I intended to check up on the little baker girl, but I’m knee deep in another day of battling unreliable contractors and cleaning up one permit issue after another. Overall, I’ve barely had a minute to eat, shit, or breathe since her gorgeous body blushed its way across my kitchen nearly a week ago.
And on the nightly occasions I indulge in a peek at her kitchen window, she looks to be keeping about the same hours I am, getting in way too late for company. At least, the respectable kind. And since she’s come to the conclusion that I’m not respectable, absolutely nothing is stopping me from visiting her after work this evening.
Ready for this day to be over, I drag myself around the office with our latest intern—a guy from my old unit, fresh out of the service. Our next stop is Elena, my lead engineer, who needs a reprieve from squinting at her screen, and I rescue her from her slow descent into blindness.
“Hey, Elena.”
She smiles, massaging an oncoming migraine from her temples. Rubbing her red eyes, she smothers a yawn to give us her attention.
“This is Dustin. He’s going to be learning the ropes. His background is industrial construction.” While they exchange a handshake across her desk, I walk around to get a better look at her monitor.
Apparently, she’s skipping ahead on her homework and scouting out our next big project—another multimillion-dollar deal that fell into our laps thanks to Coop’s crazy connections. Yup, I’m drooling.
“How’s it look?” I ask, and she answers with a drawn-out sigh.
“Well, my eyes are about to fall out from my fixation with it, but I have to say it’s the sexiest set of erection drawings I’ve ever seen.”
With a nervous chuckle, Dustin asks, “What?”
Crossing my arms, I size up Dustin, realizing the man is barely in his twenties and has probably never worked the design side of things. Before I take the high road of adulting, I notice Elena’s raised brows and the trace of a smile. She’s energized but stone-faced, and I’m too intrigued to not let her go down whatever no-good dirty path she’s steamrolling toward.
She stands, pacing around her desk. “Hey, I’m not the only one around here who spends way too much time staring at erection drawings. Seriously, before you know it, you’ll be lost in these babies for hours. Admiring their colossal structure one minute. Scrutinizing their every flaw the next.”
Confused, Dustin stares blankly, then shoots a helpless glance at me as I rub the scruff of my jaw.
Before I can stop her, Elena’s going full throttle on the naughty diatribe. “And it’s not all fun and games. It takes a village to raise a baby like this high into the sky. I’m talking teamwork. Putting your back into it. Getting your hands dirty.”
Her sermon loses steam, and I’m about to interject when Dustin jumps in.
Grinning, he says, “You’re serious? As long as I don’t have to pose for it or anything, I guess that’s fine.”
“Well, let me show you the drawings you’ll be reviewing.”
Wincing his discomfort, Dustin lets Elena pull him over to the monitor. His uncertainty gets the better of him, and he studies the screen with more interest. “Where’s the penis?”
Elena gives him a soft smack on his arm, beaming with delight at her impromptu hazing. “I promised you an erection. I said nothing about a penis. These,” she says as she clicks the mouse and zooms out on the view, “are erection drawings. It’s an architectural term.”
Elena continues to push Dustin further into the deep end of the project, fire-hosing him with design terms that would make a normal person’s head spin. Or explode.
But Dustin is focused. Studious. The notebook and pen I handed him half an hour ago are now being put to good use as he jots down notes as fast as Elena can spit them out.
Satisfied, I assure him he’s in good hands, and playfully scold her not to go blind staring at all those graphics. I walk away knowing I’ve snagged another great addition to this tight-knit team, and leave the office for the job site.
Pounding the dust beneath my feet as I head to my trailer, I scan the progress today. A woven structure of metal beams against a backdrop of bright open sky has me squinting as I mentally count the floors. Halfway there.
The buzzing phone in my pocket gives me that half second of hope before I answer. No caller ID. Yes.
“Is this my Lyft?” I ask, praying for the right answer.
“On a scale of one to ten—one being highly satisfied and ten being bored out of your fucking gourd—where do you rate yourself today?”
“Twenty-three,” I say, answering honestly.
“How’d you like to be the face of your next assignment?” Maverick asks, teasing me with the dangled carrot.
“You’re sending me in the field? I thought we agreed on minimal travel.” I know Gaby is a long shot, but I can’t give up. I need to be here.
“That Russian you’ve been after, how would you like to stare him down, face-to-face?”
“Antonov? No fucking way.”
“Way. But there’s a catch. We need to blend your alias with the real you.”
“What’s my cover?”
“Architect. We already have your AIA registration online.”
“What’s AIA again?” I ask, and the annoyed hitch in Maverick’s breath is priceless. “Just kidding. American Institute of Architects. And I know enough about drawings that I could probably pass.”
“I know you can. He’s hunting for one for his private residence. And don’t even bother denying you want in. I can see your hard-on through the phone.”
No doubt. “When’s my flight?”
“No flight. He’s in your neck of the woods, the outskirts of Dallas. Private heavily guarded estate. No assist, so take a burner phone. It’s the closest we’ll get. He’ll probably want you to start right away, but turn him down.”
“Too busy?”
“Whatever works in the moment. We want you in and out. Besides, he’ll probably want you all the more if we ever needed to send you back in. Guys like that hate taking no for an answer.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Weaknesses in his armor,” she says before disconnecting the call.
Three minutes later, my phone buzzes again with no caller ID. Part of me is an instant from giving Maverick some shit, but my instincts take over. Something inside me tells me this isn’t Mav, and I can’t breathe.
Pushing aside my excitement, I calm my tone to kind and approachable, because the latest book I’m reading on relationships says that’s what I’m supposed to do. So I suck in a breath, coaching myself. Be kind. Approachable.
“This is Austin.”
“Austin. Good.” A deep male voice is already giving away his Russian roots with just the two words. The accent is all too familiar, but the voice itself isn’t. “My name is Dimitri Antonov, and I’d like to hire you. I’m a fan of your work.”
Getting into character, I drive home the pretense I wasn’t expecting his call. “Sorry, I’m on a job site, and I can barely hear you. Can you repeat that?”
“Yes,” he says, talking slowly and enunciating every syllable through his thick accent. “I need your skills. The building in downtown Dallas you’re working on. You designed it, right?” He doesn’t wait for me to reply. “You’re the architect I need. And money’s no object.”
Not bothering to hear me out, he says, “I’m in town today. Why don’t you drop by. We can meet. Talk.”
“Sure.” I’m about to tell him to shoot me the place and time, but a ping alerts me that he’s a step ahead of me.
“In one hour?” he says.
Glancing at the text he sent, I realize that he’s far enough out of the city that it’ll take me that long, but I’ll make it work. “One hour.”
I don’t even need to think about my ride. The day is perfect, and I need to be able to maneuver if something comes up. So minutes later, I’m on my Harley, taking off to a part of Dallas I’ve never seen.
I could be stepping into anything. Between my heart pounding out of my chest and every sense heightened, I should be filled with caution and apprehension. But I’m not.
I’m exhilarated. For the first time in months, I have some purpose to my day over the sum of seconds, minutes, and hours that add up to an abyss of emptiness.
Because as much as I’m surrounded by people, my mind drifts to Gaby. And the little baker girl. And a million things that have me facing an alternative that would give me purpose.