6. Blair
SIX
BLAIR
I left Atlanta at seven-fifteen.
That was earlier than necessary. The drive to Jacksonville ran just under six hours, which put me at the house by early afternoon — well ahead of the three o'clock I'd told Marcus I'd arrive.
But the plans had been on the drafting table since Monday, and by Wednesday morning I'd looked at them enough times that staying in the studio felt less like preparation and more like delay.
Emma had noticed.
'You're leaving before eight,' she'd said, from her desk, not looking up from her screen. It wasn't a question.
'I want to see the space in the afternoon light.'
'The consultation isn't until three.'
'The light starts doing its thing around two.' I picked up my bag. 'I'll confirm the Buckhead timeline from the road.'
She'd looked up then, with the specific expression she used when she had more to say and was deciding whether it was worth the conversation. She'd decided it wasn't. 'Drive safe,' she'd said, and gone back to her screen.
I'd been in the car before the coffee finished brewing.
—
The drive south on I-75 had its own rhythm — the city giving way to suburbs giving way to the long stretches of Georgia interstate where the road was the only thing and your brain either settled into the distance or found something to chew on. Mine found the Buckhead slab delay.
I called Hendricks at eight-forty, somewhere around Macon.
'The new estimate is Thursday,' he said. 'Possibly Friday.'
'Friday makes the installation window very tight.'
'I know that.'
'If we miss the installation window we push the completion date by ten days minimum.'
'I know that too.' A pause that communicated he was aware of the situation and had limited control over it. 'The quarry is running behind. It's not?—'
'I need it Thursday, Hendricks. Not Friday. Thursday.'
Another pause. 'I'll see what I can do.'
That was usually enough. Hendricks was good at his job and he knew I knew the difference between an actual obstacle and a scheduling inconvenience.
I hung up and made a note to follow up at noon and moved to the Midtown issue, which was the countertop question the clients still hadn't resolved despite having reviewed three rounds of comparative renders.
The Calacatta was correct. It had been correct in January when I'd specified it, and it was correct now, and at some point the clients would understand that the decision they were avoiding making was the same decision I'd already made on their behalf and they simply needed to confirm it.
I sent Emma a message asking her to schedule a call for Friday and left the Midtown situation where it was.
By Valdosta the work had settled into the background where it belonged and the drive became the drive — the flat expanse of south Georgia, the sky wider than Atlanta allowed it to be, the particular quality of light that arrived when you got far enough from a city that the horizon reasserted itself.
I drove and thought about the kitchen.
Not the Buckhead kitchen, which was currently being delayed by a quarry in Vermont. The Jacksonville kitchen. The one I'd been sketching solutions for since Monday evening, the one I'd been seeing in my head every time I looked at the architectural plans spread across the north drafting table.
The island had to move. That was fixed. Everything else followed from that — the traffic pattern, the prep area expansion, the lighting correction that would stop the afternoon shadow from eating half the counter.
I'd done the sketch three different ways and arrived at the same answer each time, which meant the answer was probably right.
I'd know for certain once I was standing in the room.
That was the thing about plans. They told you what was supposed to happen. The room told you what was actually happening.
—
Jacksonville announced itself gradually.
The landscape shifted first — the terrain flattening further, the vegetation changing, the air quality shifting through the car vents in a way that was noticeable before the city itself appeared.
Then the signs. Then the water, glimpsed between overpasses and commercial strips, the St. Johns River appearing and disappearing as the highway moved through the city's edges.
I'd been to Jacksonville once before this project — a site visit for a project that hadn't materialized, a developer who'd had ideas about a riverfront renovation that hadn't survived the budget conversation.
I remembered the city as larger than it looked on a map and more interesting than its reputation suggested.
Water in every direction. Architecture that ranged from the generic to the genuinely considered.
A downtown that was still figuring out what it wanted to be.
The Admirals had apparently helped with that.
The billboards were everywhere — players in dark jerseys, the franchise branding integrated into the city's visual landscape with the specificity of something that had taken root rather than just arrived.
Rachel had mentioned the team twice on the drive from the airport the previous weekend.
The city seemed to know it had something.
I followed the GPS south from the highway, toward the waterfront address Natalie had sent.
The streets changed as I got closer to the property — the neighborhoods older in some places, newer in others, the waterfront development visible ahead in the cleaner lines and more deliberate architecture of recent construction.
Larger lots. More glass. The particular look of buildings that had been designed by someone who understood what the water-facing site required rather than simply taking advantage of the view.
I turned onto the street.
And then I saw the house.
—
I slowed without meaning to.
The exterior was better than the photographs, which was not always the case.
Photography flattened proportions, compressed depth, turned three-dimensional spatial relationships into two-dimensional representations that often undersold the thing they were supposed to document.
Good architecture suffered especially — the experience of a well-designed building was inseparable from being inside the spatial relationships it created, and no photograph could replicate that.
This building was doing several things correctly from the outside alone.
The water-facing elevation was the full statement — glass from grade to roofline on the river side, the deck extending out over the bank at the far end, the roofline's horizontal line sitting against the sky with the particular confidence of something that knew exactly what it was.
The window placement was right for the solar orientation.
The deck was positioned to capture the view from multiple angles rather than a single fixed point.
The landscaping was minimal in a way that suggested decision rather than neglect.
The architect had understood the site.
I pulled to the curb and sat for a moment, looking at it.
Some buildings deserved serious attention and some didn't. The difference was whether the structure had an intention the interior work could serve or contradict. This one had an intention. I could see it from the street.
That was going to make the work interesting — and demanding. A building this clear about what it wanted to be had no patience for an interior that ignored it.
I got out of the car.
The smell of coffee drifted from somewhere near the deck.
—
He was at the railing when I came up the front path.
I'd seen him before I'd processed the recognition — tall, dark shirt, the posture of someone who'd been standing in that spot for a while and was comfortable with it. He was looking at the water. He hadn't heard the car.
I kept walking and let myself look at the house.
The entry approach was good. The path brought you in at a slight angle to the main facade, which meant your first full view of the water-facing elevation arrived as you turned toward the door rather than hitting you immediately — a sequencing choice that built anticipation rather than delivering the view all at once.
Someone had thought about how the approach felt, not just how it looked from the street.
I was making a note when he turned.
The man at the railing was looking at me now. He was exactly where he belonged in the frame.
A brief read — I'd been read by clients before, the quick assessment of whether I was what they'd expected, whether the person Natalie had sent matched the professional context they'd been given.
His expression didn't show much of the assessment.
He stepped back from the railing and came around toward the entry.
He was the athletic build I'd registered at the Driftwood, I realized.
The height. The way he moved through the space without negotiating it, the particular ease of someone whose body was accustomed to operating in demanding environments.
Hockey player, Natalie had said. I'd understood it abstractly.
Standing in front of the house, watching him come around the deck, I understood it more concretely.
Something tugged at the back of my memory. Not recognition — just the faint, unresolvable sense that I'd seen this particular configuration of posture and stillness somewhere before.
I let it go. I had a house to look at.
'Can I help you?' he said.
'I'm looking for the owner.'
He stopped at the bottom of the deck steps. 'You found him.'
A beat. Then: 'Blair Collins. Natalie Lockwood sent me.'
Something shifted in his expression — not surprise, but the specific recalibration of someone receiving information they'd been expecting and were now integrating with the actual person in front of them rather than the abstract version they'd prepared for.
'Right,' he said. 'Come around.'
—
He held the front door and I stepped inside.
He was taller than she'd registered from across the bar. Broad. Moved like he knew exactly how much space he took up.