“Well, any of that would be better than the Boho-Rococo fusion you tried to pull off,Evander.”
“At each other’s throats already?” The electrician, Aras, pulled over a chair and plopped down, resting his arms on the back and leaning forward. “Keep your bickering to a minimum, yeah? Last thing I need is another headache from you two.”
Slowly, the rest of the primary crew shuffled in. But the longer they sat and waited, the colder and stiffer Quinn grew, and he finally had to ask, “Is Jake not coming?”
Mason shrugged. “Been wondering that myself.” He fished out his phone and tapped a few times, then set it down in the middle of the table, ringing on speaker.
Five full rings before it finally picked up. “Hello. What’s up?”
“You coming to the meeting this morning?”
Something clattered on the other end of the line, loud and tinny and staticky. “Shit. Yeah. Yeah, I’m on my way. Definitely didn’t stay up way too late drawing up plans and zonk out at my desk. Fuck. Give me…I don’t know, however long. I’ll be there soon.”
The line cut off and Ozzy shook his head. “Typical.”
He’s working so hard he fell asleep at the desk. Quinn had to bite his tongue to avoid pointing that out to Ozzy. Better to stay quiet and not rock the boat. However, it didn’t escape Quinn’snotice that he’d immediately felt protective of Jake.Almost a week away and this crush isn’t getting any better.
“Well, we can get most of this done without him.” Mason reached down to his bag and pulled out a large, sleek laptop. He set it up, typed a few characters, then turned it around and pushed it so that Quinn could see it. The screen displayed a whole grid of color swatches, a gradient spreading from pastel pink in the upper left corner down to deep violet in the lower right. A string of monochrome, from white to black, spread out across the top row.
“Am I just supposed to point and pick?”
Mason slid a thin mouse across to him. “Click on any colors that strike your fancy, and right-click any that you know are just not going to fly with you. We’ll adjust as needed, but it’s good to get a baseline of what you actually enjoy.” He leaned over and pointed to some tabs across the top of whatever this program was. “I usually set it up to start with colors, since that’s easier, but we’ve got wood and stone and tile and fabric along here, metal finishes, then a whole grid of sample styles. They all work the same way, and we’re here for any questions you have.”
Quinn nodded, trying to push through his overwhelm. “Is this software you can buy?”
“Website.” Mason nodded, a slight smile on his face, pushing up his cheeks into round apples. “Used it for years on the channel. Then, once we got signed on and started producing the show, Homescapes got us hooked up with their design team and updated it. All publicly available, for anyone who wants to use it.”
Clearly that was for the camera, and clearly when Aras started talking it was not. “You really don’t know anything about our old channel? We always featured this segment when we worked on a new house.”
“I checked into you enough to see what the story was, but I didn’t want to get any preconceived notions about who you were. Especially not from some three-plus year old videos.”
Aras huffed, then nodded once. “I guess that makes sense.”
Withthatseemingly out of the way, Quinn turned his attention to the screen. Well, most of his attention. He couldn’t help remembering now and then that Jake wasn’t there. On his way, sure, but the possibility that Jake was simply avoiding him couldn’t be ignored.
Quinn struck basically all the warm colors out of the running right away, leaving a palette of mostly greens and blues and grays. Nothing as extreme as black or white, although he made sure to mention that he didn’t mind them as accents. Just not big swaths. Similar with the wood, he just didn’t care for anything with red or golden tones to it. Which also cut metal finishes easily in half. Stone, tile, and fabric ended up being much less about color, and more about finish. Which also meant he didn’t cut much of anything out, or really indicate anything he loved. As long as the colors worked, everything else felt like an afterthought.
“Sounds good. Gives me some freedom, to be sure.” Evander shifted his chair around so he could get a better look. “Think we’re just down to the design style before we start grilling you for information.”
Quinn chuckled, then flicked over to the last screen.
Footsteps slapped against the subflooring and he turned to see Jake, red-faced and sweaty, his hair flung around his head at odd angles, and his shirt very definitely on backwards and inside out. “I’m here.”
“Oh good.” Ozzy rolled his eyes. “You’ve graced us with your presence.”
Jake grabbed the last chair and set it up, sitting in the corner next to Mason. “You could have woken me up. You all have my room number.”
“We knocked, babe.” Bunny shrugged, her expression barely hiding a smile. “You must have been really out of it.”
A tiny, throat-clearing cough sounded as Eliza walked up. “Hey. We need to get your mic on. And your shirt…”
Jake looked down, frowning, then shook his head. “Shit.”
The house slowed as he pulled his shirt up over his head. For Quinn, anyway. Slowed down and showed his well-built musculature, the hair under his arms, his ribs as he reached up and over his head. Quinn’s brain shut down, wouldn’t process anything other than hot, gorgeous, stunning, hunky, beautiful—
Jake dressed himself again and they fitted him with a lav mic. Then he sat. “What did I miss?”
“Almost everything.” Aras sighed. “We’re doing design styles.”
