Major Renovations (Ritter University #1) (6 page)

“So, you’re studying to be a contractor now.”

“What?”

“Well, you seem to know all about the house and the boring details. Figured you were dropping pre-med and going into house building. Hell, we could go into business together. The architect and the contractor.”

Dropping pre-med. If Ryan only knew. “I just pay attention.”
Dupek
. “Why are you here? Checking up on me?”

“Schedule issue.” Ryan shrugged and took a sip of beer.

“What could be wrong with your schedule?” Ski tried for an innocent look. “Doesn’t your dad choose all your classes?”

“Yeah, I saw him at the registrar’s, waiting in line behind your dad.” Ryan smirked and raised his beer. “What classes did your dad pick for you?”

“I told him to surprise me.” Ski smiled— Ryan got it. He’d had his life mapped out in perfect detail by an over-controlling father, too. He knew what it was like to have no say in your own future.

Ski watched Ryan peel the label from the bottle. This was his chance to talk to someone. Someone who might understand that even though he loved his classes, real life was a whole different game. Did he want to be a doctor? What if he hated it? What if the medical genius of his father skipped a generation?

What if he loved it? So far he’d excelled at memorizing the crap in a book. But his hands were too big, too clumsy to belong to a surgeon, and he didn’t have the ass-kissing skills required to be successful in the political nightmare of a hospital.

Nope. Ski was on his own. Ryan would never understand that part. Anything he wanted to do, he’d do, and do it well. He didn’t have clompy hands and an accent that confused people.

Ryan pushed back in his chair. “I should head home. I’ve got a three hour drive ahead of me.”

“Yeah, I need to get back to the house.” Why? Who the fuck knew. “By the way, how’s your mom?”

“Good. My sister was able to help her get her hair into a ponytail. A very small ponytail. But just the fact that she was able to put the clippy thing in her hair was amazing. So we celebrated with wine and a huge Italian dinner.”

“Nice. I don’t know how you did it, man. I got that call from Joe today and I was scrolling through websites to fly to Poland. That shit’s messed up.”

“Yeah, but your mom is fine. Just a fall. They’re just cutting the trip short.”

“Exactly. You put up with that crap for almost a year.”

“I’m finally able to breathe after all that shit.” Ryan leaned back in the chair. He did seem more relaxed. Calmer.

“So, guys, can I get you anything else?” The pirate-wench-slash-waitress magically appeared at their table, her short skirt showing off long tanned legs, and her ample chest bouncing in his, and then Ryan’s, face.

“No thanks, Mandy.”

“Check would be good.” Ski checked his watch again. Was the inspector done? Did they pass? There was that “they” word again.

“It’s right here, baby.” She propped her foot on the empty chair, displaying the black folder stuck through a wide elastic garter on her thigh. Ryan went to reach for the bill, but pulled his hand back at the last second, much to Ski’s relief.

With all the hands that groped the plastic bill folder— and then she put it there? He wasn’t necessarily a germaphobe, but he couldn’t wrap his head around the bacteria likely being spread by that folder.

“Come on now, Ryan, it should be easy for a big strong Psi Rho man like you to get up my skirt.”

“Now, Mandy, it should be harder for me to get into a prim and proper Alpha Nu girl’s skirt. Wouldn’t your sorority frown on that?” Ryan grabbed the check and reached for his wallet.

“I won’t tell if you won’t. Anyway, I can play hard to get when I want to.” She grabbed the plates, her ass shaking back and forth as she walked away from the table.

Ski snorted in disbelief, and Ryan looked over at him and shrugged. “She seems nice,” he said. “In an overly-friendly, check-for-crabs kind of way.” He threw down a couple bills. “I got this. You get next.”

Mandy walked back to the table, a big Styrofoam clamshell in one hand. She twirled her curly blond hair between her fingers. “Here you go, baby. If you change your mind…” Setting it down, she wrote her phone number on top of the clamshell and winked.

“What’s in the box?” Ski asked after she flounced off.

Ryan lifted a corner, and a smile spread across his face. “Cherry pie.”

“A for effort, but F for originality,” Ski said as they headed for the exit.

“Amen, brother.” Ryan laughed as he swung the door open.

“Gonna call her?” She was a little too rabid-dog for Ski’s taste, but he hoped Ryan knew better.

“No.” Ryan handed him the box when they got to his car.

“You don’t want it?”

“Nah, take it home to your hot contractor. Maybe if you share your pie with her, she'll share her…”

“Do
not
fi
nish that sentence.”

Ryan spun his keys on his finger, silent laughter rolling through his frame. “See you next month, big guy. Can’t wait for classes to start. Well, I can’t wait to get out of the parents’ house, anyway. Call me if you need me to talk some sense into your woman. She'll come around.”

Ski laughed. His relationships with most of the guys in the house were so easy. They joked. They poked. They fought. But when the day was over and the dust settled, they always had each other’s backs.

~»ΨΡ«~

Chapter
Nine

Sam

THE SETTING sun painted the sky orange as Samantha set up the ladder to attach the last strips of beadboard to the underside of the porch roof. She’d finally finished replacing all the broken wood on the porch this morning. It was a mess, but luckily no major structural damage was done.

The inspector had come by earlier, and given them a straight-up pass on everything. Bob the electrician had a few words for the inspector, none of them very nice. Like it mattered. The whole fiasco was over. She was back on track.

She climbed up, four lengths of beadboard in hand and the nail gun hanging from her tool belt. An easy install. Well, it would be if her father would stop yapping at her.

“That was a rookie mistake, Samantha.” Did her father have to lurk under her while she worked?

A green sedan drove into the parking lot. Ski. Great. Not the man she wanted to see right now. She still owed him one huge apology for overreacting the other day, and she had no desire to do that bit of groveling. Especially in front of her father.

Not that she’d have time to beg Ski for forgiveness with her father pointing out all her faults. If he didn’t run out of mistakes soon, he’d be doing it in front of Ski. This was shaping up to be a great day. Or not.

“How many times have I told you to double check your work? Dammit— you’re twenty-one years old. How are you going to take over when I retire?” He tipped his baseball hat up in the front, and then settled it back down before doing it again. And again.

Frustration snaked around her throat with every word, and she shoved the strip of beadboard into place.
Bam!
She slapped the nailer against it hard enough to send a twinge up to her shoulder. You’d think she’d kicked a puppy or something horrific.
Bam!
So she’d made a mistake.
Bam!
She should have done a better job. She should have double-checked everything. She should have supervised the appliance delivery. So many “should haves”. It was a minor setback. And it was over. Why couldn’t he just let it die? She fitted the next strip, wishing she had more to cut— the saw would drown her father out more effectively than the nailer. No matter what she did, it was never enough. Sometimes it was hard being such a colossal disappointment. “I’m managing all three sites. What more do you want?”

“I want it done right.” He sighed and flipped through Sam’s tablet. “So how are you going to get this project done?”

“I'm going to finish the beadboard today, and maybe I’ll install the wall lights tonight. I'll have the sliding glass door and outdoor painting done by Monday.”

“The tiling’s done in the kitchen?”

“Tile’s done. Air conditioning is fixed. The indoor painting is done. I should be able to close out this site by the middle of next week.” She wanted to feel pride as she listed off every completed task. But she knew it wouldn’t be enough. It never was.

“Behind schedule, but there’s never any shame in working overtime to get the work done.”

Overtime? She’d been working nonstop to get the work done all week. Overtime. Under-time. All-the-time. How much time could one person devote to work? Well, she was finding out this week. Samantha turned and locked eyes on Ski. There should be a law that no guy should look that tasty all the time. He looked good enough to mount and nail.

Mount and nail. Oh yeah, she had issues.

“Ski, young man. How are the brothers of Psi Rho?”

Ski walked over to Samantha's father and shook his hand. “Can't complain, Mister Smith.”

Interesting. Most people called her father
Mister Thunder
— it was Thunder Construction, after all. Her last name was Thunder, true, but his wasn’t. Her father had named the company after Samantha’s mother, another attempt to woo her back to him. She never came back. Samantha shook off the melancholy before it could take hold.

“Please, call me Bryan.” Her dad stared at the building and sighed. “You know, if I went to college, I would have been in a frat. I always wanted to join the brotherhood. This building’s probably seen a lot of action.” Her father leaned close to Ski and whispered, “I got my share back in the day.”

No. No, no, no.
Samantha got busy with the nail gun. She hoped if she focused on the work in her hands, she could lose the vision of her father— and action. She crinkled her nose.
Yuck.
Two concepts she never, ever wanted to put together. She wanted her father happy. She wanted him to find someone. She assumed the woman he found would give him action. That did not mean she wanted to hear about it.

“Probably. I’m too busy studying to be part of the action.”

From her vantage point, Samantha saw the red crawling up Ski’s neck. Apparently, he didn’t like to be associated with the “action” that happened in the house. Interesting.

Ski cleared his throat. “I am looking forward to seeing this place done. Your daughter’s doing an excellent job.”

“Yeah, I taught my girl well.”

She shook her head.
Taught her well
. Crazy, her father drove her crazy. One minute she was useless as a manager, and the next, he taught her well. This time, the nailer went
pfft
instead of
bam
, and she growled a sigh. Out of nails, and she didn’t have another strip of them in her belt. She would have grabbed more, but she was distracted. Between her father and Ski there were always distractions. She slowly came down the ladder.

“So, I hear you're on vacation.” Ski watched as she loaded the nailer. Not that she was watching him, but she could feel his stare— tormenting her, distracting her.

“Well, I was on vacation. It was interesting. Samantha, why don’t we head out for a family dinner to discuss it? Ski, son, you could join us.”

Son? Oh, brother. Wait no, not her brother. Family dinner with Ski and Dad. No. Just… no. Ski wasn’t family, not her brother, and she had no desire to play house with the man. She had no desire to play house with any man. Just because something was fun to look at now and again didn’t mean she wanted to carry it with her everywhere she went.

Hell, she wasn’t exactly high on Ski’s list right now, anyway. How could she be? She might have been a little harsh the other day. Damn— that reminded her. She still had a round of groveling to perform. That to-do list kept growing and growing, didn’t it?

She faked a smile. “I’m too busy. I don’t have time for dinner right now.”

“You have to eat.” Her father had the audacity to look upset. Two minutes ago he wanted her to work overtime to get back on track. Now, he wanted her to take time away from work to have a family dinner.

“I will. Just not now. I don’t have time for family bonding.” Or any other bondage. Bonding. Yes, bonding.

“Fine. Ski?”

“I have a few things to do around here, but thanks.”

“Darn. I have nothing to eat at home. I was hoping to get you two to join me and give me an excuse to go someplace good.”

“Wait.” Ski ran to his car and came back a Styrofoam box in his hand. “How about some dessert?”

“What you got there?”

“Cherry pie.” Ski jiggled the box.

Her father grabbed it as if there was no other food on the planet, and not two grocery stores on the way home from the site. Two completely stocked grocery stores to choose from. Of course, they weren’t drive-through, and they wouldn’t make the food for him.

He lifted the lid and snickered. “Are you sure you don’t want this? Someone named Mandy has drawn a very explicit picture on the inside of this box.”

Mandy? Who the hell was Mandy?

Ski peered inside at the lid. Red crawled up his neck and didn’t settle until it hit his ears. “Uhh… that’s not for me.”

“Sure it’s not, son.” Her father slapped him on the back and laughed. “I suppose I should get home and unpack. I was on this horrific singles cruise. My daughter insisted. But I had to come home when I heard about the problems on the site.”

Oh, please. Samantha stomped up the ladder. He had called every day, three to four times a day. The singles cruise couldn’t have been that bad— he came home because he was looking for any reason to escape. Stress put his health at risk, and she thought a week away would help. And a cruise where he could meet other single people— maybe he’d meet someone to take his focus off work. Two birds. One stone. And all. At least that was the plan. But no. Her phone rang nonstop. He did not relax. He did not meet a nice woman. He did, however, torment her till her phone limped home each night, the battery spent.