Page 76 of Structure of Love

Zar:Second what did he do

Me:Drunk and disorderly. Judge had him pay a fine, spend a few nights in jail, and mandated rehab

Asher:Ooh la la

Me:Ikr. Needless to say she ain’t happy

Riggs:I’m sure and probably blaming you

Me:Basically yeah so if she shows up at your house don’t answer

Riggs:Roger roger

Cohen:Ha, you called it, she just pulled up to my house

Damn, I should have made a bet. I’d have raked in the money. It somehow figured she’d go to Cohen. He was the “responsible” one of our group, after all. She’d tried leaning on him before, with mixed success.

Me:Don’t engage, man

Cohen:I’m going to talk her down. Maybe parent to parent, she’ll see some reason.

I didn’t see that working out well, but he was free to try. He’d have to get her to see her missteps first, and that would be a tall order. Not sure if anything short of death could do that.

I washed my hands of the situation and sipped more beer. I had daydreaming and house blueprints to occupy me. Frankly, daydreaming of a future with Logan was a far better use of my time.

25

Gage

I entered the office all set to work. I had my coffee, my tablet, and a task list needing to be completed today.

Then I sabotaged myself.

I had left my sketch of the house up on my tablet, so when I turned it on, the sketch was the first thing I saw. I’d spent a good portion of the weekend doodling away, and it had gotten a little past “sketch” territory at this point. Damn, it was shaping up fine. I hoped I’d thought of everything Logan would want, but I didn’t know how to subtly ask him those questions.

How could I segue a house conversation in? On a date, maybe, as a what-if game?

I gave myself a little mental slap. I was supposed to be working right now. I had a few little projects—designing a new detached garage, reviewing the blueprints submitted to us for a second opinion on a structure, among other things—and one client due in about thirty minutes.

It wasn’t often I designed a building from scratch. We were a renovation business, after all. However, when given the chance, it was super fun and quite lucrative. Building something fromscratch didn’t require nearly as much work for our entire team. For those projects, we didn’t have to modify an existing structure or do demolition, which often took more time.

I could see a future where our business became half renovation, half new builds, which was fine by me.

My phone rang with a little ditty. Text message incoming. My hopes of it being Logan were immediately dashed.

My dad had texted.

Frowning, I picked up my phone. My father and I had a strained relationship, and if we weren’t blood related, I wouldn’t have a relationship with him at all. He was an offshore driller, making very good money, but it meant he was barely ever home. He should have retired a couple of years ago—he had the means to do it—but he kept going out to the rig. I think he didn’t want to deal with Cooper or his wife, so he kept working. Part of me hated him for it, that he would abandon all of their issues and shove them onto me. It never enthused me when I heard from him.

The text message contained his usual succinctness.

Asshole:Apologize to your mother.

I scoffed.

Me:She and you can go to hell.

Three bouncing dots, and he didn’t need tone to convey how mad he was.