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His gaze is fixed upon me, his dark eyes wide. He’s regarding me as if I’m a mermaid riding a dolphin bareback in an emerald sea—he’s positively starstruck.
I open my mouth, but not a single word forms.
These last five minutes have not gone how I’d imagined.
And Theo is positively delighted.
Chapter 2
Theo
November
I might have overpromised and underdelivered. A little. Not something I wanted to do. But in an effort to talk my boss, Allen Weatherby, into buying this building for the law firm, I might have been looking at it through rose-colored glasses, my excitement affecting my good judgment.
Amidst the chatter of workmen and hammers in the next room, I scuff my foot across the floorboards. Is this cloud of dust new from the remodel, or old dust from the years it sat vacant until Weatherby bought it this past summer?
From the smell of it, it’s old dust, but our replacement location has to be ready in a week. That’s when the new owners take over our old place.
The carpets still haven’t been installed. Which means the furniture isn’t in. Which means Weatherby isn’t happy.
Jay Knowles, his son-in-law and partner, is on a Caribbean cruise right now. Which also may have something to do with Weatherby’s passive-aggressiveness lately—he’s been filling in for Jay and is, therefore, busier than normal.
I sidestep around a bunch of paint rollers that were left here and make a mental note to ask the painters to pick them up. We’ve got to clear the floors for the carpet guys to come in and do their magic.
Why I’m Weatherby and Knowles’ makeshift construction manager is something I can only hazard a guess at. But when you work for a law firm in New Hedge, Colorado, population 9,000, you have to work where you’re needed. Especially when you’re the new guy. Even though it’s been three years, it feels like a title I’m never going to shake.
What? Someone needs to oversee the remodel of our new office?
Theo will do it.
There’s a case with the district prosecutor defending a guy who’s one hundred percent guilty and a scumbag?
Give it to Theo.
There’s only space for two offices on the main floor, so someone needs to take the cramped one upstairs?
Theo’s young and sprightly. He won’t mind sprinting up and down the narrow, creaky staircase multiple times a day.
Not that it’s terrible. The construction company has done a good job with the remodeling, and it’s going to be a whole lot better than our current location, which we recently discovered has a mold problem. It looks fantastic, and my new office even has a little balcony. You can’t beat the view of the New Hedge sunsets.
It’s odd being responsible for this remodel. It was my idea in the first place, but I have zero say in the details.
A strange juxtaposition.
I text Weatherby some updates on the progress and put in a couple of phone calls to schedule the movers over the weekend. I’m a positive guy, so in my texts to Weatherby, I mostly focus on how nice the reception desk looks,“like a hickory walnut utopia,”I tell him.
Just as long as it isn’t snowing the day we move in, we should be golden.
I take the stairs behind the reception desk two at a time to check out how things are looking up there. We’ve designated the upstairs as storage, my office, future offices, and a future rec room with a pool table and popcorn maker overlooking New Hedge.
That last bit was my idea since we all need to take some downtime once in a while. Weatherby and Jay plan to eventually bring on new attorneys, but the thought of the firm expanding has my head throbbing. I don’t want any new people until I can be sure I’m on Weatherby’s good side, solidifying myself as partner material.
But first, the grunt work. Which is why I’m here, enjoying the smell of fresh paint, which, fun fact, is a color called “Featherbed.” Deference to the grunt work is also why I try to be the first person in the office every morning and the last one to leave.
I move to the future rec room at the front of the building and open the blinds. The brittle plastic snaps in two as I pull on the string.
I add “new blinds upstairs” to the list on my phone of things to do before the weekend, and then gaze out over the landscape below.
