“I hear ya, bird.”
He walked up to a silent kitchen. Usually Storm was in her chair, babbling and blowing raspberries. Someone would be making coffee. They’d all talk about what they were doing that day.
Sophie’s house was equally busy with Art putting on the news and Biyen spilling his cereal and Sophie bossing everyone while taking care of them at the same time.
He used to think he was lucky that he lived alone with no one to answer to. Today, he couldn’t stand his own company. He walked down to the pub where he found Cameron and joined him for breakfast before heading into the office.
Sophie was already there in her coveralls, sitting on the stool, logging hours.
“Callout?”
“Mmm. Gillnetter needed a fuel line and was trying to get on his way so I came in early.” She yawned.
“I brought you a coffee from the pub.”
“I went through to the break room.” She picked up the mug beside her, meeting his gaze over the rim. Hers seemed wary.
“I forgot we can do that now.” He kept a level tone, wondering when he was going to quit spilling cold water on whatever warmth he managed to kindle between them. Her sex life was none of his business.
Not everything is about you, Logan.
“I woke up to a long string of texts from Emma,” Sophie said with amusement, tone brightening. “I guess all the travel was too much for Storm. She hated the playpen. Thought she’d been sentenced to baby jail and was not having it.”
“She sleeps in one in Reid’s office all the time. Are they all sharing a suite or…?”
“Adjoining rooms. And the funny thing is—Well, it’s not funny unless it’s happening to someone else, but I can picture it so clearly. When babies learn to pull themselves up to stand, they just keep doing it. They don’t know how to get back down unless they fall down and that scares them so they turn into this wrecking ball of self-torture. You try to lay them down and they’re standing up and screaming before you get to the door.”
“I’m trying not to enjoy this, because Storm will do it to me soon enough, but this is what I’m saying about Reid. Remember how he was yesterday? ‘I’m not scared,’” he mocked.
“Emma said he had to walk her all over the hotel until she fell asleep. They finally got everyone down, then it was musical beds because Cooper wet the sheets. They switched up to a girls’ room and a boys’ room, which got them through to five this morning when Biyen woke Reid, asking if he could call me. That’s another reason I was in so early.”
“Does he want to come home?” he asked with concern. “Do you need to go?”
“No,” she scoffed. “As soon as he saw me on the screen, he started talking about everything they were going to do today. He just needed to know I was still here, same as always.” She shook her head and chuckled, turning back to the computer to finish tapping.
“Yeah.” What was wrong with him that he suffered a little fomo that he had missed all of that chaos. He didn’t want any part of it. Who would?
“I have to work on the propeller for that cabin cruiser today, but I’ll mud the holes from the shelves first,” she said absently.
Back to work. Personal time over, he noted with a raw sensation in his throat.
“Sounds good,” he said. “Thanks.”
*
By the time Sophie was finished with her marina duties, Logan had framed in the new wall, door, and the space for the window. He’d moved the electrical outlet and, as soon as she appeared, asked her to help him set the window in place.
She did, then went down to the locker room to remove her coveralls and put on the cutoff bib overalls she liked to wear for working at home when it was hot. They were loose and had lots of pockets.
“This is going to feel a lot more functional,” she said, when she came back into the office. “I thought it would feel claustrophobic, but I’ll actually have more space once the filing cabinet is out from behind my chair and in your office. Plus, I might actually see sunlight.” She pointed through the window to his door into the accounting hallway. The breakroom had a window that faced the cove. Sunlight shone through that window onto the floor there through the middle of the day. “It’s as if you went to school to learn how to do stuff like this.”
“They said going all the way to Italy for a master’s degree in yacht design wouldn’t pay off, but they’re eating their words now, aren’t they?”
“You’re finally realizing your potential, is what I’m hearing. What was that like, anyway?” She had always been curious about his time there. It was such a worldly accomplishment, not something her very ordinary ambitions had ever conceived of. “Did you learn Italian?”
“Sì. Then I moved to Florida and mixed it up with all the Spanish I heard there. I’m kind of lousy at both, to be honest. It was a good experience, though. It made me realize what a young country Canada is. The colonial Canada, obviously. We have trees that are five hundred years old. They have buildings that old. Can you—?”
She went around the window to shim from the other side.
“Thanks.” He set the level and tapped another shim into place. “It was where the best school happened to be and I’m glad I went, but I don’t have any sentimental attachment to Genoa.”
“I’m still jealous that you’ve lived such a big life. I took Biyen to California for the amusement parks last year. That’s as far from home as I’ve been. I’d like to go to Mexico, but I’d also like to redo the bathroom.” She mirrored his movement on her side of the window, shifting to the other side to shim there.
“If you’re going to update your place, I have ideas,” he said.
“You don’t think the charm of our house is its complete disregard for function?”
“Homely has two meanings and it demonstrates both of them very well.” He touched the level to the window frame, checking both horizontal and vertical angles. “Perfect.”
“Poor old house. I wouldn’t put Gramps through a full reno, though.” She came back to her desk. “He has a dinner invite tonight, by the way. I’m grabbing pizza from the pub. What do you want on your half?” She picked up the phone.
While they waited for the pizza, they carried up the new drywall, then ate in the break room, enjoying the breeze that came up from the water and through the open window.
They didn’t talk much and got right back to work after. Logan seemed to have taken to heart her ‘are you paying me to talk or work’ remark from last night.
That bothered her. She liked their banter. Back in the day, all the girls had thrown themselves at him, but none had made him laugh as often as she had. That had been her edge—the thing that had made her feel special. The thing that had made her feel seen by him.
Yesterday, that back and forth had started trampling on some very raw nerves, especially when he’d been so shocked by her saying that sex had wrecked her life. She had knocked him back a step out of defensiveness, but did he think she had been referring to him?