Hunter has already done the biggest cut for me by reducing the résumés to a mere three. Imagine if I’d had to read and sift through two hundred of them. It’s a mental block I still have to overcome.
I trust my brother completely. If Hunter gave these three the go-ahead, then any one of these guys would be a perfect fit for the tiny house project.
I can work with anybody. Since I left Ashleigh Lake at sixteen, I’ve worked on enough building sites to deal with any and all types. It’s been colorful. I was pretty clueless when I started on Cash McGraw’s team, but in the past thirteen years, I’ve worked every job there is on a construction site. Everything from demolishing clogged-up toilets to laying the last roof tile. I’ve done it all. My hands are built for any type of work. My attitude is screwed on right. And hey, I don’t talk much, so most people don’t mind having me around.
I gather the papers in my hand and shuffle them twice. I’ve got to keep this fair, after all. One quick glance at the factory floor below to make sure nobody is watching, then, with one swoop of my arm, I toss the résumés in the air. Whoever lands on the desk will get the job.
For a moment, the pages fly up, then split apart and flutter as they swoop down. I laugh as only one résumé lands on the table. The other two hook over Hunter’s desk chair before they drop to the floor.
The résumé stares at me and I stare back at it, eyes tired. I will the letters to sit still. That first one’s a G. That much I can say for sure.
It has to be George Wess with the double s. I check the last two letters of the surname.
Yep. George it is.
There’s nothing left to do but to grab my car keys and cellphone and head back to Boston. I toss the other two résumés in the trash can, grab a handy envelope from Hunter’s stationary drawer, shove the paper in there, close the envelope and stride out of Hunter’s office with George in my hand.
Brittany is sitting at her PA desk outside Hunter’s office. “You’re leaving already?”
I nod and hand her envelope. “For Hunter.”
“Sure thing. He’s asked me to give it to Mandy in HR.” She takes the envelope and puts it to the side. “Are we going to see more of you over the summer then?” Brittany blinks at me with those pretty green eyes that are one of her best features.
Yeah. Small town ladies. Most ladies. They like a bad boy in the sack but none of them want to shack up long term. Brittany was still in elementary school when I left town, and I’m not taking her out of that box for anything. Not that it matters. I’m not shacking up with anybody either. Not even short term. “Maybe. Back to Boston I go.” I nod and with a wave head for the stairs.
“We should meet up for a round of pool at Sharky’s some time,” Brittany says.
“Still standing, that place?”
Brittany doesn’t blink at my weird way of talking. She’s used to me this way. “If you believe it!”
I shoot her a smile midstride and descend to the foyer that separates the administrative offices of Ashleigh Lake Dairy and Ice Cream from the factory. Women are always keen until they drill down into the whole layered package that is Raiden Logan. As for that, I stopped letting them dig a long time ago.
Brittany may play a mean game of pool, but the last thing I want is a woman to distract me from my tiny house project. Somehow all the experience I’ve built up working every possible job at McGraw’s Construction has dragged me up a hill to this vantage point. For the first time, I can see the life I could have if I do this right. All I want, after building McMansions for thirteen years, where every client strives to out-build, out-decorate, and out-spend their neighbor, is to build honest houses.
Small homes with big hearts. One that moves with you? Even better. That’s going to be my sole focus this summer.
2
GEORGIANA
I’m going to build a tiny house and make it picture perfect, even if it’s only for me. What I don’t understand is how that’s going to happen in a dairy, but I’ll know soon enough.
Flight out of Miami, change of planes with a layover, now forty minutes in the car so far, and only twenty more minutes to go until I’m at Ashleigh Lake Dairy and Ice Cream. All the correspondence for this summer gig has been through the dairy’s lovely HR team, but I’m still baffled as to how exactly this works.
The drive through the hills and valleys of Vermont is pure inspiration, but it doesn’t take my mind off the past forty-eight hours. Burning the last bridge between me and Mom wasn’t my brightest move yet. I pray that after a two-month hiatus from each other, the giant billowing smoke cloud I left behind will turn into a smoke signal. Come home. I understand why you had to go do your own thing. I’m not pissed off anymore! I understand where you’re coming from.
I love you.
That might be asking too much. It’s more likely to be If you ever pull that shit again…
I groan. Bad habits are hard to break, and Mom has the knack of getting her own way. It took me twenty-four years to finally have the will, the guts, and the voice to push back and say no to her.
She didn’t take it well.
Being kicked off Veronique Wess’s team isn’t the worst thing that can happen to me. It is after all what I wished for, deep down, otherwise I would never have applied for this internship and then prayed night and day that I’d get it.
I was bowled over when I got that email in my inbox. Applying was a very long shot. I still didn’t believe it was real and for that reason, I delayed telling her that I wouldn’t be working for Wess & Rover Interiors this summer. Instead, I’d be shipping my cheap labor up north to Vermont to build a tiny house.