The One That Got Away (5 page)

His eyebrows shoot upward. “You do muay thai? Damn, you're badass!”

Just then, my cellphone rings—it's Noah, undoubtedly calling because he doesn't see me logged on to my computer. “Sorry, I need to get this, it's my boyfriend,” I explain. Petty though it is, I feel a surge of satisfaction as I say this to him. “Help yourself to the printer—the wireless code is ‘Newman.' ” I turn away from his grin and hurry up the stairs to my room—and to Noah.

Once, a couple years ago, when Nicole and I were having a late-night, wine-fueled Deep Discussion about our respective partners, she asked me what my favorite thing was about Noah. My answer was instantaneous, because it was the first thing I noticed about him, and I have adored it ever since: his crow's-feet. Those tiny grooves that deepen at the corners of his eyes when he smiles. Nicole complained that a random physical characteristic shouldn't be my favorite thing about him, but I disagreed. Aside from how handsome they look on his face, the crow's-feet are a testament to the living that he's done. Playing outside all day long as a young kid in Mexico City, where his diplomatic family lived till he was eleven, getting brown as a dry leaf because nobody really cared about sunscreen then. Squinting into the equatorial sunlight of Panama, where he spent two years in the Peace Corps. And, of course, laughing. Of the two of us, I'm usually the person making the jokes, but he is always, always so happy to laugh.

When his blurry image appears on the screen of my laptop, I smile, like I always do. He has a fresh sunburn on his forehead and nose from all that sunlight bouncing off the glacier. If I were there with him, I'd be able to locate a few new freckles by tomorrow.

“Hey, Iceman! How was it?”

His face looms closer as he leans forward, elbows propped on either side of his keypad. “It was so awesome, kitten. Just phenomenal. I can't wait to take you.”

“Tell me!”

“I've never seen anything like it. The ice always looks so blue in photos—I thought it must be some Photoshop trick or something. But that's how it really is. Something about the way the ice absorbs light. It's surreal. But you're going to have to leave the photos to me.”

Noah is the photographer in our relationship. It amuses him that I, the supposedly artsy one, can't take a picture in focus to save my life. But the precisely measurable mechanics of shutter and aperture are right up his alley. “So did you just climb around all day?”

“We hiked for a while, then in the afternoon we came back and got on a boat that took us right up to the wall of the glacier. The face of it is all cracked and cragged, like some kind of rock. It was stunning.”

“That sounds amazing.”

“It's going to blow you away,” he says, and taps his laptop screen in the spot where my nose must appear on his end. The best part about Noah's passion for travel is his generosity in sharing it with me. I can't always afford my share of the trips he suggests, but nothing makes him happier than to treat me. He says it wouldn't be fun without me there to share it. But still—someday I'll be able to pay exactly my half. “So what did
you
do today?” he asks.

“Actually, I wanted your opinion about that,” I say. “Do you remember hearing about Danny's friend Eamon, the swimmer? He's moving back to Austin. He's visiting this weekend and he wants me to help him find a house and gut it.” Noah does not know that Eamon and I slept together—and he will most definitely
remain swaddled in his blanket of ignorance. Especially now that Eamon is moving back to town.

“Huh. Oh yeah, I remember. This is the guy that was in that car crash, or whatever? How does Danny know him?”

“From college. Danny used to be a really serious swimmer, remember? Texas has one of the best teams in the country. Eamon went to UT, too, a couple years behind Danny.”

“I'll be damned.” Noah is plainly stumped by the concept of Danny engaging in a notoriously demanding sport, let alone at a level high enough to have become friends with one of its top athletes. “So what's the question?”

“Well, assuming he does buy something that needs work, he's probably going to want me to at least put in a proposal. But I feel like either it's going to be such a small job that it'll be more hassle than it's worth, or it will be so big that I won't have time for it—especially with all the new work for Balm. I'm trying to figure out a way to get out of it without looking like an asshole.”

Noah waves his palms in front of him. “Wait. Why are you trying to get out of accepting a job before the job even exists? Is the guy a jerk or something?”

I realize that I don't actually know the answer to this question. Sure, Eamon made me feel like crap back in the day, but he was twenty-one years old and I can't hold that up as proof of an immutable character flaw seven years later. There are much nastier things to do to somebody than sleep with them and never call them again.

“I don't think so,” I say after a minute, “but I do think he's a handful. To get to that level, in that sport, you've got to be Type AAA. Somebody like that does not make an easy client.”

“You can handle him,” says Noah loyally. “It sounds like it could be interesting. I think you should at least see what happens.”

“Really?”

“Truly. I'll be keeping fingers and toes crossed for you.”

“All of them?”

“Every last one.” He demonstrates, fingers snarled. “I'm going to be tied in knots until I hear what happens. Literally. It's going to make things tough for me over the next couple of days.” He's trying to be deadpan, but, inevitably, his smile creeps into place. I can't believe it's going to be another two months before I get to be with him again. If the phone sex and blurry webcam calls are already starting to wear thin, I can't imagine how sick I'll be of both by the time he comes home.

Before I turn in, I decide to check on Eamon. I find him in the deserted living room, working on his laptop in boxers and a faded orange Texas Swimming & Diving T-shirt, with his long, muscular legs stretched out on the coffee table. A short, uneven scar tracks through the hair on one thigh—that must be from the compound fracture I remember hearing he'd suffered in the car crash. Absolutely incredible to be that seriously injured and recover to the top of his form.

“Sorry,” he says with a smirk when he spots the direction of my eyes. “I thought you'd gone to bed.”

“Eamon, believe it or not, I have seen a man's legs before,” I say. As a matter of fact I have seen
his
legs before, though I have no desire to remind him of that. “Did you find anything good?”

“Yeah, I think I found a couple places that might be worth a phone call.” He drives a hand through his hair. “I'm just not exactly sure what I'm looking for, in terms of the actual building.”

I scoop up Newman, who is winding himself around my ankles, and plop down next to Eamon on the sofa. The blue light from the laptop throws his profile into relief against the darkness. He's got a slight bump at the bridge of his nose, and his upper lip sits just a little bit over his bottom one; the imperfections make his face sexier than just plain handsome. “Well, you tell me. You said you want to find a place to gut?”

“Yeah,” he says, scratching Newman under the chin. “I want to rework it on the inside to make it mine. This is not something I'm selling in five years; this is going to be the house I live in forever.” He shoots me a slightly sheepish look. “I've kept everything to the bare minimum till now, but I'm okay with throwing some money into this house.”

I tent my fingers like Mr. Burns. “Consider me amply capable of assisting you with that.” I push past the little pulse of pleasure at his laughter and continue. “Seriously, though, you need to know that a big renovation is a ton of work. It will probably take longer than you think it will, and it will
definitely
cost more. Especially with older buildings, the contractor will always uncover problems you didn't know existed until he opened up your walls.”

“That makes sense,” he says. “But I still want to do it.”

“I'm going to remind you that you said that when you're six months in. So, do you have an idea of what sort of style you like?”

He gestures around him, at the slanted, wood-clad ceiling, open-plan living area, and huge, metal-framed windows. “Something like this. This place is fantastic. Still can't believe you guys built so much of it yourselves.”

The familiar balloon of pride inflates in my chest. “Thanks. So, something mid-century then. About this size, too?”

“I need five bedrooms, or four bedrooms and an office. Nice outdoor space. A living area with lots of room to have people over. I want the house to feel comfortable, but not gigantic.”

“Five bedrooms is a hell of a lot of space for one person, though.”

He tips his head toward one shoulder. “I want a family, eventually. And in the meantime, I'll make my brothers and my parents come stay so I can show off,” he says, grinning.

I wonder, not for the first time, what his brothers look like. Appears to be pretty solid genetic material they're operating with. “Works for me. Any other requirements?”

“Yeah. I need enough room for a short-course pool.”

“Civvy, please. I do not speak Swimmer.”

“Twenty-five meters long.”

“You want an eighty-foot pool in your backyard?”

“Yyyyep.” He folds his arms over his chest. “Oh, I'm sorry, did you think you were going to give me a little kidney pool? Concrete steps at the shallow end and some decorative tile around the edge?”

“Of course not, but eighty feet, that's…”

“The size I need,” he says firmly.

“Okay, I can make that happen. Why does it have to be exactly twenty-five meters?”

“It's a standard size. Makes it easy to keep track of distance. And it's a frame of reference to judge my time,” he explains. “So I can gauge exactly how slow I'm getting as I slide into middle age. Trust me when I tell you it's important to me; this is the one thing I'm going to be a dick about.”

His frankness nudges a laugh out of me. “Well, would you
like
some decorative tile work around the edge?”

“As long as it's the right size, you can make it as pretty as you want.”

“Eamon. I may not know the correct dimensions of competitive swimming pools, but I hope you don't actually think I would make your house
pretty
.”

He grins mockingly. “Well, a girl architect, I figure there's a good chance—” He trails off, laughing at the expression on my face. “Come on, you left the door wide open.”

“You might not want to antagonize the person who's responsible for making sure your house stays put over your head,” I say.

We spend the next hour scrolling through the real estate listings. Every so often, he reaches across my lap to pet Newman, who is passed out on the couch next to me, feet splayed in the air. Every time Eamon touches him he purrs. I'm high on the rare
pleasure of talking about buildings with someone who's as interested as I am. Eamon has a great eye and a quick mind—I can see him absorbing the terms and the information that I feed him, storing them away for later.

By the time we finally go to bed, I've got a pretty good idea of what he wants his house to feel like. And I've realized something else, too: a stylish renovation of a classic mid-century home, for a popular young athlete, is the perfect project to catch the attention of a magazine editor, and get me published. We have a promising list of places we want to check out, and I'm zinging with excitement to see them. Maybe having him back in Austin isn't going to be a
total
pain in the ass after all.

Since all available evidence suggests that there's a driving blizzard in hell when Eamon Roy fails to get his own way, I am unsurprised that, by the time I get back from muay thai the next morning, he's managed to charm a Realtor into giving up her Sunday afternoon for him. Danny declines to join us; he has a blind date with a friend of Jay's.

“For brunch? Sexy,” Eamon observes.

“Tell me about it,” says Danny. “This is what working nights does to your social life. You're lucky you don't have a real job.”

Eamon shoots me a you-see-what-I-put-up-with look. “Well, let's hope you get laid—you need it.”

“I might say the same of you,” Danny mutters. “Weren't you leaving?”

“Have fun, Danny,” I say over Eamon's long-suffering sigh, and push him toward the door. “Are you two always this obnoxious to each other?” I ask when we get outside, shielding my eyes against the sudden sunlight. “Or is this just the joy of reunion I'm witnessing?”

Eamon is grinning like a jack-o'-lantern behind his aviators. “Believe me, if Danny were polite to me, I'd be concerned about his health.”

“You know, though,” I say as we buckle our seat belts, “the night you got hurt, he wouldn't go to sleep until he got ahold of someone who knew what was going on. When I got up the next morning he was passed out on the couch with his phone on his chest. And after he finally heard you were going to be okay, it was free drinks for everybody in the bar, all night long.”

“I didn't know that,” Eamon says quietly.

“I probably wasn't supposed to tell you,” I say with a sideways smile. “Might give you the impression that he actually likes you.”

While we drive to the appointment, I give him a crash course on house hunting: what questions to ask, what questions to avoid answering, and the importance of never letting on how much he actually likes a place. He promises to be appropriately unimpressed. I am skeptical, though; his face is so expressive that he might not be able to help himself.

The Realtor, Joy, turns out to be a middle-aged blonde with long synthetic nails and assertive Texas Hair. Her first house, a desert-style recent build, is appealing, but we realize right away that the backyard is way too small for the pool. I insist on walking through the entire place anyway, wanting to watch Eamon for reactions to the space, light, and materials, but he's distracted and impatient, clearly wanting to move on to places that might be real possibilities. The second house has the right lot size, but the internal layout is so cramped and arbitrary that I can tell the cost of reconfiguring it would be far more than it's worth.

The third place Joy has to show us is a nondescript early sixties rancher just a few minutes' drive from the university. When we slow in front of the property, I can barely hold back a little hop of excitement—this is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind. The wide, low-slung house looks down on the road from a slight rise, across a lawn shaded by a beautiful old live oak; the tree's distinctive squiggly limbs are dark against the light filtering through its
leaves. A deep porch extends almost the full width of the house's facade; it's currently adorned with a drab boxwood hedge, but it would be spectacular with a composition of native shrubs, loosely arranged to break up the rigid horizontal lines of the building. I try not to look excited as we park and approach the front door, but so far, so good.

The inside does not disappoint. The core of the house is a large, lofty great room with an exposed-beam cathedral ceiling and a row of gracious floor-to-ceiling windows along the wall that faces the road. Joy launches into an apologetic monologue regarding the rustic brick floors and the knotty pine paneling covering the walls, so I scrunch my nose distastefully. Eamon, however, is failing spectacularly at his poker face. His brown eyes are wide with interest, and he's sliding a hand over the paneling as if imagining how it will look with a coat of paint obscuring the ugly wood grain. Joy, scenting a possible sale in the air, suddenly becomes much more animated, giggling at him like a smitten SMU sorority girl. There goes his shot at getting it below asking.

She leads us through a good-size kitchen and dining room, then back toward the private wing, where four smallish bedrooms are clumped awkwardly around a single bathroom featuring a sink, tub, and toilet in avocado green (“They're original to the house!” tinkles Joy). The rooms are cramped now, but if we blew out the back wall of the house, it would be a piece of cake to add a couple more bathrooms and reconfigure the walls so the whole section is more spacious. Throughout, the ceilings are high, the windows large and well proportioned—the raw material is excellent. My skin buzzes with the familiar excitement of looking at a space that's just crying out to be brought up to its full potential.

We finish the tour in the backyard. There's no terrace, but it would be easy to add one, and there's more than enough room for the sacred pool. Cedars and live oaks line the property on every side, providing screening privacy, but, here and there, breaks in
the foliage offer glimpses of the hills surrounding Mount Bonnell, about half a mile away. Late-afternoon sunlight glazes the grass and leaves with amber, and the tang of cedar brightens the air. It's beautiful, restful. As we stand there, listening to the wind rustling in the tree branches, Eamon picks a twig from the ground and snaps it between his long fingers.

“I'll take it,” he tells Joy. “My attorney will contact you first thing tomorrow to work out the details of the contract.”

Her chest puffs with surprise, but she rallies quickly. “Excellent news! I know the sellers are eager to close, so we should be able to get the paperwork settled quickly.” She pauses, her smile sneaking sideways. “And may I be the first to say, welcome back to Austin, Mr. Roy.”

On the way back to the car, I start to tell him it might be better to wait, see a few more places, at least
sleep
on it, but he is radiant with excitement and I can tell there is no deterring him. After eighteen years of unrelenting discipline, it must be intoxicating to be able to be impetuous for once in his life. And besides, it's not as if I think he's making a mistake. The place is perfect: solid construction, excellent bones, bargain price. If he really wants to commit to a fixer, then this is his house.

The whole drive home, I keep catching myself speeding. Eamon and I are tossing ideas back and forth rapid-fire, interrupting each other in our eagerness to get them out. I have no idea how I am going to find the time to handle this project, but there's no longer any question about taking it. Since my work until now, both at the firm I used to work for and on my solo projects, has been primarily hospitality-oriented, this will put me firmly on the map in the lucrative residential sector.

But even more than that, it's the challenge. That house has
the potential to be spectacular, and I
have
to be the one to get it there. I just hope Eamon will be able to visualize spaces based only on floor plans—I know my ideas are right, but I have to hook him right now, while he's in the mood to make decisions. And in the mood to spend money. There's a pretty shocking price tag attached to this much work.

As soon as we get home, I print a blown-up version of the floor plan from the listing, then spread it out on the dining table under a sheet of tracing paper. Eamon leans forward, elbows on the table, while I rough out the existing rectangular outline of the house, then sketch in the interior walls I want to keep.

“So here's the house now, right? We're going to add about fifteen feet to the back of the garage, which will make a nice big utility room and an office for you, like you wanted. Then we're going to right-angle back in again here, so the kitchen, dining room, and the bedroom next to it only get about five feet added on. But meanwhile, we've made a ten-foot-deep terrace at the back that spans all the way across those rooms, and it mirrors the porch at the front, see?”

He nods, so I slide the marker back to create the second new addition, so that the plan of the house takes on a flattened U-shape. “And then, for symmetry, this southernmost bedroom gets blown out, too, and that becomes the master bedroom. That'll free up some space to enlarge these other bedrooms and add two more full baths. And meanwhile, we open up this wall between that giant living room and the dining area. That way, it will feel a lot more open than it does right now.”

The spaces spark to life in my mind's eye as I draw them. The design is perfect for what he wants. The house will be generous but not ostentatious, with ample-size, practical rooms: every square foot will be truly used. I toss the marker down, exhilarated. “There. Does that make sense?”

He stares at the sketch, and for one horrible second I think
the look on his face is incomprehension. Then, slowly, he smooths his palm across the drawing, the way he had the pine paneling earlier today. “It's…amazing. I knew I loved the place, but I can't believe how quickly you could visualize all of those changes. Your ideas are awesome. How did you just…do that?”

I'm glowing from his praise, but a man as accomplished as Eamon will respect candor more than modesty. “ 'Cause I'm great at my job,” I say. “This is the right solution for this house.”

His eyes widen at the intensity in my voice. “You're right. I love all of this,” he says, gesturing at the drawing. He studies it for a long moment, then grabs the Sharpie. “Except…what do you think about putting that hall bathroom here, instead?”

Three hours later, we have the floor plan, the kitchen layout, and the outdoor spaces pretty much hammered out. He's asked me to help with furnishing the house as well, which means a healthy commission on top of my architectural fees.

“So,” Eamon says, fishing in his takeout container for the last piece of sesame chicken, “now you get to tell me what it's all going to cost me.” He clicks his chopsticks together in anticipation.

The fact that he's smiling means he thinks he's got this covered. He has no idea. Well, if he can't handle it then I will walk away from the job. I've learned the hard way not to waste time chasing my own tail, hunting for phantom solutions to meet the prices clients
think
things should cost.

When I give him the range I have in mind, he makes a face like a gargoyle.

“Are you serious? You giving me solid-gold toilets or something? I don't roll like that, Mahler.”

“I'm not trying to get you on
Cribs
,” I promise. “This project is a
lot
of work. I'm not going to waste your money, but I'm not
going to cut any corners, either. I'll draw up a formal budget so you can see how it breaks down, and we can identify what to prioritize and what to value-engineer. Besides,” I add, unable to keep from teasing him, “you already told me you wanted to spend a lot of money on this house.”

He gives a burst of laughter. “Why did I ever say that to you? You've already exceeded my expectations.” He picks up my marker, taps it sharply against the table. “All right. Let's stick to the lower end of that, but I'm still game. What do we have to do to get started?”

“Well, we still have to wait for your offer to be accepted and for the inspection to come back clean; then there's the financing to go through, and the title paperwork…”

“They're going to accept the offer, and the financing will be quick,” he says, flipping the marker between his fingers. “We'll get the inspection done this week, and I'm sure there's a way to get the title search expedited. I don't see why I shouldn't be closed on it within a month.”

“So you're really ready to go full speed ahead with this? Two days ago you were just starting to think about looking at neighborhoods.”

“I know. But I've been in this weird holding pattern for months now, waiting to get started on the next part of my life. Being back here these past couple days, checking out the city with you guys, I'm psyched to get started with life here. And once I find something I want, I tend to just…” He makes a slicing motion with his hand: a buzz saw, true and inexorable.

I already know this about him. He wanted me like that—until he didn't. I can only hope he doesn't lose interest in the house as abruptly and inexplicably as he did in me.

“Especially after the crash,” he adds, almost to himself. His right hand is absently rubbing the side of his injured thigh; I wonder if he even realizes he's doing it.

“Okay,” I say. “I'm ready if you are. What happens next is, I prepare drawings for the building department to approve. While they're reviewing those, I'll put together all the specs on materials and fixtures, so we can get bids for the construction work. Once the BRD green-lights us and we've got our contractor, we'll be ready to start knocking stuff down. But before any of
that
,” I add, smiling, “I have to give you a contract, and you have to write me a check.”

His head jerks backward. “I have to pay you? Are you sure? I can get you
excellent
deals on swimming equipment.”

“Useless,” I say primly. “I've already told you I'm a kickboxer.”

He flashes his teeth at me. “All right, Mahler. Get me that contract, and then we'll talk.”

While Eamon heads out to meet some friends for drinks, I lock myself in my office to work on the contract. I know he's going to want it as soon as possible, because it will make him feel one step closer to being settled, so it's in my best interest to oblige him. I have a feeling it will be the first of many times I work late to oblige Eamon—and I intend to see that I am compensated accordingly. Three hours later, the single biggest check I've ever been paid in my life is tucked in my back jeans pocket, as if I get them all the time.

When I dig my phone out of my bag so I can share my news with Noah, a missed call from his number reproaches me. I was so wrapped up with work that I completely forgot about our phone appointment. And according to his (justifiably irritated) message, he's heading out to dinner with his co-workers, so he's not going to be able to talk. I won't get to hear his voice till tomorrow night now, and it's totally my own fault.