22 - Lauren #2
“More than,” I answered. “I’m sure I want this.”
My choice of words signaled something to Brock. He didn’t return any innuendo with anything obvious, just held my gaze and gave me a slow, knowing smile. “Gotchya.”
Then he immediately jumped into foreman mode and I pulled my mind from the gutter. Breathe, Lauren. Now is not the time.
“Cal, do we have the plumbing rough-ins ready for those sinks, or am I sending Rafe for parts now?” he asked.
“Already installed them last week, Boss,” replied Callum.
Brock led the four of us into a restrategizing process that almost felt like old times again and soon enough we had a new game plan to focus on.
He would start with light-proofing and ventilation while Rafe was on the tear-outs and Callum got the electrical stuff and cabinetry sorted.
I would fall in wherever they needed a runner to make sure that not a single second was wasted.
When we were all clear on where we would start, the plan was put into motion.
The darkroom morphed into the new micro construction zone.
Over the next few hours I tried to make myself as useful as possible, bringing easy-to-eat snacks and water to each of the guys, helping them hold heavy beams that needed leveling, laying down heavy drop cloths and running out to get any last-minute tools from the hardware store.
When I made my lunch-time rounds, Callum took his deli sandwich from my hands with a grateful grin. “Thanks, darlin’. You’ve been keeping us going all day.”
“Only because I’m the reason you have to work this hard all day,” I replied, eying the freshly-installed red safelights.
“You say that like we’re doing you a favor.
You’re the one writing the checks, in case you forgot.
” Callum took a giant bite out of the sandwich and I handed him a bottle of Gatorade.
“But even if you weren’t…I do genuinely believe in what you’re doing.
Not just with the renovation thing, just… everything.”
“You were a big inspiration for my master plan, you know?” I said, ignoring the butterflies in my stomach. The soft look of affection on his face wasn’t helping. “So in a roundabout way, you’re complimenting yourself.”
“No, ma’am. That was all you,” he said, smiling over the rim of the bottle.
A loud bang from another room brought me back down to earth faster than I would’ve liked. I looked around. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
“I’m good for now. I’ll let you know if anything requires your expertise,” he replied playfully.
I snorted lightly and walked out, feeling his stare until I was no longer in view.
“Have a nice little chat?” Brock called over from the saw-station just outside. He was cutting and assembling three alternating pieces of black-painted wood. I puffed up my chest and walked over.
“Here,” I said simply, handing over his lunch. He nodded toward a small empty table and I placed his sandwich and drink on it before spinning back to face him. “What’re you doing?”
“Making a Z-fold,” he said, completely focused on the task at hand. “It’s to allow fresh air to circulate while trapping light. A fact I’m sure you’ll appreciate when you’re locking yourself in here for hundreds of hours at a time.”
His tone of voice and facial expression didn’t change but if I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was…teasing me? Was that something Brock Lawson was even capable of?
Maybe I was just kidding myself. I concentrated instead on what he was doing, genuinely interested. He was cutting slats and fitting them into a maze of sorts, and I could see the Z-shape he mentioned.
“How does this work exactly?” I asked.
“Basically, this box is going to allow air to pass through multiple ninety-degree angles. The black-painted interior is going to soak up light so that it can’t bounce around the corners and screw up your shots,” he said without skipping a beat.
I watched his hands and the clean lines he was working with. His attention to detail and the sheer skill required to get something like this right was impressive, even to a layperson. And honestly?
Kind of hot.
As a matter of fact, Brock had been pretty hot the entire day, barking orders in that matter-of-fact way of his. I was a fan of his work but not the effect it had on me. I thought I’d had him figured out but it seemed he wasn’t all that easy to read.
He glanced at me through the corner of his eye, his hands unceasing.
“Let me know if you need anything else,” I said quickly, needing to move out of his orbit.
“Thank you for everything you’ve been doing to help us out,” he said, turning his attention back to the maze box. “We wouldn’t be able to get this done without you.”
My mouth went dry and there was now a lump in my throat that I couldn’t swallow down. I nodded, walking away before I even knew where I was going. And when I realized where my feet were taking me, it was already too late and I almost collided with a still-somber Rafe.
His sullen aura was almost tangible. I knew even before opening my mouth to ask, that he wouldn’t tell me the truth and yet I tried anyway.
“Rafe?” I said.
He blinked, seemingly looking straight through me. He was carrying his sledgehammer again, probably on his way to tear through the masonry and make space for those vents Brock was working on.
“Everything okay, Lauren? Do you need something?” he asked and I couldn’t stand the distance in his voice.
I would give anything to experience his familiar snarky personality again. He was an asshole but that baseline meant he was really okay. This…this was a ghost of the man I met outside Stella’s.
My heart clenched, all of Callum’s levity and Brock’s intensity giving way to worry. “I’m good, I’m just…I just wanna check in with you. See how you’re doing now.”
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m sorry for my outburst the other day. I sorted my shit out, I swear. I have everything handled.”
Behind him, in the near distance, I saw Brock look up briefly from the saw-station.
He wasn’t glaring or trying to interrupt, just quietly observing.
Rafe gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes and walked away, leaving me standing there with more questions than answers and my bullshit-reader going crazy.
I didn’t believe that he had everything handled for even just a second.
But I let it go, doing my rounds every once in a while and the hours passed in a haze of sawdust, chalk, mechanical whining and hammer thuds. The guys worked harder than I’d ever seen them, determined to beat the deadline of nightfall and when the time came, they succeeded.
The darkroom was finished.
I’d snuck out earlier in the day to get their favorite drinks to celebrate—an Old Fashioned for Callum, a Mexican Lager for Rafe and some fresh limes to go with the tequila I still had left over from when Brock and I had last drank together.
Callum called me down to see the darkroom, evidently not aware that I already knew they’d finished it, and when the three dirt and sweat-covered men turned around to see me, their eyes went wide at the tray of drinks I had in my hands.
“You guys did such an amazing job that I thought we should celebrate,” I announced.
“Miss Lauren, how’d you know this was my favorite?” laughed Callum, taking the cocktail with such a look of genuine happiness that it instantly warmed me up inside.
“You mentioned it,” I said.
“Yeah. Once.” His eyes were practically sparkling. It was contagious, that sincerity of his, and it went down just like whiskey.
Brock regarded the Tequila Mule with suspicion. “These again,” he murmured.
I raised an eyebrow. “I’ll drink it if you don’t want to.”
“Never said I didn’t,” he replied, but he paused before taking his glass.
Instead, he wrapped a hand around the back of my neck and kissed me, right on the lips.
It wasn’t the intense, deep makeout type kiss we had when we made love, but it was intentional enough to leave me breathless and heated, a surprised gasp popping off my mouth when he pulled away.
Callum gave a low, long whistle.
A shadow of a smile danced across Brock’s face and he finally took his drink. I didn’t know what to say or how to react. This would’ve been the part when Rafe might’ve made some kind of smartass quip, but when I looked at him to see his reaction, his phone rang before I could read it.
He picked it up immediately. The call was brief and cold and didn’t last long enough for the rest of us to say or do anything before Rafe mumbled an excuse under his breath and grabbed his jacket and toolkit.
And then he was gone without so much as a proper goodbye, the slam of the door behind him echoing around the firehouse like a gong. The sound reverberated in the hollow pit of my stomach. Rafe may as well have dug that hole out himself.
I felt a comforting hand on my shoulder and I wasn’t sure who it belonged to.