Page 9 of The Summer I Destroyed You

“Fuck.” We hired Long Point Construction because they’d been in business since the seventies. Liam wasn’t even alive in the seventies, so I never dreamed he owned it.

“You know him?” she asks.

I swallow.

In New York, I’m Emerson, the controlled workaholic who makes work calls from her in-office treadmill every morning and takes shit from no one. As much as I like Stella, I’m not about to ruin it all by telling her I was once the high school punching bag, the girl who took shit from everyone. “I know of him. I think he’s older.”

“He can’t be too much older. Julie said he’s hot.”

I didn’t realize Julie had met him. Something sours inside me. This is clearly Liam’s schtick—he’s flirtatious and charming with every female client because it makes his life easier. She probably flew out here on the company’s dime, slept with him, and let him call all the shots after that—let him offload some cheap-ass tile he had on hand and cut a thousand other corners. I hate that I fell for as much of it as I did. Me.

“Speaking of Julie,” I reply, “you can let her know she’s off the job. I’m not working with her again.”

Stella laughs. “I figured this was coming, but she’s under contract. You can’t just fire her without cause.”

“I have plenty of cause. She changed my plans without asking me and just made me look like an asshole. Plus, we’re going to have to eat the cost of the new tile, and I’m going to be the one Charles blames. And not for the first time. This is probably her third costly mistake this year.”

Julie does need to go, but I’m honestly not sure what I’m angrier about: her mistake or the fact that I almost got taken in by Liam too.

Not even almost. I did get taken in by him. You’d think I’d know better by now.

Apparently, I will never learn.

6

LIAM

It’s still early when the back door slides open and the dog bounds out. Ten minutes later, Emerson herself appears—legs for days, lush little mouth in a stuck-up pout, calling for the dog while pretending she can’t see us.

The dog continues to run around happily, ignoring her. It’s solely because I don’t want the harpy out here any longer that I intervene. “Snowflake, come here, girl!” She’s a sweet dog, if not particularly bright, nuzzling my leg as I walk her toward the house.

Emerson frowns, her eyes wary. “Thank you,” she says, sounding more guarded than grateful.

“Any time, princess,” I say, mostly to watch those blue eyes of hers flash silver once more.

They don’t disappoint. If we were in Salem circa 1650, she’d definitely be undergoing a trial by water right now.

“Still running with that?” she asks through gritted teeth. “Never stop being you, yard boy. And, by the way, those tiles were wrong. Julie fucked up.”

This I’ve already heard about. I got a tearful call from the designer mere minutes ago, though I’m not sure what good she thought I could do.

“I heard you fired her over a simple mistake,” I reply. “Good to know my initial assessment of you wasn’t overly harsh.”

Her mouth becomes a flat line. “A simple mistake for you, perhaps. I need them torn out and redone, pronto.”

“It’s going to cost you.”

“Oh,” she says, eyes wide with feigned surprise, “so I need to pay you in exchange for labor? Thanks for explaining the most basic principle of supply and demand.”

She turns to follow the dog in, and as soon as the door slams behind her, JP is chuckling once again. I’m glad one of us finds her bullshit amusing.

“Yard boy,” he says. “I guess it’s better than little hammer. She might even go out with you if you keep it up.”

I raise a single brow. “Go out with me? I’d rather be alone forever than wake up to that.”

“It’s starting to look like you’re planning to be alone forever anyway,” Mac, the soon-to-be-married junior project manager, replies.

There it is again—the assumption that I’m not trying hard enough. That I don’t want the same shit everyone else does.

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