Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MILLER
I hadn’t expected this belt sander to actually work. I plugged it in more out of interest than expectation. But it’s doing a good job on this piece of pressure-treated pine that I found among a pile of old wood offcuts in the feed shed.
There’s quite the tool kit on this workbench in the back corner of the barn, behind the tractor and right under where I sleep. There were even some sandpaper belts with plenty of life in them. It all took some dusting off, but I thought I’d give it a try.
There’s a fine-looking old hand plane here too. Might use that to bevel the edges the old-fashioned way.
Is this all really necessary to replace the shed panel I noticed was missing?
Definitely not. But I can use it as a practice piece to test out all the skills I might have lost. It’s for an inconspicuous spot around the back that no one really walks by, so no one will ever notice that one short panel has routing, carving, pyrography, marquetry, and whatever else I can think of, in it.
Also, I learned years ago that when you’re woodworking you can’t think about anything else. So maybe this will distract my mind while I try to figure out what the hell happened last night, what the hell I’m doing here, and what the hell kind of person I am if this is what I’m doing.
If it hadn’t been for the window-opening donkey, I would have kissed Frankie.
And I’m pretty sure she would have kissed me back.
It’s not a giant ego that makes me think that. It was the taut anticipation in the air between us, the way it made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, my chest shudder, and my dick stiffen.
I’ve kissed women with way less than that going on between us. There’s actually usually nothing going on between us at all apart from the kissing. No connection, no meeting of minds, just an oh you’re attractive and not bad company, so we might as well kiss kind of thing.
In fact, now that I come to think about it in the cold light of day, I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like that crackle of whatever the hell was bouncing around the kitchen last night, rebounding off the walls and off Frankie and me.
Damn good thing Dave showed up when he did. Because if we had kissed, what kind of asshole would that make me?
The assholiest of assholes, that’s what kind.
And that’s why I felt so fucking awful when she told me about her grandma passing away.
It was such a personal moment that she chose to describe to me—except it wasn’t me she was telling.
It was Miller McSweeney, the nice investor guy who’s here for the love of the donkeys and the outdoors and making the world a better place by not concreting over it.
She was sharing such an intimate story with a pretend version of me. And it crossed my mind to come clean right then. But I’m a shitty coward and didn’t. So I can’t live with myself this morning.
Will making an overly elaborate, perfectly formed replacement panel for the shed make up for that? Of course not. But right now that’s all I can do to try to convince even myself that I’m not an asshole.
And it’s not working.
I’m so in my head about what a despicable fucking person I’m being and focusing so hard on the wood that it takes me a second to register the phone vibrating in my back pocket.
I turn off the sander and, while it grinds to a stop, wipe the sawdust off my hands on my pants and grab my phone.
It’s Prince Oliver, one of my three co-owners of the Boston Commoners soccer team.
“Hey, Ol.” The moment I met him, he asked that we drop his title, saying he wants to live as normal a life as possible.
“Hey, mate,” Oliver says. “Got a mo?”
“Sure.” I wander over to the window that has a clear view of the donkey paddocks on the right. The feed shed is to the left, with the house beyond it.
“Do you really think we should sell Schumann?” he asks.
“Shit.” My hand makes a slapping sound against my forehead. “Sorry. I totally forgot about the group texts.”
“Seriously?” Oliver scoffs. “I thought the only reason you’d ever not be the first person to reply to a Commoners’ message would be if you were dead.”
It’s true. Business things never slip my mind.
Particularly not to do with the club, which is my passion business rather than my fortune-making one.
If working my ass off to make millions in condos has been worth anything, it’s that it gave me the ability to buy one-quarter of the soccer club I’ve followed since I was a kid growing up in Roxbury.
“Yeah, I’ve been a bit…” I search for the words. “… not really myself.”
“Unwell?” Oliver asks.
“More…distracted.” I lift one foot onto the bench below the window and rest my elbow on my knee. “The offer for Schumann is good, right? I mean, it would make financial sense for us to take it.”
But I know for sure that the loss of our beloved captain who’s spent his entire career at the Commoners would not go down well with the fans. I mean, what am I if I’m not a Commoners fan first?
“Right.” Oliver sounds crestfallen. “That’s what Leo says too. That’s what both you dispassionate business guys say.”
“You’re such a softy.”
“Try telling that to the British press that thinks I’m”—a slight pause—“irresponsible, disrespectful, and self-indulgent.”
“Did you just read that from an article?”
“Yup.”
“You need to stop looking at that fucking crap.”
“Maybe.” He sighs like he’s just collapsed into the giant armchair in the corner of his Manhattan apartment.
“Anyway,” he continues, “Schumann kind of is the club. Does there not come a point where loyalty and feelings are more important than cash on a spreadsheet?”
I get where he’s coming from. Oliver’s a man who moved to the US and walked away from a whole royal life because he couldn’t take it anymore. He goes with his gut on things, rather than quantitative analysis.
“Of course I get it,” I say, watching Harley wander over to Petunia and nuzzle her ear a little.
She startles at first, but decides to stay and enjoy the attention.
“I never thought I’d not care if a venture didn’t make money, but with the Commoners I really don’t.
Has Chase told you what he thinks? He was noncommittal in the group chat. ”
“It’s so Chase to try to walk the middle line to keep everyone happy,” Oliver says. “I can’t figure out if he doesn’t mind either way or if he feels the same as me but doesn’t want to rock the boat.”
Chase Cooper, Hollywood heartthrob, acting genius, and, despite all that, somehow also the world’s nicest human. “Hah. That figures.”
Up ahead, a shiny black Escalade turns off the road and crunches up the gravel driveway. Who the hell around here drives one of those?
“I know you’re busy over there with your revenge land deal,” Oliver says. I’d given him a brief outline of my plan last night in a text conversation. “Which, just to be clear one more time, is a terrible, awful, nightmarish plan that would backfire so fucking hard if the woman finds out.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” I rub my temple. “But I don’t see how she would. No one here has a clue who I am.”
“Anyway, while you’re busy pretending to love donkeys…” He pauses to chuckle. “…which will never not be funny, might you have time for the four of us to have a video meeting in the next couple of days?”
The vehicle stops outside the house. This feels weird. Wrong. If I had hackles they’d be rising right now.
“Sure, yeah.” But I’m not really concentrating on what either Oliver or I are saying. “It might have to be in an evening, but I could probab—”
I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It’s like someone just fired a hot bolt into my chest. “Fuck me.”
“I’d rather not,” Oliver says. “Is that what we have to do to get a meeting with you these days?”
I’m so stunned by what’s before my eyes that I can’t even laugh at his joke. “I’ll call you back.”
Wade fucking Skinner slams the SUV door and strides toward the house.
A red tide of rage rises within me as my fist tightens around my phone. All I want to do is sprint over there, punch him right in his asshole face and tell him to fuck off.
But if he sees me, it would out me to Frankie and be game over.
Game over for her selling the land to me, and game over for any hope of actually kissing her. Which isn’t even remotely a priority right now and should absolutely not be what immediately flashed across my mind.
Before Skinner reaches the front door of the house, the rear kitchen door swings open and Frankie emerges.
Fuck, I’m too far away to hear what he’s saying to her. But it’s only seconds before the mud splashes around Frankie’s boots as she talks, so I guess he’s introduced himself and that’s immediately flipped her switch.
I don’t want to miss a single word of what’s being said in this heated conversation.
So, like a movie cop hunting a baddie, I sprint out of the barn toward the shed, which is a good twenty yards closer to the house, and seek cover down the side of it.
I get there just in time to catch Frankie saying, “…my property,” in such a way that the only words that could have preceded it are “Get off.”
“Calm down now, miss.” Skinner says in that slimy, patronizing tone he has that would explode even the most robust misogynist-o-meter.
I peer around the corner of the shed to see Frankie shove her hands into the pockets of her overalls and thrust her shoulders back. “I’ve told you we’re not interested. Now please leave.”
“There are a few things we haven’t chatted about yet, though,” Skinner says.
He turns in my direction and ambles toward me with that superior gait he has where he swings his legs nonchalantly between steps.
Thankfully his eyes are glued to the big barn ahead of him that I’ve just come from.
It gives me the crucial second I need to duck back around the corner of the shed.
My whole body is like a tightly coiled spring, desperate to leap out and confront him, but forced to hold myself back and stay out of view.