He’s still too cute for my own good.
Chapter six
Jake
“Now that we’ve gotthe space cleared out, my first priority is getting a new front porch set up so Quinn has a little spot to have his morning coffee and people watch.” Jake jerked his thumb over his shoulder for the third time while they collected footage of him delivering the same clip again. And again. And again.A lot easier on VideoHead when we just put up whatever we happened to say.“We’ll pour some concrete footers, make sure it’s more stable than the one we tore down, then build up from there.” He turned to the side and traced his finger along the front of the imaginary porch, where Linda’s crew were currently shoveling concrete into large holes. “The plan is to leave space all along the front so Ozzy can come in and fill with some nice, fragrant flowers. Make this whole front porch inviting, but also a spot where Quinn can sit and enjoy himself in peace. Get away from all those pesky numbers at his day job.”
“Wonderful.” Eliza nodded to the cameraman and he scurried away somewhere else. “Sorry about that. Standard for us to do a few takes, that way they can splice stuff together if they want to.”
“I’m getting used to it. Not there yet, but working on it.” He cracked his knuckles, then cringed. “Sorry. Habit. Hope it didn’t screw up any audio.”
She shook her head. “No problem.” She slipped her phone out and stepped over, turning so he could see the spreadsheet on her screen. “So you’re good to go the rest of the day, but once Quinn is off work tomorrow, we want to have you on the walk-through. For any carpentry stuff, but we especially want footage of you and him going through the gaming room setup. Want to show how this house is being customized just for him. You have some ideas?”
“A ton.” After the car ride back to the hotel, all Jake could do was think about the room. And Quinn. Especially Quinn. The only options on where to put that energy were fantasies while he beat his meat, or coming up with plans for that gaming room to make Quinn smile, and he’d chosen the latter.
Mostly. He’d mostly chosen the latter. He was lucky the Hillyard didn’t charge extra for tissue usage.
Eliza excused him and he headed out to the tented workstation they had. Bunny was standing with Linda, monitoring the crew as they measured and cut lumber for the new back fence. Jake walked up and landed a hand on Bunny’s shoulder. “Anything I can help with?”
“Not just yet, love.” Bunny leaned her head against his chest for a moment, then sighed. “Weird having people to help, isn’t it?”
“Tell me about it. I feel completely useless.” He nodded to Linda. “No offense. Totally grateful for you and your folks. We just sort of…did it all ourselves before.”
“I’m sure there’ll be plenty of chances for you to get your hands dirty.” Linda swept her hair back from her face and shrugged. “Cutting the same board over and over again is exactly the kind of thing they brought us in for.”
Jake nodded. “Anything you need some extra hands with inside?”
Linda considered, chewing the inside of her cheek. “Actually, yeah. Could use another set of eyes on some of the walls Evander wants taken down. Just try to keep the house standing, not tear down anything load-bearing.”
I’ll take it. Any contractor or carpenter worth their salt—and he had every reason to believe Linda was more than worth her salt—would be able to tell if a wall was load-bearing. But he’d do anything to avoid just standing around, waiting to talk to the camera, so inside he went. Up the step ladder they had in place of stairs—Mason cussed it out at least twice a day—and carefully inside. It wasn’t a messy disaster at this point, but it was definitely not a functional house yet. Lumber and drywall and sawdust covered pretty much every flat surface, even clinging like a film to the walls. A lot of the floor had been torn up to remove some water damage and check the joists, so they had a minimal pathway to walk across, just enough to go single file. For people with normal balance. Jake had to take his time so he didn’t fall underneath the flooring.
Jake flagged down a crewman and got directed upstairs to the unused bedroom. When he got inside, he understood the issue a little bit more. Namely, Evander arguing with one of the workers. “This wall needs to go.”
“And I’ve told you, it can’t.” The guy getting yelled at was a boulder of muscle, but had an apologetic frown on his face. “If there was any way to do it, I wouldn’t be putting up a fuss. But the house falls in on itself if we take this outwithout reorganizing the entire thing. And that would blow any semblance of a budget right out of the water.”
“But it’s so cramped in here.” He rolled his eyes, then caught Jake and walked over, relief washing over him. “You can figure this out.”
“I can take a look. But load-bearing walls in a two-story house are kind of locked down.” Still, he examined the exposed structure. In theory, it made sense to do things the way Evander wanted. They’d worked together often enough, he could get at least a rough idea of his problem with the space, and how he intended to solve it. “You want to push this back, take out that laundry room, reclaim the space, and then you could open up the bathroom and make this a proper suite. Am I following?”
“Exactly. I knew you would get it.”
Jake blew out a long breath and looked around the room, trying to parse out an answer. “Let’s brainstorm this, yeah? This wall’s load-bearing. It’s not coming down.” That much was obvious just from looking at it. Running perpendicular to the ceiling joists, and although he couldn’t be a hundred percent sure without checking, it looked like the wall tied straight into the foundation. “We could probably chuck a door in here without too much difficulty, but we’re not going to get exactly what you’re looking for, cool as it might be. Not without dropping at least ten-grand just into redoing this wall. And I love you, but having a little more space in the master bedroom isn’t worth ten-grand. Right?”
Evander sighed, then looked around, then nodded. “Fine.”
Didn’t take a lot of previous experience to tell Evander was still pissed, so Jake took another look around. “Any reason this has to be the master bedroom?” He looked at the muscled workman. “The other bedroom is on the opposite side of the bathroom, right? Anything in there load-bearing?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
Jake looked back at Evander. “Could shift that around. Take a few adjustments to the design, but it’s early.”
Evander worked his jaw back and forth, looking up at the ceiling. “We’d lose the south-facing window. End up with north-facing.” He mumbled a few more things under his breath, then nodded sharply. “I think I can make that work.”
Then he was off. The muscled guy nodded to Jake. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”At least someone thanked me. Amazing how simple it was to fall into their old routines, for Jake to still know how to handle his old crew mates. His old friends, if that could still be said after everyone drifted so far apart. Jake had gotten good at keeping the peace, especially toward the end.Nice to know I can provide something.
Back downstairs, instead of heading outside, Jake swung down the hallway, past Robinson soldering pipes in the kitchen, and to the back bedroom. Soon to be Quinn’s gaming room. It was the bedroom with the least work that needed done structurally, which meant it was being used for storage while the crew worked everywhere else in the house. A little trickier to get around inside, and to see the full layout of the room, but Jake had spent plenty of time thinking about it the night before. So he rotated slowly in space, testing layouts in his head.
