Page 14 of The Seascape Between Us (The Men of Saltwater Cove #4)
Chapter Nine
Daniel
A steady and relentless pounding dragged me up through layers of sleep.
I blinked in the shadowy darkness of my room, stretched out on my back, staring at the same ceiling as last night while silently begging for sleep.
I couldn’t remember when exactly I’d finally drifted off, except that it had to have been some time after four—the last time I’d checked the time on my phone before tossing it onto my night table in frustrated disgust.
Yawning, I rubbed my eyes, which felt gritty, as if my eyelids were lined with sandpaper. Proof I wasn’t ready to wake up, but the bright strip of sunlight seeping between the narrow gap in the drapes begged to differ.
Shit, what time was it? I rolled onto my side and lifted my phone so I could see the screen. Nearly nine. I closed my eyes and sighed loudly. I never slept this late. Not even when I was a teenager. Now, I seemed to be waking up later and later every day. What the hell was wrong with me?
But I already knew the answer. Greyson fucking Mackenzie .
With a muttered curse, I kicked free of my blankets, and at the same time, the thumping and banging above me started up again.
What fresh hell?
I dragged on yesterday’s jeans from the pile of clothes next to my bed and grabbed a clean t-shirt from my dresser before leaving my room. On the walkway outside, I leaned back against the rail as far as I could without tipping over and falling fifteen feet to the ground.
Squinting against the glare of the cloudless blue sky, I still couldn’t see what was happening above my room. Someone was definitely up there, though. A dry scraping sound had replaced the steady banging, as if something was being dragged.
Had work started on the second-floor rooms? I’d like to think Grey would have given me a heads-up beforehand, considering I’d have to move my things and find somewhere else to live. Of course, whether he started today or next week, I still wasn't sure where I’d stay while the rooms were renovated.
Normally, when I gave up the suite in the busy season, I slept on a cot in my office, which I just couldn’t bring myself to do now that Grey had taken up residence in the space.
He had enough ammunition to remind me how right he’d been about me all those years ago.
I didn’t want to give him anything more.
Where the hell was he, anyway? As much as I hated dealing with the man, he was still my best bet for getting answers.
Unsurprisingly, jerking each other off in Grey’s room had done nothing to ease the tension between us. If anything, his sharp commentary had worsened, fueling my own quietly simmering aggravation.
Over the last week, Grey had somehow become more insufferable than when he’d first arrived. Something I wouldn’t have believed possible if I hadn’t experienced his obnoxious, overbearing attitude firsthand.
I’d taken his complaints that I wasn’t taking enough interest in the plans for the hotel seriously, making an effort to get involved with the work, asking him about some of the hotel’s more glaring issues and making suggestions for what I thought we could do to fix them.
However, despite his earlier complaints that I’d been avoiding him and his plans, now my involvement pissed him off—especially if I had the audacity to question him about the decisions he was making unilaterally without even bothering to consult me.
He didn’t bother to ask my opinion ahead of time, and he sure as hell didn’t want to hear it after the fact. Not about the colors he’d chosen for the rooms, the furnishings he’d chosen and ordered, and not even about the new computer program he’d had installed at the front desk.
Gritting my teeth until my jaw ached, I strode down the walkway before rushing down the stairs into the lobby.
Carter stood behind the front desk. Even though we had no guests, Grey had insisted Carter come in anyway and manage the phones while learning the new computer system—this way, he wouldn’t lose any pay while we were renovating.
A fact I appreciated. We’d agreed to keep the restaurant open during the renovations, as well.
Grey had grumbled about having at least one part of the hotel making money, but I’d suspected he’d given in when I pointed out that the people working for me couldn’t lose six weeks’ pay while we renovated.
Carter looked up from the computer when I entered the lobby. His boyish face lit up with an enthusiastic smile when he saw me.
“Did you see what Grey did?” he said enthusiastically.
I was fairly certain the kid was half in love with Grey.
A faint blush tinged his face whenever he saw the guy, and he couldn’t seem to form a complete sentence when Grey spoke to him directly.
It might have been kind of cute, except that I was usually left with a dull burning sensation in my gut.
I shook my head. “Is he in the office?”
“I think he’s out front with the roofers.”
“Roofers?” I asked dumbly.
“He’s replacing the roof. No more patch jobs! Isn’t it great?”
My endless battle with the roof was no secret. Everyone who worked here knew I’d been patching holes and cracks for years. Julie, who used to be a server in the restaurant until she’d graduated this year, had wanted to take bets for when the roof would finally just cave in on us.
I should have been happy Grey was solving the issue, that he was fixing a problem that had been dogging me for years. Instead, numbness wrapped around my chest, and a sour taste filled my mouth.
I forced a smile that made my face ache. “Yeah, great.”
I left Carter at the desk and went outside. Sure enough, there was Grey, standing next to Finn, watching the crew of roofers on top of the hotel peeling away the old flat roof and tossing it down into the dumpster next to the building.
I thought about backing away into the lobby and then getting back to work on yanking out the old bathrooms on the ground floor—after all, that was about all I had to offer the place—grunt work from a glorified handyman—but Finn noticed me.
He lifted a hand and waved. I waved in return.
Grey glanced over to see who Finn had waved at.
When he spotted me, he faced me head-on, spreading his arms out with a flourish.
“Ta-da!” At least his smile looked genuine this time, not the sharp smirk he wore just before he said something cutting.
I drew a deep breath, shoved my hands in my pockets and struggled not to hunch my shoulders while making my way over.
“Hey,” Finn nodded. “How have you been?”
“Good,” I told him, forcing a smile that felt strained and awkward. “You?”
I’d met Finn a few times since he and Alistair started dating, but we’d never exchanged more than basic pleasantries outside of talking about the condition of the hotel when he did work for Grey.
Back when I’d first met the other man, before I found out about him and Alistair, I’d been convinced he and Grey had been together.
Tall, broad and well-built, gold streaks threading his brown hair, he was Grey’s type—or at least his type when I had known him.
“Good,” Finn said, then gestured to the crew on the roof. “You must be relieved for this to finally be getting done.”
Finn had inspected the hotel twice for Grey. Once last year, after Grey’s father passed away, and he inherited his father’s properties and business dealings, then again a few weeks ago. He had seen firsthand the state of the roof.
Before I could respond, Grey cut in. “Of course he is. He was hoping to have the money to get to it in the fall, but let’s face it, with the money this place generates, he wouldn’t have been able to replace that roof until fall five years from now.”
“Fuck, Grey,” Finn admonished, turning away and shaking his head.
“What?” Grey said. “It’s true. The whole thing probably would have collapsed on top of him before he could replace it.”
If Finn and Grey had been friends as long as Alistair had implied, surely Finn wasn’t shocked by Grey’s lack of filter. He said whatever popped into his head with little regard for how his words might impact others.
Besides, he wasn’t wrong. As much as I hated to admit it, without Grey intervening, who knew when I would have finally been able to pay for a new roof?
I should have been relieved that he'd managed to solve this problem immediately. So why then, did I have to grind my teeth together to stop myself from telling Grey to go fuck himself?
I already knew the answer. I just hated to admit it, even to myself. For years, that roof had needed to be replaced, and in just a few weeks of taking on the hotel, Grey had solved the problem. Just like he’d gutted the rooms, installed a new computer system and would modernize the entire building.
He was a little over two weeks into the project, fixing and replacing items I had never been able to in seventeen years. So, with Grey running the Seascape better than I ever had, where did that leave me?
I didn’t have an answer, and the enormity of what that meant felt like a weight pressing on my shoulders, pushing me down.
“I have work,” I said, backing away to the hotel entrance. “I should go.”
Turning and heading back to the hotel, I forced my feet to maintain a normal pace and not rush away like I wanted to, while Grey’s gaze boring into my back until I finally stepped inside.