Rusty Nailed (Cocktail, #2)(69)

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“Holy Christ, this place is sick.”

“Sick is right. How much did she pay for the baby-puke-green stove?”

“Obviously she’s getting rid of those, and besides, she didn’t pay for it. Simon did.”

“No shit, must be nice to have Mr. Moneybags for a feller. Why such a big house, though?”

“Oh, use your imagination! There’s two of them now, but down the road . . .”

“Just because you plan on being pregnant within the year doesn’t mean anyone else wants to be.”

“Don’t be such a downer, you big stick-in-the-mud. Just look at that view!”

“All I see are weeds.”

“Honestly, I can’t even believe that you—”

“Now look, Pollyanna, I just call it like I see it, and I think that—”

I stood in the doorway, watching my two best friends with amusement. I cleared my throat, and they both broke off, midtiff.

“Sorry, Caroline, we were just saying that—” Mimi started, and I waved my hand.

“I heard what you were saying; you two carry on. Let me know when you want me to give you the full tour—or I can just leave and let you two make out. I’m familiar with your foreplay.”

Sophia snorted and set her bag down on one of the sawhorses. “Okay, Reynolds, show us your new digs.”

I did indeed give them the full tour of the new house. My new house. Our new house. Which was, at this point, a war zone.

Besides the aforementioned sawhorses, we also had ladders, Sheetrock, buffing machines, paint cans, several tarps, and yes, baby-puke-green appliances. To be fair, when they were initially manufactured, they were called avocado. Which was just insulting to avocados.

Experience had taught me that no matter how much money a customer had, no matter how many workmen you had on the job, no matter how creative the architect or how skilled the designer (very), there were hiccups. Hiccups that I simply left at the end of the day.

Now I was living with the hiccups. Every single day. Along with Simon, who was taking it much more in stride. He’d never done anything like this before, but he was determined to help as much as he could. He even bought himself a tool belt, which he looked utterly fantastic wearing. Had I made him model it for me one night wearing nothing else? Maybe. A little.

The building inspection had turned up more issues than I thought possible. Under the surface, there was wood rot. And leaky pipes. And busted duct work. Floor joists needed to be replaced, a new concrete slab possibly poured in the basement—the hits just kept on coming. All of it was totally doable, just time consuming. And costly.

I hired an architect I’d worked with before, we worked up the plans, we brought in a contractor, and walls started coming down. We were reconfiguring the entire layout downstairs, letting in more light, opening up hallways, and creating a more open concept without sacrificing the original integrity of the house. There was nothing worse in my book than Victorian on the outside and ultramodern inside.

It was a pile of crazy at the moment, but I could see that it was going to be beautiful. And we were moving at a breakneck pace, using more workers than normal to get everything done more quickly.

It’s amazing what you can get done when you have deep pockets and a sense of urgency. Which Simon really seemed to have lately when it came to the house. Getting back to his photography? Not so much. But we’ll pause on that particular pickle, and focus on this gorgeous old house.

Although “we” bought it, use of the word we here is stretching it considerably. There was no way I could have afforded a house like this, run down or not. It was in a prime area with killer views and a huge footprint in an established neighborhood. I wasn’t comfortable with Simon paying for everything, no matter how much money he had stashed away. So I’d insisted that the house would be in his name only, and I’d contribute to monthly household expenses. He gave me an enormous budget to work with for the design, and while I still felt a bit guilty when I saw the invoices, I had to admit I liked having a rich boyfriend.

There. I said it. Revoke my feminist card. Take away my—well, whatever you take away when a woman admits she likes nice things. I was getting the house of my dreams, with the man of my dreams. And I reminded myself of this each time I tripped over a bucket or brushed sawdust off my sammich or tensed up whenever I heard Simon turn a job down. . . . There’s that pickle again.

In addition to my own house renovations I was in the home stretch on the Claremont, which filled my days. Jillian had toured each job site I’d been working on in her absence, pored over the books with a fine-tooth comb, grilled Monica so thoroughly that I was scared for her, and then said I’d done an amazing job. I told her she could show me that in my end-of-the-quarter bonus, which she pretended not to hear. But she totally would.

Now she was spending some time meeting with her lawyers and her accountants, which freed me up for putting the finishing touches on the hotel. The launch party was getting closer and closer, and we’d be ready to show it off to all of Sausalito.

I focused on all the things that were on my plate at the moment, and not on the pickle on the side that was staring at me. Because that was a pickle I was silly to even entertain. Who cared that he wasn’t working? He had plenty of money, he didn’t need to work. So why did this pickle prick at me so?

Pffft. Forget it—I had a fifty-cent tour to give right now.