"I'd love to." The only other time I’d been here was that night, and I didn’t see much other than the inside of the trailer.
We walked over to the trailer. Ivy was seated at a big metal desk with paper sorted in big piles. Her lovely hair looked a little mussed, and she glowered when we stepped inside. "Finally, I can't wait to get out of here."
I gave Finn an apologetic grimace. Our plans to look at the property would have to wait. "Sorry, I was practicing on some pigskin today and time got away from me."
"Whatever." She stood and draped her purse across her body. "Let's go."
"How about I take you both out for dinner?" Finn interjected. He squeezed my hand. He wasn't ready to let me go, and frankly I'd been waiting all day to see him.
"No, God, I can't even think about eating." She patted her stomach, making Finn sigh. There was a dynamic here at play that I didn't really understand. Hopefully one or both would explain it to me later before I became uncomfortable.
"Why doesn't Ivy drive home, and I'll take you to dinner after I show you the jobsite?" Finn moved across the trailer and grabbed a yellow battered hard hat. "A little big for your tiny head, but it'll do," he said and set the helmet on my head as if his suggestion was a done deal. It slid forward and covered my eyes. He reached behind me and cranked something, and soon the helmet was just slightly too big instead of so big I couldn't wear it, kind of like the baseball helmet. He smiled, and I knew we were thinking of the same thing.
"I can't drive, genius," Ivy huffed from behind. When she’d taken the car the other day, she’d risked violating her parole. She wasn’t eligible for a license yet and usually got a ride home with someone since I had the car.
"I'll drive you home and come back," I offered.
"No need." Finn took the keys from my hand and threw them at Ivy. Reflexively she caught them. "I called your parole officer, and as long as you're going to and from work, you can drive." With that, he took my hand and led me out of the trailer.
"You called her parole officer?"
"He actually called me. Apparently your sister needs to be actively looking for a job if she's not currently employed. Her former boss called her parole officer and told him that she'd been fired, so he called Ivy and she told him that I'd hired her. He called to verify."
"Wow, Jimmy is a real asshole. Was he trying to get her parole revoked?"
"Don't know." His detached tone told me he didn't care either.
"You guys seemed tense. Do you want to tell me about that?"
"She doesn't want you to go out with me. Want to tell me about that?"
The grip on my wrist had gotten tighter and his footsteps a little faster. I had to nearly trot to keep up with him. "She's emotional," was all I could come up with. I didn't quite fully understand her hesitancy toward Finn unless there was something deeper and darker that had happened while they were dating that neither wanted to confess.
He grunted and then stopped walking when he reached an opening wide enough to frame four doors. "This is the entrance. It will have twelve-foot double doors in the center and two sliding doors for accessibility on either side. When you first walk in, there’s a four-story atrium ahead of you flanked on either side by the escalator bank. Escalators go only to the third floor. Elevators take you to the fourth. There's room for shops on the first floor with the next three being offices. Floors five through eight floors are residential." He was apparently very done talking about Ivy. He walked me through the stores that had committed and then out onto the back which overlooked the river.
"This is a big project." I hadn't fully grasped the scope of the build from the erected steel beams.
"Too big for me," Finn admitted. "I'd never willingly sign up for this."
"But you're doing it." I leaned against one of the metal support frames. The view of the river was beautiful on the ground level, and I'd imagine eight floors up, it would be even more spectacular. Once this building was complete, the units would fly through the leasing agents’ hands.
"I am." He cocked his head.
"What now?"
"You and Adam are about the only ones who've never implied I'm in over my head."
"Maybe we know you best."
"Is that right?" He had moved so his big body was only inches from mine, his forearm resting against the metal beam.
"Yes." My heart was in my throat, but I couldn't stop the words from tumbling out even as they exposed every feeling I had. "I've made a study of Finn O'Malley. He's easy going on the outside, but he cares deeply. He’s had the same best friend since kindergarten. He sticks by people even when they've done him wrong because he wants the best for them. He takes on projects he doesn't want because someone he loved would have wanted him to finish them."
His work-roughened fingertips made circles around my face. "What does Finn O'Malley think of Winter Donovan?"
I sucked in a shallow breath. It was getting hard to breath. "Finn likes Winter. He thinks she's a talented artist. Also good at kissing."
One side of his sexy mouth quirked up. "Nothing else?"