Page 4 of Built to Last

I kicked myself mentally. It wasn’t common knowledge that Kyle lived in the RV he had parked down the street during the day and used as the office for his construction company. He drove it to an RV park and hooked it up at night, which he did because he chose to reinvest nearly all of the profits from his business into more projects, all with the hope of building his dream home once he had enough to afford it.

I told myself that sharing Kyle’s living arrangements wasn’t giving away secrets. It was me engaging in conversation with my employees. Conversation that was vastly different from the stilted, angsty, brief conversations I’d had with Kyle here and there over the last three months as I fought bittersweet memories and very real current attraction.

“I’ve got work to do,” I said, stepping away from the end of the counter instead of digging myself a deeper hole by falling for more leading questions. “So do you, by the look of things.”

I nodded to the door, where a group of students from the high school down the road had just wandered in on their lunch break, increasing the noise level in the café almost as much as the hammering that resumed on the other side of the office wall.

I was so ready for construction on the new shop to be over. I was ready for Kyle to pack up his RV and move on.

Or so I kept telling myself.

I rolled my shoulders as I headed into the office, shutting the door behind me so I could document the conversation with Casey and put the delivery on the schedule. My thoughts kept getting pulled back to what would happen once construction was done and Kyle moved on. I’d probably still see him once or twice a summer when our teams played each other, but that would be it. Even the stilted arguments would be in the past.

I hated living in the past, but these days, it seemed like that’s the closest I was going to get to the one man I’d ever dreamed of a future with.

CHAPTER 2

Kyle

Ihated walking away from Gilbert Meyers. Not just at the end of our weird half-argument interaction about the scheduling change, but every time I’d had to separate myself from him. The man got under my skin, and even though walking away was for both of our own goods, it never failed to leave me with a sense that I’d left my spine behind with him.

I’d left my spine back in the dorm room at Arcadia University where the two of us had first met, first laughed together, played ball together, had a beer together despite being underage, first gotten naked and horizontal together.

What a first that had been. First and last for a good four years, before I’d figure out Grinder and how to hook up without anyone in my life or on my crew finding out about it.

Yay for discretion, even if it didn’t feel like any sort of victory at all.

Walking away sucked, especially when it meant walking into a heap of other problems that I didn’t have the time or patience for.

“Hey, boss,” one of my crew heads, Darius, called out to me from just inside the shop, where they were installing the windows at last.

I paused on my way to my RV office, also my home on wheels, and waited for him to pick his way around the bundles of insulation, buckets of sealant, and packages of shims placed around the windows waiting to be fit into place, crossing my arms.

As soon as I recognized the gesture, I forced myself to drop my arms to my sides. Crossing your arms was defensive, and I had no reason to defend myself. None at all.

Unless you counted my interest in Gilbert Meyers, which felt like wearing a bright pink neon sign flashing “Gay! Gay! Gay!” over my head.

It’s just your imagination, I reminded myself. You’re not that obvious. You’re good at hiding.

That didn’t make me feel better.

“What’s up?” I asked Darius with as much false ease as I could muster once he’d edged around the protective barrier to join me. I gestured for him to walk with me to the RV, which was parked on the side street immediately behind the construction site.

“Not too much,” Darius said, matching his long, powerful stride to mine. Darius definitely worked out. He wasn't my type, aside from being absolutely straight, but I admired his physique all the same. “I just have a question about the schedule change.”

“Fire away,” I said, nodding to a couple other crew members, who were carrying drywall from the truck that had just delivered it into the nearly finished shop.

“The windows will be done by the end of the day,” Darius said, “so that will be out of the way, but I was supposed to help Robbie with the electrics. Now that that’s been pushed back, I was wondering if I could have Monday off so Denise and I can take the kids up to the Poconos for a long weekend.”

I fought off the pang of vague longing that kept hitting me more and more lately whenever my guys mentioned their families, particularly their kids. I’d never given much thought to kids and whether I would have any in my younger days, but thirty had come and gone, thirty-five was in the mail, and the idea of being a father was tickling my brain more often than not lately.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, smiling as we reached the RV. “You’ve been a champ putting in so much work over the summer when you could have ditched me for the family. Go enjoy your time.”

Darius laughed and clapped a big hand on my shoulder. “I would never ditch you, boss. You’re amazing to work for. I brag about you all the time.”

“Stop,” I teased him back with a smirk. “You’ll give me a big head.”

“Good bosses don’t grow on trees, you know,” he said before slapping my back again, then turning to rush back to the window installation.