Chapter 7 #2
Ty gave him an impressed look. “Exactly. Housing load structures are similar.” He started to draw another diagram. “With houses, the support beams are the upward load force, but they also have to distribute the load equally—”
“The load bearing has to support the force at the heaviest point through direct connection.”
Ty sat back. “That’s exactly right.”
I could see he was surprised at how quickly Lachlan understood.
“With the gravitational load and additional load of flooring, people, and their things, you have to distribute the load not only vertically but horizontally. That would be the joists in the floor, right?” Lachlan added his own drawing.
“It is. Airplanes have their own joists, if you will, but they’re metal support beams that support the load horizontally through the wings. The wind and pressure from it is the vertical support beam, if you will.”
“I didn’t realize houses were so technical,” Lachlan whispered in awe.
“I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. I have men who work for me that took years to learn those concepts. Heck, it took me years, and I grew up with my dad doing construction and teaching me every day.” Ty was so sincere Lachlan shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
He wasn’t used to someone, a man, praising him like that, which made pain shoot through my chest. Fucking Jeremy.
“There are several books at the school library you can check out on this type of engineering. I—Sorry, one second.” Ty pulled his cell phone out, typed quickly, and then put it away.
Less than a second later, my watch buzzed and I looked at the notification on the screen.
TY: I’d like to give him a couple of my engineering books, if that’s okay with you?
He asked my permission? I was so stunned by that I blurted out, “Of course.”
“Of course what, Mom?” Lachlan twisted in his seat to look at me.
Ty’s lips twitched in amusement.
Running my hand through Lachlan’s hair, I said, “Of course he’s picked this up fast. You’ve always been brilliant, my baby.”
Lachlan dropped his head back with a groan. “I’m not a baby, Mom! How many times do we need to go over this?”
“A million,” I teased him.
“I’m thirty and my mom still calls me her baby, bud. It’s like homework; it’s just something you have to accept and live with,” Ty added with a sardonic laugh.
“Moms are weird,” Lachlan grumbled.
“Thanks.” Honestly, where was the love? I’d only given birth to him.
“Maybe,” Ty conceded, and my mouth fell open. “But maybe your mom will let me give you a few of my engineering books, which I’m sure should earn her a few cool points, yes?”
Now, most kids would jump at that, but not mine. Instead, he gave me a once-over. “Well, she does cook real good, when she isn’t starving me.” He referred to the lunch situation today. “So I’m thinking five cool points if you say yes.”
“Only five?!” I exclaimed in mock outrage. “If I say yes, how about I get all the cool points?”
“Let’s not push it,” Lachlan admonished me, and Ty couldn’t contain it. He burst out laughing, a deep belly laugh that rumbled through the room and sank into me. I relaxed even more into my chair, the wood that had been previously digging into me no longer a bother.
Making sure I sounded put out, I told him, “Fine. I guess it would be okay for Ty to loan you some books,” earning an excited squeal from Lachlan and a sharp look from Ty that suggested loaning was not what he had in mind.
“—he never once overstepped or spoke to Lachlan like he was a nuisance.” Something Jeremy had done far too often. “He also made sure I approved him answering any of Lachlan’s more serious questions.”
“That’s…something,” Alex admitted.
Wasn’t it just?
“Anyway, he wrote down a whole bunch of websites I told Lachlan he could go and look at, and that was the end of all of Lachlan’s arguments. He’s happy to stay here. At least for now.”
“And how was the rest of the conversation with our wounded hammer slinger?”
“It was…” I didn’t even know. “Confusing.”
“If there are questions about the work, Aunt Edith can have someone out there tomorrow.”
“No, thanks!” I loved Alex’s great-aunt, who adopted me as her pseudo-great-niece, dearly, but I really didn’t want her mucking about more than I already knew she had.
“The issues and the contract were clear.” If Ty was patient with Lachlan, he was…
Was patient-er a word? For a writer you’d think I’d be able to describe how Ty was with me.
Gentle. Kind. Yes, patient. Understanding.
He never once made me feel stupid, didn’t over- or underexplain, made sure I understood everything about what was wrong and what had to happen.
He gave me options that still included me not working with him.
I slid my hand over his on the table, grateful Louise had to pop to her café, so we were alone. “I want you to work on my house. Did you scare me? Yes.”
His head fell when I said that, his shoulder stooping.
“But not because I thought you were going to hurt me. I—I don’t handle confrontation very well.
” I thought it only right I give him some of my confidence given how vulnerable he’d been today.
“Raised voices, anger, all of it sends me down a rabbit hole. And really, I was more afraid of what you were saying, of what it all meant, than you.”
Ty’s eyes sought mine. “I’m still sorry, Phoebe. I saw those issues and then—” He cut himself off and I had a feeling there was more.
For once, I was able to keep my mouth from running away with me with its questions.
“It won’t happen again.”
It was said with such conviction that on some level, a level where I didn’t really trust anyone after everything I’d been through, a small part of me told me I could trust that, if nothing else.
“I believe you,” I said softly, unaware my hand was still resting on top of his on the kitchen table.
We sat like that for a long moment, looking at each other in the silence of the kitchen. I felt the feeling that had hit me the first night I’d seen him thrum to life.
“Then Cady-Jo came in and we finished going over the contract.”
“Interesting.” Alex paused for a moment. “So you guys are going to stay there until the murder manor is no longer feeling stabby?”
“Pretty much.” It was strange. I didn’t feel the usual sense of claustrophobia that liked to choke me when I was staying around a lot of people. In some ways, Louise’s place felt comfortable, like home in a strange way. Familiar.
“So… how big is your bed?”
“What?” I frowned up at the ceiling. “It’s a queen. Why?”
The bedroom door flew open. “’Cause you get to be the big spoon!”