Just One Night Together (Flatiron Five Fitness #3) - Deborah Cooke Page 0,61

had a lot on your plate. Of course, your first concern would be your mom, not us,” Ty acknowledged. “Is there anything we can do to help out?”

Damon nodded even though Ty couldn’t see him, knowing that Haley was the reason why he had an answer. “I’m going to organize a celebration of life.” It felt good just to say it out loud. “It would be great if someone from the team could come.”

“We’ll all be there,” Ty said, his tone warming. “Let us know the date and I’ll be sure Kyle and Theo know.”

“They can’t fly back from the coast just for that...”

“Yes, they can.” Ty interrupted him firmly. “We pull together, Damon. Some of us are closer than others, but I wish you’d believed you could talk to us about your mom. We haven’t been supportive of you in recent months and we’re going to make it up to you now.”

“You talked about it after I left,” Damon guessed.

“Of course, we did. It’s a team problem and the sooner it’s addressed, the better. What else can we do? Do you want to take some time off?”

“No. I need the routine of coming in.” Damon decided to make a joke to lighten the mood. “And if I miss my workouts, I’ll get fat.”

Ty scoffed. “I don’t think that’s going to happen very quickly.”

Damon frowned. “Actually, I might need some time. There’s a therapist in Boston I’d like to talk to again.”

“In Boston?” Ty echoed. “Sure. Let us know when you need the time.”

Damon thought about confiding more in Tyler, but it was all too fast. He’d been too private for too long. He had to work up to sharing more.

He had a better idea. He wanted to reassure Ty that he still wanted to be on the team, and there was one good way to do that. “Are you still at the club?”

“Still in the conference room,” Ty admitted. “Cassie’s here somewhere, too. Why?”

“Because I know we were supposed to talk about the model suites for the condos in the tower, and I did get some plans done. There’s a tube of drawings behind my desk. If you grabbed it, we could talk about it now.”

“Sounds like a great plan,” Ty said, then called to Cassie. Damon heard her say that she’d get the drawings, then closed his eyes to remember the designs. He could see them clearly and wanted to be sure he pointed out the details. He heard paper being unrolled and Cassie setting weights on the corners, then Ty caught his breath. “How’d you get all this done?”

“After we discussed it the last time, I just kept at it. It’s an interesting challenge.” Damon shook his head. “I did a lot of work at night.”

There was a moment’s pause and he heard Haley starting to chop vegetables. It sounded like she was singing under her breath, too. Just knowing she was close made him feel more centered.

For the first time in a very long time, Damon thought that things might be okay.

“Have you been getting any sleep?” Ty asked. “There’s a lot of work here.”

Damon almost laughed. “I pretty much forget what sleep is.” He then explained the order of the panels, and knew that Ty was spreading them out on the conference table. “The first two are more predictable, both in palette and layout. You can see there’s a studio apartment layout, then two one-bedroom plans.”

“The decor is all in white and dark grey, neutral and elegant,” Ty said. “Stainless appliances, dark floors, white tile, lots of light in these drawings.”

Damon could hear that Ty wasn’t amazed by them.

“Touch the sky at F5F,” Cassie contributed. “Very nice.”

“But kind of boring,” Damon said. “I wondered if we wanted to make more of a statement.” He cleared his throat. “You know, there’s an axiom, that in design there are three reactions: bad, good, and wow. Aiming for wow is the way to go.”

“I agree,” Cassie said.

“So, turn to the next three illustrations,” Damon invited. “These options are more expensive but I think they take it up a notch.”

“Oh yes,” Ty said with approval. “This is striking.”

“It’s got style,” Cassie said. “And would be easy to live with.”

Damon was encouraged. “I thought we could make the design more unique than the usual neutral palette. So that first option uses a warmer neutral for the light elements, like the wall paint and the fixtures. The floors and the counters are dark but with a cool undertone. I show it