought, wow. This has been standing for hundreds of years. Thousands of people have stood where I’m standing. It doesn’t make you feel connected to something bigger?”
He leaned against the ticket booth counter and considered my words. After a long pause, he shrugged. “Nope.”
Despite myself, a laugh slipped out of me. “I don’t believe you.”
His lips curled the slightest bit, and he got back to work. We scrubbed off crud and wiped windows, and when I made an unholy mess of the silicone caulk, he let out the first genuine laugh I heard from him all day.
“I could never get the hang of this when my dad tried to teach me,” I admitted.
“Here,” he said, taking the gun from me to show me how to create the perfect bead around the windows once more. “Silicone can sense your fear. The first house I bought had to be seventy percent caulk by the time I was done with it.”
“I’m surprised a big shot like you knows how to do this stuff. I would’ve thought you’d have minions to do your dirty work for you.”
“There’s a lack of minions in this town, unfortunately.”
I rolled my lips between my teeth to hide my smile.
By the end of the day, the ticket booth was buffed and cleaned and ready for a new coat of paint. The gold detailing on the top of the booth would have to be replaced, but that could be done. I added it to my ever-growing list of things to do.
By the time I got home, my body ached, but I felt good. And when I thought about spending the month waking up sore and groggy from all my hard work—and the man who would be by my side throughout it all—it didn’t feel like hard work at all.