Her Dirty Builders (Men at Work #10) - Mika Lane Page 0,41

accepted them and moved on.

Is that even possible?

’Course, none of this would have happened without the guys.

I should write an article for City Scene about getting over your shit by having a fling with three guys who, by the way, were good friends and worked together. I could see it now.

Forget all your troubles and get laid at the same time.

Yeah, no.

As it was, I was still trying to figure out how to manage my asshole boss’s expectation that I was going to write some sort of tell-all about Ty and his family.

Francesca put a hand over mine. “I know it hasn’t been easy, sweetie,” she said, pushing a lock of hair out of my face.

I wanted to close my eyes and ask her to do that a hundred more times. That’s what growing up without a mom was like. The craving for one never ended.

“Do you remember much about my mom?”

She nodded slowly. “I do. And I think about her a lot. She was my best friend.”

Well, until she took off to Mexico with a surfer, leaving Dad holding the bag. And me.

“You look more like her every year.”

I took that as a compliment. Everyone always raved about what a beauty my mom was. On one hand it’s not easy hearing praise of a mother who takes off on you, but there it was.

“So how’s the house coming?”

Ah, the house. What was once an albatross was becoming a joy. I hadn’t seen that coming. I didn’t suppose anyone did.

“Well, it still needs tons more work, but I think we’re getting it to a point where we can sell it without taking a loss. Because you know, my dad loaned me the money for the down payment. I want to return to him at least what he gave me.”

Charli joined us in a sequined evening gown.

Was she fucking kidding?

“Yeah, how is the house?” she asked, turning in the three-fold mirror to see her butt.

“You know, I’m kind of getting to where I wish I could stay there, if you can believe it. I’ve developed quite an affection for the place.”

“That’s not the only thing she’s developed an affection for,” Charli said.

The stink eye I threw shut her right up.

“There’s this tiny room on the second floor, right next to the master bedroom. I think it might have been a nursery at one time.”

Charli’s mouth dropped open. “Oh. My. God. She’s talking about babies.”

Francesca shook her head. “Nothing wrong with that, Charli.”

“But, Mom, she hates kids. We both do. We’ve vowed to never have kids.”

Francesca laughed. “At your age, you are entitled to change your mind.”

Charli screwed up her face at me and huffed back to the dressing room.

Jesus. I had no idea I was incriminating myself just talking about a nursery. Fine.

I wouldn’t bring it up again.

Nor would I tell her how baby Rosie was more beautiful in person than in a photo on her father’s phone.

“Was that more painful than usual, or am I just PMSing?”

Matt looked around to make sure Adam was nowhere in the vicinity as we returned to our cubes. “I think that staff meeting was definitely an outlier. Something’s going on.”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

I didn’t like it when things were going on. They always rattled me into thinking my employment was coming to an end.

And since I’d started lying to Adam, I’d become more paranoid than ever.

Just before the morning’s meeting, he took me aside. I was certain he was going to ask me to do an update on next week’s staff retreat, but he had something else in mind.

“What’s up with the story about the Wells family?” he asked, his eyes laced with evil enthusiasm.

Fucker didn’t understand the meaning of the word no. It was like he just went deaf the moment I began pushing back on his stupid-ass idea and tried to explain how it wouldn’t work.

It was quite a skill, not hearing what you didn’t want to hear.

But this time I knew to stall. Buy myself some time. I had to figure out how to handle this, since there was no way he was going to back off.

“Um, yeah, Adam, I’ve um... started. Sure,” I lied.

I was a terrible liar.

But he wanted this so badly he either didn’t notice or didn’t care. His face lit up. “Oh great. This is going to be wonderful for the paper. When can I see a draft?”

Shit.

“Oh, I don’t have a draft for you yet. I’m still… interviewing people. You know, I had to sell the