Page 83 of Something Borrowed, Something You

I took my time with the groceries and made a sampler platter of all the goodies. Hunter had blueprints spread all over the table, and when I saw him begin to ravel the top one back into a roll, I brought lunch and some plates to the table.

“Looks awesome,” he said.

“Did you get done what you needed to do?”

“Yeah. This project’s been going on for years. We’re the third builder on it. Whenever there’s more than one builder, there’s a reason.” He wrapped a rubber band around the roll he’d been working on and tapped it to the table. “Owner is from Dubai and doesn’t realize New York City has a byzantine building code. The building is old and needs structural reinforcements for everything he wants to do. Which is fine, but when you change the weight of what you’re building three times during the renovation, and the first builder used beams that barely supported the first set of plans, you’re basically starting over. And even though almost all blueprints and plans are done on a computer now, he wants to see every set of changes on an old-school, pencil-and-paper blueprint drawing.”

“What does he keep changing that makes it so heavy?”

“The house on top of the building.”

I’d thought I’d heard him wrong. “He’s housing something on top of the building?”

“Yeah. A house.” Hunter chuckled. “He’s building a house on top of the roof of an old cast-iron building.”

“A whole house?”

“Pretty much.”

“Why? Is the building not residential?”

“No, most of it’s residential except for the commercial storefronts on the bottom two floors.”

“So why not just renovate an apartment instead of building a house on top of the roof? I don’t get it.”

“Building is a playground for the extraordinarily wealthy in New York. You can’t look for logic. The answer is always the same—because they can.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Keeps me employed. This particular building is actually really beautiful. I’ll take you to see it one day, if you want. The top floors are closed during renovations, and we’re at a standstill until the city approves the recent round of changes.”

“I’d like that. Even though I’ve lived here all my life, I don’t really take the time to appreciate the architecture.”

“Ever think about living somewhere else?” Hunter asked.

“I used to. I went to college here in the city, and Anna went to school out in California. We’d take turns visiting each other over breaks and had big plans for me to move out to the West Coast so we could live next door to each other again. We planned to be pregnant at the same time and for our daughters to be second-generation best friends.”

“Could still happen. I’m sure Anna and Derek will have more kids.”

A picture of Anna and me sitting in Hunter’s yard with babies on our laps, while Derek and Hunter stood nearby at the barbeque making dinner, suddenly flashed before my eyes. The thought warmed me, even though it also scared the crap out of me that my head had gone there. Hunter wasn’t in this for the long haul. This was just a fling. Wasn’t it?

I smiled hesitantly, afraid to get my hopes up, but deep down knowing they already were. “Maybe. You never know, I guess.”

Chapter 26

— Natalia —

Hunter and Derek were already seated at the bar when I walked in. Spotting me, both men stood. As I made my way over, I realized it was the first time Hunter and I had been out in public with a friend. Over the last couple weeks, we’d spent as much time as we could together—meeting for breakfast if we couldn’t see each other at night, taking a dozen kids out to dinner for Izzy’s sixteenth birthday, watching her basketball games, sneaking in a daytime movie between my counseling sessions. We’d even had lunch on the roof of his jobsite one afternoon, not to mention we’d spent so much time in bed, it was surprising I could walk. Yet we’d been in a private bubble. Unless you counted Izzy, we were always alone.

So as I approached the two men, I wasn’t quite sure how to greet Hunter. He settled that internal debate for me the moment I neared. Taking my hand, he pulled me flush against him, gave my hair a little tug, urging my head back, and planted a possessive kiss on my lips.

I smiled, more than satisfied with his greeting, and let out a breathy “hey” before turning my attention to Derek. “How’s my sweet little Caroline’s baby daddy?”

Derek smiled and bent to kiss my cheek. “I’m good. Will I sound like a total wuss-bag if I say I miss the way she smells?”

My heart let out a beautiful sigh. “Not at all. You sound like the perfect man.”

“Hey… what about me?” Hunter chided.

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