The realtor picked up and as soon as I mentioned the property she broke into effusive praise. The space was historic. It was a charmer. It had an ocean view. It was perfect for whatever I had in mind! Even I knew a hard sell when I heard it, and I instantly sensed that there had to be something horribly wrong with the property. Maybe it was built on a sinking swamp, or an Indian burial ground. But I agreed to meet her the next day at ten a.m. so she could show me around. Maybe it was time for me to make my own decision, even if it was a bad one.
A project sounded like just what I needed. Something to throw myself into. I needed a distraction. I could already feel myself unraveling with too much time on my hands. I wasn’t good at sitting around idle.
I’d already started seeing things. Specific things, like Liam driving a truck. And looking damn fine as he did it, too. I’d like to sit next to him as he drove his truck, like I did that summer we were together. He’d had an old truck, no bucket seats to keep us apart, and I used to sit right next to him pressed along his side. We couldn’t stand being apart. Even the shortest amount of time or the smallest distance seemed like too much.
That had been crazy. That kind of fierce, intense love didn’t last. It was a good thing I’d walked away when I did and pulled the plug on it. It would have been far worse for it to die slowly. Or what if it had gone up in flames? What if he’d come to New York and fallen in love with one of my roommates? I might have come home and found them together and then had that image burned into my brain forever.
Shaking my head, I started up the stairs to my room. Yes, I needed to get myself occupied. What I needed was to take on a project, ideally an impossibly big one that would absorb all my time and thought. Otherwise, I’d think way too much about Liam.
4
Liam
Thursday I got a call from a guy I knew who ran fire inspections. He had a good gig, checking out commercial properties and deciding what was and wasn’t up to code. He was stretched thin tomorrow, supposed to be in two different places at the same time, and he wanted to know if I could help him out.
Of course I said I would. It made sense to have my finger in that pot, too. You never knew when you might get injured. Work as a firefighter tended toward long stretches of not much punctuated by medical emergencies and false alarms. But every now and then, shit went down. It was good to have fallback options like carpentry and inspections. And I knew the fire code like the back of my hand.
Before the end of my shift at the stationhouse, I looked up the property I was supposed to inspect the next day. It gave the guys and I a laugh. It was a historic building, one of many on Naugatuck. The historical preservation society had major bees in their bonnets and cared a hell of a lot more about bullshit like faithfulness to the original architectural intent than they did about whether or not a building was a death trap. The fact that we’d learned a lot about fire safety in the last 250 years didn’t seem to matter much to them.
The building in question dated back to 1789, or at least the foundation and one of the exterior walls. Which meant that any prospective owners were fucked. You couldn’t do a damn thing to alter historic buildings in general, and if you went back before the 1800s you may as well just hand over your wallet and tie your hands behind your back for good measure. New owners would never get approval from the Naugatuck Historical Society to update the building, but without major upgrades they’d never meet current fire codes and get approval from the city to operate a business. That’s why the building had sat vacant for the past several years. The former owners had been able to grandfather themselves in using old codes, enabling them to operate legally in non-compliance. Not any more, though. Whoever was stupid enough to be looking at this storefront had another thing coming.
I’d feel like a bastard walking in with my strict ultimatums if I hadn’t seen fires up close wreaking complete havoc. As a young kid I’d always thought my firefighter dad was over-reacting, making too big a deal out of fire safety. But then I’d had my own up close and personal experience with fire, and let me tell you once was all it took to put the fear of God in me for the rest of my life. Out on the water with my three friends, all of us dumb teenagers, we’d had no idea that a boat in the middle of the ocean could go up in flames.
But engines could catch fire even in the midst of a sudden storm. That’s what had burned Ian. Chase had gone overboard, knocked unconscious by a beam, and I’d made a split-second decision. Down I’d gone after Chase, hauling him up and keeping him alive. But Jax hadn’t been able to help Ian, and now Ian had a lifetime of suffering because of it.
I couldn’t change the past, but I could do my part to prevent future catastrophe. Specifically, I could read this new prospective buyer the riot act. He was probably some billionaire who thought he could do whatever he wanted, no respect for any laws. The elements be damned! What were fire codes when you were made of money? I’d set him straight.
I left my shift at eight a.m., took a nap for a few hours at home, showered and headed to my noon inspection. It wouldn’t take long, I was sure. The place would be crawling with problems no new owner could possibly solve.
The realtor must have already arrived, because the door was open. I turned the knob, walked in and then stood stock still. What. The. Fuck.
Sophie Douglas stood there in the middle of the room. She wore a simple white sundress and I almost thought she was a ghost or a figment of my imagination she looked so ethereally gorgeous. But then she turned, looked at me and dropped her bag hard on the floor with a bang. An apple rolled out of it, wobbling slowly across the planks like it was trying to escape but wasn’t sure which way to exit.
“Oh, hello!” The third person in the room called out, making no difference to either Sophie or me. “Are you the inspector? I’m Marion Markenson with the realty group. I don’t believe we’ve met.” She inserted herself in front of me, gold jewelry snaking all around her wrists and neck.
“’lo,” I muttered, shaking the hand she extended.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” she prompted.
“Liam,” Sophie whispered from behind her. So it was Sophie, not her twin, not a figment of my imagination. Sophie Douglas was standing in front of me in a store in Naugatuck. Or at least in the same room as me, though behind the realtor lady who was now standing in front of her.
“What’s that?” the realtor turned.
“Liam.” I cleared my throat. “I’m Liam Connolly.”
“You’re doing inspections?” Sophie asked. She spoke quietly, as if she were stunned. I just nodded.
“Well, we are so glad you made some time in your busy schedule to swing on by here this morning. Or I guess it’s afternoon, isn’t it?” The realtor laughed, clearly thinking she was buttering me up. But my hands felt numb and I didn’t think I could discuss much at the moment, let alone perform a fire code inspection.
“’Scuse me,” I muttered, taking the phone out of the pocket of my jeans and using it as an excuse to step out of the building for a minute. “Be right back.”
“Of course!” the realtor called after me. I stepped out into the fresh air and hung a right around the side of the building where I leaned against the bricks. What. The. Fuck. What was Sophie doing back on Naugatuck? Maybe that actually had been her I’d seen in the grocery store parking lot the other day.
Damn, she looked beautiful. She wore her hair pulled back, simple and neat, and she held herself with such elegant grace. But of course she looked good. She’d studied elegance, I reminded myself, bought and paid for it with years of dance instruction. She’d cultivated and crafted that look. I’d fallen for it hard seven years ago and look where it had gotten me. She’d ditched my ass and never looked back.
So now she’d decided to return, had she? Who knew how long she’d been back on Naugatuck, and she hadn’t even bothered to get in touch. Like it was no big deal if she waltzed back here. And it seemed as if she had some sort of half-assed plan to buy this crumbling building. That couldn
’t happen, for a whole bunch of reasons. I was sure she had better ways to throw away her trust fund money.
Resolute and outwardly composed, I tucked my phone into my jeans and headed back into the store. This time I was prepared. And I was determined to wrap things up quick.
“So you need this place inspected for a possible sale?” I pulled the brim of my baseball cap down low, all the better to make no eye contact. Ballpoint pen out, clipboard at the ready, I started making my way into the back of the store.
“We’re so excited to have a local interested in snapping up this incredible property!” The realtor twittered along behind me like an eager bird. I shook my head almost imperceptibly at her use of the word “local.” “Local” described year-rounders, the actual working people of the island who took care of all the wealthy idiots who descended during fair weather months. Sophie was as local as the pope was Jewish.
“I hate seeing any storefronts in our jewel of a downtown lie vacant, don’t you agree, Liam? It’s such a shame with all the revenue stores can generate for the town. And Sophie here wants to open a professional ballet academy!”
“Just a dance school,” Sophie murmured, lingering behind in the doorway to the back room. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t want to know the details. It killed me to even be in the same room as her.
Acting on a hunch, I headed directly over to the fuse box. I figured it would be the best way to get the inspection over with as soon as possible. And look: jackpot. “Right here, that’s your main problem.” I pointed with my pen at the box. The building had knob and tube wiring. That had gone out of style around 1930. There wasn’t even a line item on my checklist for it. I had to write it down in the “other” section.
“Oh!” the realtor exclaimed, peering into the box. “That’s historic!” Leave it to a realtor to try to put a positive spin on everything.
“The whole place needs to be torn apart and rewired.” I turned my attention to the inspection sheet, checking off a long line of “nos” all the way down.
“Well, I’m sure something can be worked out.” The realtor laughed nervously. “How’s the rest of it look?”