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Spencer and Cat’s favorite bar was on the far side of town, where none of the tourists on North Street would ever find it. A small contingent of the younger residents of Pittsfield had claimed the block, and there were a few trendy places popping up. Not that the bar was trendy, per se. It was going for more of a classic-hometown-pub vibe but in a deliberate way. Everything was covered in brown leather and dark wood, and the walls were filled with Berkshire memorabilia that bordered on the ironic—landscapes ripe for leaf-peeping, snowshoes, and old Jacob’s Pillow posters. Spencer met Cat in their regular booth.

When they had active projects, Spencer would usually drop by worksites at least once a day, checking in and making sure Cat didn’t need him to make any decisions that were holding up construction. But when he was pitching new projects, he found himself busier with the structural engineer, making sure he had accurate floor plans of spaces and that nothing he wanted to do was going to cause the building to come crumbling down. He liked to send prospective clients his proposals as quickly as possible so they didn’t lose interest after meeting with him. This was the first time he’d seen Cat all week, which was fairly unusual.

“So how’d the walk-through at Brown Street go?”

Cat had been scrolling on her phone to occupy herself before Spencer showed up, and she put it face down on the table as he slid into his seat.

Spencer flipped through the slightly sticky laminated pages of the menu like they didn’t order the same thing every time. “It was . . . strange.”

When he had gone back with the structural engineer, Ian had spent most of the time looking at his phone or fidgeting with something in the pocket of yet another pair of chinos. In case Spencer had thought he’d imagined how weird their first meeting was, that had confirmed that it hadn’t all just been in his head.

Cat scrunched up her face in concern. They’d spent enough time together that Cat’s looks were just as evocative to him as words at this point. “Strange like that time that guy wanted you to turn all the bedrooms into hot tub rooms? Or strange like that time that woman wanted you to fuck her in the pantry?”

Both of those times had been plenty strange. “Like—”

“Hey, guys.”

“Hey, Marty,”

they said in unison. Marty was their server more often than not, which Spencer liked because Marty was good at his job and because they had a low-key flirting thing going on that was fun without being in any way serious.

“What can I get ya?”

Marty asked, knowing the answer would only change if hell froze over. He smiled pleasantly at both of them, though maybe a little bit more at Spencer.

Spencer and Cat had a conversation with their eyes. “The usual,”

Cat said aloud.

“Be right back.”

Marty headed toward the bar, and Spencer might have let his eyes linger a little as he walked away. He was almost positive Marty slowed down a bit for his benefit. His work uniform was a white T-shirt and jeans that both fit his short, thick body perfectly, and Spencer never leered, but he always appreciated it. Too bad it was so much easier to fuck men he’d never see again.

“You were saying?”

Cat said, drawing him away from his pleasant diversion. She was smirking at him, and he knew it was because she knew what he’d been doing.

“I don’t know. He seemed . . . jumpy.”

Spencer tapped his fingers against the tabletop for something to do with his hands.

“Like murderer jumpy?”

He leveled a glare at her. He was actively trying to avoid murders in old buildings. He wasn’t entirely sure Cat wasn’t angling for one. “No. Like unsure he should be in the house.”

Cat sat back against the booth and fiddled with the little paper tab that kept her silverware rolled up in the napkin. “Are you sure he owns the house?”

Honestly, they’d seen way weirder things.

“City records say he does. I don’t think it’s a criminal conspiracy. He inherited it two months ago. Maybe it’s all too fresh?”

She pushed the silverware bundle away as though she’d just noticed she was messing with it. “Why’d he call you then?”

Marty came back with two beers and tossed two coasters onto the table. “Food should be up in a minute. Anything else I can get you?”

His gaze lingered on Spencer, and Spencer let himself look back into Marty’s icy-blue eyes a bit longer than usual. It had been a while since he’d gotten laid.

“All set, thanks,”

Cat said, barely hiding her frustration with being the third wheel in Spencer’s little flirtation. As soon as Marty was busy with another table, she said, “You realize that man would go home with you in a second, right? You don’t have to torture yourself like this.”

“I’m not torturing myself.”

Now it was Spencer’s turn to be distracted by his silverware. “It’s just a little bit of innocent fun that’s not going anywhere.”

Cat rolled her eyes. “I swear, every man in this town is in love with you, and you just refuse to do anything about it.”

Spencer did get hit on by his fair share of men, which he chalked up to the fact that while queer people were everywhere, there was a smaller community in Pittsfield than anywhere else he’d lived. That suited him just fine. He wasn’t really in the market for, well, anything. “Remember when you thought I was in a house alone with a man who was a murderer? Can we go back to that?”

Cat pressed her lips into a thin line but obliged him by looking down at the calendar on her phone. “Can you come to Tyler Street tomorrow? I need you to pick the finish for the floor so we can get it done next week.”

“Yeah, I was planning to be there at ten.”

Spencer leaned back as Marty put a massive soft pretzel and tray of nachos on the table.

“Another round?”

he asked, resting his hand gently on Spencer’s shoulder, which honestly always felt nice. Marty was a little touchy but very wholesome. If Spencer remembered correctly, he was from somewhere in the Midwest and had the blond hair and pale skin to prove it.

“All good,”

Spencer answered. They both had to drive home.

“Enjoy.”

Cat rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying. He’s incredibly unsubtle.”

Spencer gave her a death glare. Cat knew perfectly well why he didn’t look around beyond hookup apps. “Mind your business.”

He tore a piece off the pretzel and shoved it into her mouth, effectively shutting her up.

———

When Spencer walked into the Tyler project on Monday morning, he was pleasantly surprised to find that it looked mostly like a house. They were a month or two from being done, but the drywall was up, and it was time for finishes.

Cat was standing in the living room with Rob, an older white man of very few words who did the best flooring finishes on her crew. The newly sanded hardwood had been taped off in squares and stained various colors from samples Spencer had bought. “That one.”

He pointed with the toe of his boot at the lightest color that wasn’t a clear finish because the floor had an unfortunate yellow undertone.

“Really?”

Cat asked. “I thought that one was a mistake.”

Spencer shrugged. “They want it to look beachy.”

“Spencer, we’re—”

“I know.”

He cut her off before she tried to explain the geography of western Massachusetts to him. He hadn’t had any coffee yet. “I tried to talk them out of it several times.”

In reality, they’d wanted all-new white oak, and he’d convinced them to keep the original floors by the skin of his teeth.

Cat stuck her hands in the pockets of her overalls. “Well, get the stain and we’ll get started. Rob, will you sand these down today?”

“No problem.”

Rob disappeared deeper into the house, probably to get the industrial sander. That was pretty on par with every conversation Spencer had ever had with Rob.

Cat brushed her sweaty bangs back from her face with her forearm. “I am so ready for this one to be done.”

“Home stretch.”

Spencer pulled her into a side hug. He was over it, too. The clients had wanted to renovate the house to be modern rather than restoring it, which sort of killed him inside, but he got paid to give them what they wanted, not to save pieces of history.

“What are you doing today?”

“Getting started on the proposal for Brown Street. But I’ll swing by the hardware store so the floor stain is here by tomorrow morning. Are you staying?”

Cat’s eyes scanned the first floor, which was teeming with members of her crew going about their business. “Yeah. We’re starting paint today. Did you double-check to make sure this is the color you want?”

Spencer rolled his eyes. He’d made the mistake of dropping off the wrong paint at the wrong house one time. But he walked over to the corner of the room where they were storing the industrial-sized paint buckets and leaned over one of the labels. “Yes, this is the white I’d like every room in this house painted. Text me if you need anything else from the hardware store.”

On his way back to his apartment, Spencer decided to stop by Raj’s café.

Spencer honestly had no idea what Raj’s aesthetic was.

The inside of the café was bright and cheery, painted a light blue.

The dining area was filled with matching tables and chairs that struck Spencer as fairly standard restaurant fare.

The long counter where people ordered and Raj made espresso drinks was also unassuming.

Spencer knew Raj had taken the place over from the previous owner and had changed as little as possible to avoid startling the café’s dedicated patrons.

He also knew that the apartment upstairs that Raj lived in was equally bland, though somehow in a different way.

Spencer had offered on numerous occasions to take him furniture shopping, but Raj had waved him off every time.

It was a bit past the morning rush, so only the regulars were taking up tables, and Raj was behind the counter alone. “Hey there, hot stuff.”

Raj winked at him.

Spencer rolled his eyes. “Can I get an Americano and a croissant?”

Raj smiled, big and beautiful in a way that lit up his dark eyes. “You deign to let me make your coffee today?”

“I let you make my coffee . . . sometimes.”

Okay, Spencer was a bit of a beverage snob, but he wasn’t annoying about it outside of his own apartment.

Raj dropped his voice low. “Say please.”

Spencer’s skin tingled. In another life, maybe he’d take the bait. But Raj had been his first friend in Pittsfield, and while Raj wasn’t a local, he’d been there long enough that his friendship had felt like a stamp of approval from the whole town. Spencer wasn’t throwing all of that away because Raj was objectively his hottest friend. “Was I mistaken that you exchange caffeine for money here?”

Raj laughed, deep and joyful, before turning to the espresso machine.

“Are you bringing Bibi to the dog park later?”

“I should be done around six. Text me.”

Raj slid his Americano across the counter, grabbed a croissant from the pastry case, and rang him up.

Spencer tapped his phone to pay. “Be good.”

Raj smiled. “Never.”

Holding his spoils in one hand, Spencer walked his bike down the block with the other, then leaned it against his thigh to get his keys out of his pocket.

He left the bike on the little landing inside the door and went upstairs, leaving his boots on the shoe rack before going inside.

Norman was on the couch, basically right where he’d left him, and he raised his head when Spencer walked in but, ascertaining that nothing interesting was happening, went back to his nap.

Spencer flopped down into his creaking desk chair.

Okay, maybe Raj wasn’t the only one who was due for some new furniture.

He opened the proposal for Brown Street while trying to eat his croissant with as little collateral damage as possible.

The good news was that most of the spaces in the Brown Street house required very little structural work.

Most of that would be limited to the kitchens and bathrooms, which would all be getting new layouts as well as new fixtures.

The engineer had been uncharacteristically happy with Spencer’s decision to not change anything about the footprint of the house.

The living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms would merely need aesthetic fixes, and if luck was with him, that would mean refinishing what was already there.

He wouldn’t know for sure until they pulled up the carpet to see what was underneath.

But what Spencer was most excited about was the attic conversion.

He saw it clearly in his mind, a bright, relaxing, comfortable space that hadn’t existed in the house before.

He’d eventually have to get down to the minutiae of where they were running plumbing and how many windows needed to be reglazed, but he was starting with the fun stuff first.