Chapter Ten
Janene
“I need you to do this for me,” Madeline said. “I was on the phone with Potter for two hours last night.”
“What exactly is his problem?” I asked.
Madeline looked like she had seen better days. Potter was one of our older clients. He would call on us from time to time to renovate old houses he turned into business offices. This time he’d contracted us to help him turn an old industrial building into a set of lofts. This was new for him so every detail was worked and reworked a hundred times. He said he wanted modern but every time we brought a design to him, he’d complain about it being too modern. He’d gotten so frustrated with the last problem that he said he wouldn’t work with anyone except Madeline.
“The metal work we ordered for the floating stairs came in yesterday, of course he got into the materials and insists that it’s not what he wanted. He said he laid it all out and its wrong. I finally got him to calm down and give me a chance to come out there and look. He’s threatening to pull out and not pay off the contract. That would leave us with a huge bill and a lot of material we can’t use anywhere else.”
“Didn’t we custom design those pieces?”
“Exactly. He went with that illusion piece his grandson recommended. I think that’s why he can’t figure it out. If he pulls, we don’t have another project to use them on.”
“Yeah, I see your point. Well,” I was stalling, trying to think of a reason to have Armande take my place, but this was exactly the reason why she’d picked me to be second in command for this bid. “I don’t have anything pressing on my calendar today. I can do it but I figured you wanted to do it. This is your baby. We can always reschedule.”
“I need it done today. Especially if Potter pulls out, we’ll definitely need that contract. I trust you. Just take some pictures. Walk the property, make sure the ground feels the way the topography report says it’s supposed to.”
“Do you still want me to take Colby and Harlyn though? I can do this by myself.”
I hadn’t seen Harlyn since our conversation on Tuesday and I wasn’t quite ready to either. I had convinced myself that the energy between us that day was an enigma. I had not found myself attracted to my best friend’s twenty-five-year-old daughter. She had not placed her fingers inside the waistband of my pants. I just needed some space to grasp that the woman sitting in my office was not just any gorgeous woman, she was Renee’s daughter. I’d watched her grow up. This whole situation was nothing more than some sick cosmic fuck up.
And yet, I sat in my chair for hours after Harlyn left my office and thought of nothing more than how silky smooth —and inviting— Harlyn’s bare legs had looked in that pinstripe skirt. Every time she crossed and recrossed her legs, I went weak. But it was more than that. I had never seen her get as embarrassed as she did when she called Anabelle and Colby, Tweedledee and Tweedledum. There was this sweetness about her, like she felt guilty for poking fun at her coworkers. That was a side of her she rarely let show because she was always so serious.
“I want you to take them,” Madeline said. “I think it’s good for them to get the hands-on experience. I know they’re young and they probably think it’s dumb but there are just some things that reports can’t tell you.”
I knew I was going to regret it but I agreed. “As soon as they get in, we’ll take off. I take it you want pics of the mid-morning and late afternoon sunlight?”
“You remember?”
“How could I forget? You made me do it on every project we took on for the first two years we worked together.”
“And look at you now.”
I laughed as Madeline walked out of my office. I knew she had quite the fight ahead of her, with Potter, but I still preferred taking him on versus filling an entire day with activities that included Harlyn. It wasn’t so much the spending time with her, she was actually quite funny, it was the places my mind went every time I saw her. It was normal for me to go there any time I saw a woman I was attracted to. I could admit to having more in common with a horny teenage boy than a woman approaching her fifties but again, this was Harlyn. I kept reminding myself of that fact, this is Harlyn. Eventually my libido had to get the hint.
I had been contemplating whether or not to cancel the dinner date Renee had planned for us on Saturday. It was her turn to host which meant that most likely Harlyn was going to be joining us. I wasn’t sure I could keep Renee from figuring out what was going on in my head and I didn’t want to know what she’d do to me if she did figure it out. Fuck my life.
There was a knock on the door frame to my office. I looked up to find Harlyn herself. I dug my fingernails into my thigh to make sure I wasn’t making her up again. She was in a tight pair of skinny jeans, because of course she would be wearing those, and a crisp white, sleeveless, button-down blouse. Her hair was styled as neatly as it had been every day for the past two weeks and her eyes were sparkling against the white of her shirt. The top two buttons were undone, just as they always were, a touch of cleavage on display. She was definitely not the little girl I remembered riding her bike up and down Renee’s driveway. This woman was going to be the death of me.
“I just ran into Madeline and she said to come see you about today’s fieldtrip. Was it cancelled? I can run home and change if I need to.”
“No, I would never make you do that. You look great.” I bit the inside of my cheek hard to remind myself not to flirt. “We’re not canceling. I’m going to be your tour guide today instead of Madeline. She has to run out and pacify another client.”
“Oh,” she said.
I couldn’t tell if there was disappointment in her voice. I couldn’t tell because I was too busy noticing how good her hips looked in jeans. I was equal parts glad I had not tried to catch her because my hands would know exactly how those hips felt against my palms, and equal parts disappointed that I had not taken advantage of the situation so that I would know exactly how those hips felt against my palms.
My only hope to survive the day was that Harlyn had picked up on my creepy grandpa vibes and had decided to stay as far away from me as possible. This was absurd. She’d been standing in my doorway for all of two minutes and I had already lost all self-control.
“Is Colby here?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t go by the conference room. I came straight here to see you.”
She smiled and her green eyes sparkled. Dear god, this was definitely going to be a long day.
“We should find him and get going.”
She nodded and we did exactly as I’d said. We found Colby and then made our way out to the parking lot where my beat-up old Jeep sat. It had seen better days but it was also my prized possession. She had seen me through some of the roughest times in my life. Taken me out into the wilderness to be with my thoughts. Maybe that was the solution to my current predicament. A few days on my own. I made a mental note to plan something for the long Fourth of July weekend.
“You take the front,” Colby said as he climbed into the back of my jeep.
Harlyn looked in my direction as if she was waiting on my confirmation. “Doesn’t matter to me,” I said even though that was not the truth. It mattered. It definitely mattered that I was going to have to sit next to Harlyn for over an hour and not allow our shoulders, or arms to brush against each other. I was going to have to resist my natural instincts. I had never had a woman I was attracted to in my jeep without plans to make some sort of physical contact.
“I still have to drive,” I added.
We pulled up to the property intended for the new hospital. It was a mix of empty open space and wooded areas.
“Okay, so this is the deal,” I said to Harlyn and Colby. “Madeline wants you to get a feel for the property to help us with our design. What she expects is for you to pay close attention to the topography, as well as, what you see at eye level, what you could potentially see if you were three or more floors in the air, what you hear, and what you smell.”
“Isn’t that why we research the local businesses and surrounding areas? We can’t exactly walk out to examen every property we ever work with,” Colby said.
“True, but whenever you have the opportunity, you should.”
“This is half a day waisted on the commute alone,” he continued to argue.
Harlyn raised her eyebrows. She didn’t say anything but I was impressed by the fact that she was not in agreement with Colby. Most new architects would be. We had a myriad number of reports that we could run ourselves, or ask for from the client, to get an idea of what the location was like, but Madeline had been taught by one of the best architects in the state and she kept to those techniques as often as she could.
“It’s not half a day waisted, it’s an entire day researching,” I said. “This is only the beginning. When we’re done here, we’ll find a nice little place to have lunch and then we’ll come back and have a second look through the lens of the afternoon light. See if anything changes.”
“Does she do this for every local job?” Colby asked.
“We only work local and yes, as often as she can.” I clapped my hands together. “Okay, let’s start with what we see from the center of the property.” I handed each of the interns a notebook and marched them over the center of the clearing.
“I see a few businesses to the east but mostly office space. Several restaurants and a game room of some sort to the north, and trees and brush to the west and south,” Colby said.
“Harlyn? What do you hear?”
“Lots of traffic. The road on the north side of the property is a pretty busy stretch, not to mention the highway that’s behind the wooded area to the west. The south end is probably the quietest side because even though the buildings on the east side are office buildings, there is plenty of traffic coming and going through that area. We should find out what kind of businesses are in those spaces. Do they have a lot of big trucks coming and going and so on. It also looks like there are a few pieces of land for sale in that direction so there may be more construction to come over the next five to ten years.”
“Good. Colby, what do you smell?”
“Greasy fast food and car exhaust.”
“Alright, Harlyn, if we’re looking out of the window at the top of a four-story building, what would you expect to see?”
Harlyn closed her eyes which I thought was the complete opposite of what I was asking but it seemed to work for her. And for me. I had done well on the drive into town. Kept to myself, didn’t say a single flirtatious word, but now, she was in her element and she looked hotter than I’d ever seen before.
“I would see the highway and all of its traffic to the west. A glimpse of the foothills and Pikes Peak to the southwest. I would see parts of downtown to the south, more highway and traffic to the north and then a range of businesses and homes to the east.”
“Good. We want to keep all of this in mind as we start to develop our plans for a state-of-the-art facility. How can we take advantage of the positives and how do we downplay the negatives. Take a moment and jot down some notes, sketch out anything that stands out to you. Also consider the natural sunlight we have at this time of day. We’ll come back and see how much of it changes in the afternoon.”
“I can’t see how it would change,” Colby said.
“Most of it will stay the same, but there will be differences,” Harlyn said. “Like what parts of the mountains you see, where your shadows start to fall, which is important if this client wants ecofriendly and we want to pitch solar options. Time of day also changes traffic flow and noise levels. We have to decide where the best place is to put the emergency room bay for example, we don’t want to recommend something that would delay patient care because they’re stuck in traffic.”
“Exactly,” I said. I was impressed with the way Harlyn thought about the client. Of course, she’d been in this line of business for years already, but she was still so young, it seemed impossible that she had so much insight.
“Alright, now here’s the last part,” I said. “When you’re done making your notes, walk around, pay attention to the land itself. Slopes, hills, inclines, tree lines and so on. We will get a topography report but this helps you to visualize things better when we’re trying to imagine our design. We want to take advantage of the natural aspects of the property and not just immediately jump into excavation.”
We walked off in different directions. I was more with Colby than I had led on. I never felt the need to do a walk through but Madeline insisted and there were plenty of times when she was able to solve a problem with a design simply because she remembered something she’d seen that wasn’t in any of the reports we generated.
We’d only been roaming for about five minutes when all of our phones went off.
“It’s Madeline,” Harlyn said.
Madeline had sent out a mass text message to all RedPrint Design employees with an image attached. It was one of the railings for the Potter project.
Can’t figure it out. Need help ASAP
“Do you have an image of the original?” Harlyn asked from beside me.
I hadn’t even noticed that she’d made her way over to where I was standing. I started to look up but my eyes caught on the bit of cleavage that was visible at the front of her shirt. I quickly lowered my gaze back to my phone.
“Yeah, give me a sec. and I’ll pull it up.”
I scrolled through my email until I found a copy of the final design we’d sent to Potter.
“Yeah, it’s definitely not the same,” I said to Harlyn.
She stepped in closer to look at my phone and all I could think about was the heat of her arm pressed against mine.
Harlyn didn’t reply, she clicked on the photo in Madeline’s text, looked at my phone, then back at hers. She flipped her phone a few times and then started to mess with the image. She zoomed in and out and turned it vertically, then horizontally.
“Did Potter lay those materials out himself?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” I replied.
“He flipped it she said. It’s the right design, he just set it out wrong.”
I looked at Harlyn’s phone and the image she had edited was almost a perfect match to the original design.
“How did you figure that out? This design is really intricate.”
A large grin spread across Harlyn’s face. There was something about the way her eyes lit up when she smiled that way that caught my attention. Harlyn as a kid had never been very confident. She always second guessed herself even when she was the expert in a situation. This though, the way she took pride in her work, in her ability to solve Madeline’s problem, it was refreshing.
“What?” I asked when I noticed that she was staring at me.
She shook her head. “I just went back to the basics.” Harlyn stepped close again and zoomed in on the picture on her phone. “See these,” she pointed at what looked like absolutely nothing to me. “These are the predrilled holes that will be used to attach the steps to the railing. He has them at the top. I’m guessing he thought they were to hang the rails. They should be at the bottom. So, we have to start by flipping the piece.” She took my phone out of my hand and flipped the image upside down. “Then it is easier to see that the design is simply going in the wrong direction. If we flip it horizontally, that changes everything.” She flipped the image again and now it matched Madeline’s picture. “The stairs were intentionally designed to play a trick on your eye so changing the way you look at the railing, changes the end result as well. Sometimes it just takes a fresh set of eyes.”
I looked down at Harlyn who was just a few inches shorter than me, “I could kiss you right now.”
Harlyn’s eyes went wide. Her reaction was a bit of a hit to my ego and at the same time it was what I needed to remind me that she did not see me as kissable and that I should not be seeing her as kissable. Though the thought did draw my eyes to her lips and they sure did look kissable to me.
“I didn’t mean literally,” I added. “I just meant, you know, like the expression.”
“I knew that,” Harlyn said. There wasn’t a full-on blush because her face was already red from the intense morning sun, but it looked to me like she’d been just as embarrassed by my comment. “Because before we do any kissing,” her face split into a smile and I eagerly waited to see what she’d say next. “You should call Madeline and let her know that you figured it out.”
It took me a moment to realize what she meant because I was still focused on the possibility of a kiss.
“I think you should do the honor,” I finally said. “You figured it out and all because of a tiny screw hole. God, I miss my young eyes.”
Harlyn patted my shoulder. “It’s okay, I’m here now.” Her smile turned into a smirk and I honestly wanted to do nothing more than kiss it right off her face.