Page 68 of Between Never and Forever
I glance down at Brynn as she skips up to my office manager’s desk.
“Ingratiate. Verb. To gain favor or acceptance by deliberate effort.”
Sharon purses her lips and looks at the ceiling for a moment, then gives a Brynn smile.
“I ingratiate myself with the boss by recognizing how intelligent she is.”
Brynn smiles back and flashes two thumbs up. “A Plus, Miss Sharon.”
“Thank you, Boss.” Sharon hooks her thumb over her shoulder toward the coffee station. “Donuts.”
Brynn darts to the donut box, and I pour myself a cup of coffee.
“Late start for you today,” Sharon says, and I grunt. “I suppose she had you up late?”
“It’s summer break, Miss Sharon. My bedtime is nine now.”
“How late did you keep him up doing puzzles?”
Brynn giggles. “Only 10:30, but it was Scrabble, not a puzzle.”
Sharon looks at me. “She kick your butt?”
I raise an eyebrow, and Sharon barks out a laugh. She knows Brynn kicked my butt. I stopped letting her win at six. She hasn’t needed it. I take a sip of my coffee and get to business. As Sharon pointed out, we got a late start.
“What’re we dealing with today?”
“Luke is at the Pine Avenue site. He checked in with me this morning. The crew is on schedule, but the HVAC company is delayed again.”
Fuck. Of course, they are. This is the third job this year they couldn’t meet deadlines.
“I went ahead and pulled some comps,” she says tentatively. “I can call ‘em today for quotes, if you want.”
I take a minute to think it over. I hate to have to go somewhere else. I prefer to source locally whenever possible, but we can’t push this end date anymore. This family wants to be in the house before school starts back up in the fall. I sigh and take another sip of my coffee.
“Give them another week. If they don’t come through by then, you can start making the calls.”
She jots something down on a sticky note and sticks it to her computer, then glances back at her paper agenda book.
“I sent Gemma with Mark to the Birch Isle restoration. Figure it will be good training for her since they’re ripping up the rotted floorboards today.”
I nod. “That was a good idea.”
“I also sent out invoices and checks. Balanced some of the books.”
When I glance at her, she’s staring right at me.
“S’not as bad as you probably think it is,” she hedges. “This bid you won with the studio is already helping.”
I down the rest of my coffee and pour another cup, then rake my hands through my hair and down my face. I think I’m starting to get an ulcer.
The cost of materials has skyrocketed, but I can’t bring myself to raise our prices enough to make a profit. Most of the work we’re doing are repairs from the last hurricane. What was supposed to be a tropical storm turned Category 3 and hooked on us. We’d barely had time to board up, but the next town over got hit bad and so did a lot of places farther inland. The flood damage is the worst our state has seen in decades. Businesses were lost. Homes were lost. Lives were lost.
I can’t charge these people more than what I already do. I feel bad enough charging them anything at all.
My company has been part of the stage workers union for a while now, but winning the bid for the production at the studio was the best luck we’ve had in two years. Or, at least, it was. Now I don’t know if it’s luck or punishment.
I glance at Sharon and raise a brow, seeing if she’s going to address the elephant in the room. She raises an eyebrow right back, telling me the answer ishell no. Fine. We can ignore it for now. But in a few weeks, it will be impossible, and she knows it.
