Page 41 of Surrender

“No, I’m glad you’re here.” He’d just gotten a haircut, and I got up and hurried around the folding table I was using as a desk. “You look fantastic! I didn’t know you were going for such a big change.” His dark hair had been on the shaggy side since I’d known him, but now it was trimmed into a perfect fade.

“I’m not sure yet if I’ll actually maintain this.” His father was in town this weekend and they were having dinner tonight, which was the reason he’d gotten a haircut.

“It’s definitely flattering.” I ran my hands over the very short hair on the sides of his head, which transitioned gradually to a slightly longer length up top. Okay, so maybe touching him like that wasn’t something people who were just friends would do, but I couldn’t resist. “You look handsome either way, but this cut really complements your features.”

“Thanks.”

“How did the rest of your errands go?”

He sighed and put a small bag on the corner of the table. “They were a disaster. The stores are an overcrowded nightmare two weeks before Christmas, and I spent way too long wandering around trying to figure out what to get my father. In the end, I choked and got him a tie. That makes no sense, though. When he has to get dressed up, he wears his dress uniform, not a suit.”

“What do you usually get him for Christmas?”

“I do the same thing every year. I send him a bottle of his favorite whisky, direct from the distillery. I thought I’d try for something more personal this year, but I came up empty.”

“What does he usually give you?”

“He always does the same thing, too,” he said. “He sends me a fifty-dollar bill inside a Christmas card. It was great when I waseighteen and broke. Now it’s a bit odd, but I get it. He has no idea who I am or what I like, so the expectation is that I’ll go out and buy myself a present with the money.”

“What do you actually do with it?”

“I used to use it to get drunk. Now I buy a treat for the kids at the shelter. It seems less self-destructive.”

It really did. I gestured at the small bag on my desk and said, “You told me you were going to do some clothes shopping for dinner with your dad, but it doesn’t look like you succeeded.”

“Nope, I failed at that, too. I wanted to find a dress shirt and pants, but nothing fit right. I guess I’ll go with a sweater and my best pair of jeans, but I really wanted to do more than that.”

“You should borrow one of my suits. The moving company brought my wardrobe and the rest of my things here when I came to San Francisco. After I give you the tour I promised you, let’s go look through my stuff.”

“You’re bigger than me. I doubt your suits would fit.”

“We’re pretty damn close in size, so let’s just see.”

To begin the tour, we stepped out of the open doorway, and I held up my arms to indicate the two almost-walls squaring off the back corner of the building. Right now, they were just frameworks made of two-by-fours, so you could see right through them. “This is my office. I still need a desk. And everything else.”

As Tracy followed me around the ground floor, which was currently a construction site with nothing actually finished, I explained what each of the zones I indicated would hold. When we reached the location of the café, diagonally across from my office in the front corner of the building, my construction foreman joined us. “I’m heading out, boss,” he said. “The rest of the crew already took off, so I’ll lock up behind me.”

“Sounds good.” I turned to Tracy and asked, “Did you meet Steve?”

Tracy nodded. “He let me in and introduced himself when I arrived.”

After Steve took off, I described my plans for the café to Tracy, and he murmured, “It’s pretty incredible.”

“What is?”

“The scope of the project, for one thing. But also, your vision for this place, and your imagination. You have the ability to look around this empty building and see its potential, everything it’s going to become. It’s impressive.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

He followed me up a back staircase to the second floor, and I showed him where the locker rooms, sauna, and studios for fitness classes were going to be. Then we climbed one more flight of stairs to the top floor, and I explained, “The third floor will be employees-only. My staff will have a locker room and a nice lounge at the front of the building. Behind that is storage, and then my apartment is in the back.”

The apartment was the only part of the building with mostly completed walls and a door—though the door was lacking a handle, and the walls were unpainted drywall. It was coming together, though. “My crew was able to restore the original wood floor,” I pointed out, as we stepped into the apartment, “and I love the high ceilings in here.”

“All the windows are great, too,” Tracy said, as he indicated the back wall.

“Yeah, they’re also original. The view is of a brick wall, but there’s enough space between this building and the one behind it to let in a lot of natural light.” I indicated the right side of the space, where some cabinets had recently been installed. “That’s the kitchen, obviously, and this is the main living area. My bed is going to go over to the left, against the far wall.”

“So, the only interior walls are the ones around the bathroom?”

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