Chapter Twenty-One
Grant let Tony handle planning their double date night, because he couldn’t even look at his phone without starting to get hard.
Who knew Ivy Weaver was such a menace?
Technically, Tony did, because he’d needed help crafting his flirty texts to her. He hadn’t been joking when he said she made him irrational. All semblance of regular adult flirting ability disappeared when faced with Ivy.
“What time did you tell them we’d meet?” Grant asked, unplugging the Shop-Vac.
“Six,” Tony answered, emptying a dustpan into their giant trash can. “If I’d known how long this was going to take, I’d have said seven.”
“Old houses are full of fun surprises.”
The project hadn’t even been on their schedule for the day, but when they finished at another site early because they’d had Piper helping them, Grant and Tony decided to get a head start on their next day’s work.
Tony wanted to spend time with Brad before he had to leave for the airport, and Grant was hoping he’d have a good, Ivy-shaped reason to spend the morning in bed.
Plus, the house was empty and the new owners weren’t moving in for several weeks.
They could fudge the timeline as they saw fit.
Grant looked down at his dust-covered clothes. “I’ve got time to go home and change, right?”
“You live downtown,” Tony reminded him. “It’s on the way.”
Grant lifted his arm and sniffed. “Do you think I need a shower or just another layer of deodorant?”
“If you have to ask, the answer is shower,” Tony said, but walked over anyway and sniffed his armpit. “You’re borderline. Could go either way, but a shower wouldn’t hurt.”
“Do you want me to sniff you?”
“Nah, I’ve got deodorant in my truck.” Tony smirked. “Plus, Brad likes me a little sweaty.”
Grant pretended to shudder, but he didn’t mean it. He’d never seen Tony act this way: distracted, smiley, happy. Every relationship of Tony’s he knew about started at night and ended by morning. So while he was excited for his best friend, there was a layer of anxiety about the potential fallout.
“Have you and Brad talked about where things are going?” Grant asked carefully, like he was handling a live grenade instead of asking a question.
Tony frowned, his mustache drooping. “Not really. Or…not at all. It’s just…” He took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. It stuck up. “He’s metropolitan and I’m Midwest. Why would he come back here when he can go to London or Paris on his days off?”
“Because you’re here,” Grant ventured, the words leaving his mouth with the same hope of a breath meant to blow out a birthday candle.
Because he needed it to be true, too.
He needed Ivy to pick Coeur-de-Lac over all the fantastic destinations at her fingertips.
He needed her to pick him.
Tony leaned against the studs of a wall they’d demoed and crossed his arms. “But what if I’m not enough compared to the Eiffel Tower?”
This was why Grant avoided these kinds of conversations.
Tony was giving voice to all his darkest, shadowy fears about his very new and very fragile relationship with Ivy.
What if he wasn’t enough compared to Paris?
What happened when she met a man who worshiped her and had more than one stamp in his passport?
“I’m kind of waiting for Brad to bring it up,” Tony continued. “I don’t want to be clingy.”
“Do you want to have a long-distance relationship?”
“No, but it might not be so bad. I could have a boyfriend but still watch Dragon Ball Z whenever I wanted without having to explain myself.”
Grant raised his eyebrows. “You haven’t told him you’re an anime fan?”
“No! He’s sophisticated. I want him well and truly in love with me before I tell him that Vegeta was my sexual awakening.”
The front door creaked as it opened and the thud-thud of boots being stomped free of snow once more for good measure echoed through the empty house. It was the Jaws theme music of Grant’s life. Tim walked into the gutted kitchen a moment later.
“What are you doing here, Dad?” Grant asked, going back to winding the power cord for the Shop-Vac like he wasn’t bothered that his dad had been visiting every one of his job sites.
Tim walked slowly through the decimated kitchen. “I was just surprised to see our trucks out front and wanted to know why you were here a day early.”
“We had some extra time today and wanted to get a jump on tomorrow,” Grant answered honestly.
“If you really wanted to get a jump on tomorrow, you’d start doing the framing,” Tim said, taking his tape measure off his belt.
“We don’t have the wood,” Grant pointed out. “We weren’t even supposed to start this job until tomorrow. We can’t start on the framing if we don’t have the materials.”
“But you’re already here.” Tim holstered the tape measure and pointed a finger at his son. “See, this is the problem with kids today. None of you want to work. You’re happy to show up, do the bare minimum, and go home.”
Grant’s temper rumbled like a volcano, and he fought to keep his voice even. “I don’t think putting in a full day’s work and then going to a second site a day in advance is doing the bare minimum.”
“There’s lots you can do without the wood. I’m here. Let’s get something done.”
“It’s late,” Grant ground out, noting that this ridiculous conversation was costing him precious minutes to get ready for his date with Ivy. “Mom’s probably wondering where you are.”
“Don’t change the subject. We’re talking about you.” Tim looked at the floor and tapped an errant nail with the toe of his boot. “Did a sloppy job cleaning up.”
That was like throwing vodka instead of water on smoldering embers.
“You know what—”
Tony stepped between Grant and his dad and took Tim by the arm, leading him down the hallway.
“Tim, I could really use your advice in the main bedroom. They want to expand the en suite and merge it with the closet, but when I look at it, I’m not sure.”
Grant paced around the kitchen, trying to cool off while Tony distracted his dad.
It was just another day, another dig, another misjudged insult dressed up as motivation.
This was nothing he hadn’t heard before, nothing he hadn’t been able to brush off.
But today it rubbed against his pride, and he couldn’t shake the anger.
“That’s a great idea, Tim,” Tony said loudly, warning Grant that they were coming back toward the front of the house. “I’ll have to try that.”
Tim stood in the entryway of the kitchen. “You haven’t cleaned up yet?”
Behind him, Tony looked at the ceiling like he was praying, even though he was an atheist.
“We could have been done fifteen minutes ago if you hadn’t shown up. Thanks to you, Tony’s into overtime.”
Tony’s eyes got wide, like he couldn’t believe his best friend had pushed him in front of the bus.
“It’s not a big deal—”
“It is a big deal. We take timekeeping seriously, right, Dad?” Grant raised his eyebrows, daring his dad to disagree. “The worst way to damage your reputation is to treat your employees badly.”
Tim’s jaw set into a hard line, and a vein popped out on his forehead. The last time Grant had seen that vein, the granite guys had just dropped a bathroom counter, damaging not only the counter but the vanity and the heated tile floor.
“Tony, make sure you adjust your time sheet,” he grumbled. “And you”—he leveled a finger at Grant—“had better get your act together.”
He slammed the door when he left. Grant didn’t even flinch.
“Are you good?” Tony asked cautiously after a few moments of tense silence.
Grant rolled his shoulders a few times to try and get them to loosen up. “Yeah, I’m good. Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to yell at me when I tell you that you ran out of time to shower.”
“Fuck!”