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I want some of that so bad…but getting drunk right now would be a very big, very bad mistake and I shake my head. Raiden shrugs, palms the two beers, and walks out the door, leaving me standing in the middle of what would have been, twenty years ago, a perfect project for Veronique Wess from Wess & Rover Renovations and Interiors to dig her veneered teeth into.
5
RAIDEN
I stack the wood for the fire with systematic, rhythmic precision. The Scouts would be proud. I alternate my stacking with swigs of beer and work my way through one chilled Budweiser in a minute. The routine movements order my thoughts and dilute the burn of a certain person’s palmprints on my pecs. As I sink back into my Adirondack facing Ashleigh Lake, I have to admit the situation sucks. Big time.
Never mind that I’m holed up in my shack with Miami here and her Louis Vuitton suitcase—and something tells me it isn’t a fake, either—but now my whole life and every dream I’ve had of late threatens to topple down like a game of Jenga, just because she pulled out one measly little block from my carefully constructed tower.
Georgiana Wess needs to leave tomorrow, make no mistake about that. I only have six weeks to build this tiny house. I’ve put way too much into designing and preparing for this to be distracted by a female who takes power tools in her stride. Just the idea makes me heat up in inappropriate places.
But that leaves me stranded without an intern.
No intern, no tiny house. No tiny house, no tiny house competition. No tiny house competition, no win, no loan, no money, no business. I’ll be digging other people’s holes, as Cash McGraw jokingly calls the basement excavations we do for new-builds, for the rest of my life.
Ugh.
I crack open the other beer and glance back at the boathouse, which is actually a very sturdy shack on closer inspection. The kitchen windows overlook the lake and both bedrooms have epic views over the water at different angles. It’s cramped, but for two guys who don’t give a hoot about whose shit stinks the most, it’s perfect. The ventilation is excellent when you open the bathroom window.
As for me, I’ve slept in worse places. I’ve slummed it on floors and on occasion under a bridge or two. I’m not fussy. For some folks, the boathouse is paradise. Georgiana Wess, with all her Miami class and style, has probably just landed in hell.
Best I turn up the heat.
I light the fire starter and make sure the kindling catches while I finish my second beer. The wood is good and dry and gets going without much prodding. It’s eerily quiet from the boathouse, given that there is a person inside, throwing her toys around.
My brain churns over the past few hours and I can’t get away from one uncomfortable conclusion. I’ve been a total ass to her. To blame her for what happened was a touch immature. I should have read those résumés back to front, and whatever explanation she gave in her cover letter, the misunderstanding wasn’t her fault.
Apologizing sucks but putting it off will only make everything worse.
There’re four more beers in the mini fridge and I might as well go fetch them with the meat and apologize in one go. I give the budding coals a last stir and then go back to the boathouse.
I stall in the kitchen. I could’ve told the twins that the drywall brand they used was a bad idea, but hey, they were on a budget. The twins are never here at the same time, and I bet neither Liam nor Ethan has figured out yet that they have a soundproofing issue.
Behind her closed bedroom door, Georgiana Wess is obviously on her phone, huffing in an agitated voice, trying to keep her voice down. “But Mel, the guy’s a total moron. Can you believe he misread that I’m a woman? It’s nuts. I don’t know what to do with that.”
There’s a pause as the other person gets in a word or two. I close my eyes as dread crashes through me. Those words hit me hard in places where I’m permanently bruised.
“And now he expects me to stay in this dump with him for six weeks? And he speaks like Yoda. What’s up with that? Awkward doesn’t even begin to describe it. Worst of all is, I’ve got nowhere else to go right now, not even home.”
The last thing I should do is eavesdrop on her private conversation, so I grab the rest of the beers from the fridge with the ribeye steaks I bought the day before, busying my hands so that my brain can stop flashing moron-moron-moron in neon pink at me. I snatch up the bag of Doritos from the cupboard and am heading out again when Georgiana laughs. For a second, I pause on the threshold, held back by some masochistic force that’s ingrained in human nature.
“I haven’t looked. I’ve been too flustered…yes…okay, okay. Listen, firstly he’s a sexist pig. Secondly, he might be hot as hell, but then the dumb ones always are. This girl needs brains too.”
A very long pause follows, and I conclude that those words sum me up perfectly, given my behavior since she walked into Hunter’s office.
“Oh, stop!” Georgiana gives a dry chuckle. “And for the record, hell will freeze over before that ever happens. I’ll never get to sleep with Raiden Logan because he’s sending me back to Miami tomorrow.”
With a suppressed groan, I drag myself back to the fire and chug down another beer with one long swig, trying to shrug off her comments.
The reasons for getting rid of Georgiana Wess have just multiplied. By tomorrow morning, I would have been over this shock and probably would have laughed at the situation before slinking off to work, blinders on to keep her out of my peripheral vision. But now, with those words… The guy’s a total moron. The dumb ones always are. This girl needs brains too.
Any chance Team Raiden and George had, she just flushed down into the boathouse’s septic tank.
Georgiana thinks I’m not giving her a chance with my threat to boot her back to Miami and all, but I would have given her all the chances in the world in the morning. After a good night’s rest and some mental adjustment to the situation, I could have dealt with anything.
I wanted to apologize to her minutes ago. Me, apologizing, with my way with words…
I can take a lot of crap from most people and let it wash off me, but the one thing I’ve stopped doing is giving people a chance when they don’t give me a chance too.
