Her Dirty Builders (Men at Work #10) - Mika Lane Page 0,26
if I should bring it up.
Only one way to find out.
“You know, maybe we all can date her. We don’t know yet where Ty stands on things, but from watching the way he looks at her, I have a feeling he’s on the same page we are.”
Case nodded. “All of us date her, huh? Interesting idea. Could be hot. Very hot,” he said as a smile grew across his face.
I knew he was a wild man at heart. He just hadn’t had time lately to let his freak flag fly.
“You ever do anything like that?” he asked.
“Yeah. Back before I met Rosie’s mom. It was great. Super hot.”
He shrugged. “Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t have time for dating or anything like that.” He jumped up from behind his desk and closed his door softly.
It must not be easy working with your mother. No damn privacy.
He sat back down. “Dude, as soon as I finish my degree, I want to go for an MBA.”
Christ. From the frying pan into the fire.
“What about the company?” I asked, trying to sound as casual as I could.
And for good reason. I’d always hoped Case would make me a partner in the company. His father had mentioned it on more than one occasion and when he died, for a moment, my dream died with him. But Case needed me. McKinney construction needed me.
But I wasn’t going to bring it up. Yet. I needed Case to realize he could trust me to run the place when he wasn’t around—which sounded like it could be pretty frequently if he had graduate school plans.
It wasn’t like I had a ton of extra time to devote to the business myself. But I had my mother ready to help with Rosie any time I needed her. Thank god. The woman was a saint.
Case rose from his seat again. “Shall we head out? It’s time to get to the old Buckner place.”
I grabbed my backpack and led the way toward one of the company trucks.
“When are you going to stop calling it the Buckner place?” I asked once we were in the truck.
Case thought for a moment. “You’re right. I need to stop doing that. What should we call it, then?”
“For as long as she owns it, why don’t we call it the new Rutherford place?”
He laughed. “Works for me,” he said, pulling into traffic for the short ride to her place.
“Ty, you look seriously tired, my friend.”
Our resident woodworker gazed around the room, avoiding our eyes and started measuring a piece of trim.
A piece of trim he’d measured not two minutes earlier.
Case shot me a glance and winked. “Hey, Alden, I think after you and I left last night, Ty might have had… a little fun time with our friend Esme.”
No shit.
If we hadn’t been suspicious before, Ty had just confirmed everything.
He finally smiled and looked up at us. “Guilty as charged. But I don’t kiss and tell.” He put his hands on the tool belt hanging around his waist as if he were daring us to dig for details.
But that’s not what we were after.
Case nodded. “It’s all good, man. Alden and I were just talking about Esme this morning. Looks like we’re all interested.”
Ty’s eyebrows rose.
I got it. He wasn’t sure whether this was good news or bad.
He put his hands up like a stop sign. “Guys. I don’t mean to tread on anyone’s territory. If this is going to be an issue for our working together—or our friendship—just say the word. I’m not going to mess things up for a woman who just got her heart broken and is probably just trying to sow some wild oats anyway.”
“Esme’s intentions aside, that’s not the issue at all, Ty,” I said. “We have an idea we wanted to run past you.”
His eyebrows rose. “Lay it on me.”
“If Esme is down with it, how ’bout we all date her?”
He looked between the two of us before he spoke, like he was trying to assess how serious we were. “That’s… quite an idea. I guess we could… bring it up with her. Where do we start?”
Before we could answer, Ty did it for us. “I’ll tell you what. How ’bout everyone come over to my place tonight for dinner? It’ll probably just be take-out but I feel like celebrating.”
Case frowned. “It might be a little too early to start celebrating—”
But Ty cut him off. “I didn’t mean celebrating about Esme, although you never know. I have something else to