Page 26 of Blue Collar Hotties

This is different.Lenore’sdifferent.

I trust that now.

Jimmy huffs and stomps back to the scaffolding ladder, offended by my tone, and I curse under my breath as I keep working. It’s easy to ruffle that old man’s feathers, and hard tosmooth them back down again. Still, I won’t hear any more talk like that about Lenore—not from my second in command, and not from anybody.

She’s not some nameless, faceless rich girl he can pin all his son’s troubles on.

She’smine.

Still, he can’t resist one final parting shot as he steps onto the ladder, scarred hands gripping the metal. “Hope you know what you’re doing, boss.”

* * *

I’m so wound up by goddamn Jimmy’s goddamn lecture that I don’t even notice the end of shift come and go. One moment I’m at the top of the scaffolding, surrounded by the ring of hammers on metal and the pound and scrape of stone—then I’m alone. Nothing but the moaning wind and the creak of the scaffolding for company.

The sky is lavender, blushing pink close to the horizon, and the puffs of cloud up there are tinted gold. I hardly ever work into the evenings, not unless we’re falling behind, but tonight I sniff once and keep going.

What do I have to rush home for, exactly? A hot shower and clean clothes, sure. The food in the fridge, and a cold bottle of beer with beads of condensation clinging to the glass. Yeah. Maybe a decent game if I can scrounge one up on the sports channel.

That all sounds good, but it’s nothing so urgent that I’m ready to leave right this second, not while I’m still tensed up and buzzing. Not when I’ve got buckets of agitation to sweat out.

Goddamn Jimmy.

It takes me an embarrassingly long time to realize I’m not alone after all. As I climb up and down the scaffolding levels,fetching tools and shifting supplies, I pass level after level of dark, empty windows. The office crowd has shut up and gone home. But when I get back to the eighth floor, my scowl reflected in the glass—I freeze, staring past my own shocked image.

There’s a lamp on in there, the glow spilling across the office floor. AndLenore—lying on her front, propped on her elbows, with her heels kicked up behind. She’s chewing on her pencil, frowning down at the pages and pages of sketches she’s got scattered across the carpet.

Swallowing hard, I squint through the shadowed office, looking for light seeping through her uncle’s doorway.

Nothing. She’s all alone.

We’reall alone.

Fuck.

Somehow, someway, despite being so sure about this girl, it never occurred to me that we’d ever be alone. That we could say whatever we wanted to each other without fear of interruption;dowhatever we wanted to each other. Doesn’t seem real.

Numb, I raise one fist and rap on the glass. Lenore startles so badly, she flings her pencil across the room, and when she gapes up at me, her mouth makes a perfect ‘o’.

I grin.

She melts with relief, rolling her eyes.

She’s so cute as she rolls onto her hands and knees, pushing to her feet. She goes to fetch her pencil, picking bits of fluff off the soggy end with a look of distaste before strolling back to her sketches.

Lenore kneels down again, sitting back on her heels. She places the pencil carefully on the nearest sketch, then watches me expectantly, her palms on her thighs.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I go and place my tools carefully in the box nailed to the workbench up here. Then Icome and stand right by the glass, staring inside as daylight fades all around me.

It’s cold tonight. Hell, it’s cold every night with winter just around the corner, but the wind has real teeth when you’re up this high. And I’m dressed only in a gray work shirt and jeans, my toes going numb in my tan boots, but I won’t step away for anything. Not now.

Lenore presses her lips together. Even through the glass and across the room, I see every micro-movement. Every shiver and twitch. It’s like I’m zoomed in on her, tuned to her frequency, as the rest of the world fades away.

Cars rumble past in the street, one driver leaning on their horn. Red leaves shiver on the trees below.

“Hey, baby.” I say the words out loud like an idiot, but Lenore must lip read or something, because she beams at me.

“Hi,” she mouths back.

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