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I feel James pull my skirt down over my legs again. He gets up, sits on the bench next to me. He pulls my legs over his. I feel like I should say something, anything. But I can’t find my voice to say anything. Instead I lean forward and kiss him.
“You are stunning when you come,” he says, and I blush.
I’m furious at my body for blushing at that when his tongue was just inside me.
“Plus,” he says, with a smirk on his face, “I got you to beg.”
I make a face. “Well, that won’t happen again.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“Maybe.” I smile.
We sit together in silence, looking at the garden. I’m struck by how comfortable this is. I’m also struck by how much I enjoy it, just sitting here together relaxing.
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asks.
That’s a good question. I shrug, mulling it over. “I’m going to do the best I can, make the best impression I can. But that’s all I can do. Then it’s out of my hands.”
“Good attitude to have.”
I laugh. “Well, I’ve had a lot of rejections by now—it’s mostly self-preservation.”
“I’m sure you’ll be great,” he says.
We sit in silence again, and then we hear the front gate. My father is home.
“I guess that’s my cue.” He extricates himself from my legs, and leans over to kiss me. “In case I don’t see you before, I wish you the very best of luck.”
“Thanks.” I’m blushing again. Dammit.
He saunters away and there’s no way I’m not looking at his ass. I should go back inside. I should move away in case someone saw him walking away from this direction, but I don’t. I want to sit here for a while longer, keep the moment going as long as I can.
So I do.
11
Vera
The Harrison foundation’s office is in a glitzy part of L.A. filled with boutiques and high-end restaurants. I’m pleasantly surprised by the relaxed nature of their offices. They have many windows, and everything is filled with natural light.
The interview itself feels like it is speeding by, but I think it’s going well. The founder of the company, Rebecca Harrison, likes my work. As we get further into it, I realize that she is especially interested in my ELIH designs. The Harrison Foundation, in addition to their more high profile projects, does a significant amount of charity work.
When we’ve finished she asks if I’d like to visit one of their sites under construction. Of course I immediately accept. Seeing designs and concepts is one thing, seeing a building come into existence is a whole different ball game. The design we’re going to see is a new town center, surrounded by houses, stores, and apartments. While we make our way over there, Rebecca tells me more about their charity work—which is also tied to this project. “It’s hard,” Rebecca says. “You have to balance the cost of the pro-bono construction with projects that are profitable, but we do what we can. I’ve chosen for the time being to focus on people who have lost their homes—particularly veterans and their families who have lost their houses due to medical bills.”
“That’s great,” I say.
“I’d like to expand the criteria we use at some point, but we’re not at the place where we have the capital.” She glances over at me and smiles. “We’re not a juggernaut like your father’s company.”
I laugh, trying to hide my nervousness. “That’s really okay with me. I’m looking for something a bit smaller and more personal.”
“Well we certainly are that.” She turns off the main road. “Anyway, several of the homes under construction in this neighborhood are part of our charity initiative. We contract the work to people who specialize in low-income housing. They know how to stretch the money further than we do, and that allows me to take on a couple more charity projects every year. Every little bit counts when you’re helping families survive.”
We’re driving through the bones of a neighborhood now. The skeletons of houses rising here and there. Here on the edges of the neighborhood things are just getting started and it looks more like a wasteland than the suburbs, but I can already tell it will be a nice place to live. Deeper into the neighborhood the houses become more finished, closer to being livable.
Rebecca slows down and points to a house on the right. “This is one of our pro-bono houses.”
It’s a nicely designed house. The framework is for a two-story house, and it looks like the windows and doors have recently gone in and the siding is mostly completed. “Looks like it will be beautiful,” I say.
“I hope so.”
Just then, a construction worker comes around the house carrying several two-by-fours, and I have to keep my mouth from falling open. It’s James. James is working on this house.
My mind goes blank—why is he here? He works construction as well as landscaping? I mean…the fields are certainly compatible, but…
Everything inside of me tells me this doesn’t make sense, but I don’t have time to puzzle it out. We’re driving on and into the town center, which is a beautiful confection of textures and color, a subdued color scheme of greys and blues along with stone and glass. It looks finished—minus retailers in the storefronts.
“This is gorgeous,” I say.
“Thank you.” Rebecca pulls into a parking space in the vast empty lot. “We’re hoping to use this as a model and show towns the benefits of creating built-in communities. If successful, I’d like to think we’ll build them all over the country.” She walks me around the town center, and it’s impressive. In the back of my mind I’m still freaking out about James, but I force myself to focus—this is more important.
After a tour and some final questions on Rebecca’s part, we say our goodbyes. As I retrieve my bag and portfolio from her car, she asks, “Are you sure you don’t need a ride back to my office?”
“No, thank you,” I say. “I’ve got a family appointment, and I’m going to meet them. I’ll have someone pick me up. Thank you so much for showing me this. It’s lovely.” It’s sort of a lie, but a small one. I just know I can’t leave here yet.
She waves as she gets into her car. “We’ll be in touch.”
“I look forward to hearing from you.”
I watch her car until it disappears, and then start walking. I don’t call a cab yet, because I’m going to find out why James is here building a house for the place interviewing me. It seems too convenient to be purely coincidence, but then again…I’ve heard of stranger things.
It takes me maybe fifteen minutes to get back to the house—and by that time I’m wishing I’d brought different shoes. I hear the sound of a drill from inside, and wonder if I should just ask him about it when I see him tomorrow—No, if I don’t ask him now it’ll just burrow into my brain and drive me crazy before we even get to dinner tomorrow. And if there’s something he’s been keeping from me, maybe tomorrow is off the table. I realize that it’s just late afternoon, and wonder if he came here straight from my house.
I push open the door and see the first floor is mainly completed, though the finishing touches haven’t been added yet. The sound of work is coming from the back of the house, and I wander through it, looking for him. The house is well done, with clean lines and lots of open space.
Finally, I find him. He’s on a ladder installing a heavy iron and glass light fixture to the ceiling. I don’t want to startle him when he’s working with something so heavy and breakable, so I hang back, waiting until I see that it’s secure.
Finally, he releases his hold.
“James,” I say, and just like I thought he might, he jumps while scrambling to see who said his name.
There’s confusion on his face that’s quickly replaced by a genuine smile. “Hey there. What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” I say. “My interview was with The Harrison Foundation.”
He hops off the ladder and comes over, all smiles. “That’s great! You didn’t menti
on who it was with. How’d it go?” He kisses me, and I find myself pulling away.
“I didn’t know that you were a contractor.”
He raises an eyebrow at me, and his voice is playful. “You thought I made a living as a pool boy?”
“Caretaker,” I say, blood rushing to my face as I realize how ridiculous I sound. “You do this on the side?”
“I do that on the side,” he says. He takes off the work gloves he’s wearing and stretches. “I think I mentioned I’m filling in for one of your guys this week. I took it for the extra money.”
A bunch of little things click into place all of a sudden. “That’s how you made all those great suggestions on my design. How you knew that they would work. Why didn’t you tell me what you really do?”
He shrugs. “It never came up. I mean the way we met…we talked about you and your fight with your dad and what you wanted to do with your life. And after that—”
“I didn’t ask.” A surge of shame washes through me. I assumed because he was doing the job of a caretaker that that’s all he did—that that’s all he was qualified for. I didn’t ask because I assumed that I already knew the answer. And there are a hundred assumptions that line up behind my assumed answer that led me to those conclusions.
