Page 55 of The Layover

Fuck. “I need to talk to my designer and builder. One of us will give you a call back. Don’t make any more changes to our account unless you hear from myself or Diego.”

“Your euros.” He hung up.

I wanted desperately to let the man know what I thought of his flippant attitude, but not until we had what we needed from him. I gave Carly and Diego a brief rundown of the conversation.

As I explained, Carly went pale, and when I finished, realization sank in. It was insane, but I had to ask. “Would Curtis do something like this?”

She worked her jaw. “I’d love to say no, but fuck. He might. When I left him, he told my boss the divorce was because I’d been sleeping with her husband. He’d never even met the man. He’s not above being petty, and he doesn’t care who gets huts, unless he’s changed.”

Something told me he hadn’t. “Would he have sent that email last week? The one that looked like it was from you that almost got my kitchen destroyed?”

The creases around her eyes and mouth deepened. “Fuck. Maybe. I’d love to say he wouldn’t go that far, but… he would. I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t on you, it’s on him.” Diego’s words echoed my thoughts. “Besides, we told him no too, so this could be about us.”

Christ, what an immature asshole. We’d figure out what to do about Curtis after we fixed the current issue though. “What do we do about the tile?”

Diego had his phone out again. “I’ll call the supplier back and find out what they have in stock that meets our requirements and that we can get enough of within the next week.”

“I’ll call Curtis.” Carly looked furious.

I’d love to make that call myself, but it might end in death threats. “Are we sending the work crew home?”

“We have to,” Carly said. “There’s nothing else they can do today. But we’ll figure out how we can rearrange the schedule once we have the tile answer.” She sighed loudly. “We accounted for delays and mistakes. They always happen. We have money and time in the budget as long as we’re smart about how we handle this.”

That didn’t reassure me as much as she probably wanted it to, but I was grateful she could say the words and sound sincere.

Diego and Carly made their calls, and I sent the work crew home. I promised the contractor we’d have more information for him by the end of the day, and he promised me we’d still be paying for their wasted time.

Wonderful. Not.

When it was just the three of us left, Carly, Diego, and I sat at that same table again. The memories of the other night were back, and I wasn’t in the mood. That didn’t stop the images of Carly, the whispers across my skin, from tormenting me.

The reminder brought back that little nagging part of me that I’d been trying to ignore for days. The part that agreed with Diego that Carly could be a great longer-term fixture in our lives.

I shoved the feeling aside in favor of getting work done.

Carly hadn’t been able to get a hold of Curtis, but Diego had new tile options for us. He forwarded them to Carly, and she pulled them up on her iPad, so we could all gather around and make a decision.

The decision we made was that they all sucked.

“Alternatives. Let’s discuss them,” Carly said.

I wanted the original tile I’d picked for my kitchen. “I saw an entire subway station floor once that was tiled with centissimo.”

“I feel like that might be more expensive than actual tile.” Diego wrinkled his nose.

Carly jabbed at her screen, and pulled up a new picture. It was impossible to determine why she was showing us computer parts until she said, “My brother has a friend whose bathroom is tiled with circuit boards.”

“That sounds really cool.” Diego twisted his head this way and that.

It kind of did, and my family had access to that kind of hardware. But this wasn’t the right place for that look. Also, “That sounds really nerdy.”

“Nerdy can be sexy.” The way Carly tossed out the reply, without thought, with a playful smile… That was sexy.

“I can be nerdy.” My answer came easily. Smoothly.

Diego smirked and shook his head. “Possibly not the way Carly is thinking.”

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