“Vaguely. Joe gave me whisky that night.”
Harry shook his head. “Awesome. Anyway, we’d pencilled them in to finish this summer, but we need the cottage habitable before then, so we’re going to have to bring them forward.”
“How far forward?”
“Like, as soon as humanly possible.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got a new Pilates instructor joining my team. He can only take the job if we can provide on-site accommodation. It’s not worth the pay cut to leave London otherwise.”
“But Angelo teaches Pilates?”
Harry winced. “I know, but he’s not recovering from this relapse as fast as we hoped he might. I don’t know when he’ll be back full time.”
I digested that. Angelo was a physical therapist at the wellness clinic Harry ran on the other side of the farm. But he had a chronic illness. Sometimes I didn’t see him for weeks at a time, which was tough for several reasons. First of all, he was a really nice dude and didn’t deserve to be unwell. Second, he was the only one of Harry and Joe’s collection of gorgeous, queer friends that I could look at for any length of time without turning into an awkward weirdo. Even Harry himself could make me blush if he looked at me a beat too long with his kind and gentle eyes.
Idiot. What would you do if a bloke actually said anything sexual to you? Wet yourself?
I had no answer to that question because it had never happened. Every queer bloke I knew was happily paired off and still viewed me as a stroppy teenager. “That sucks,” I said, dragging my thoughts back to Angelo. “You’re not sacking him, are you?”
Harry flinched. “Of course not. I’m just easing the burden so he doesn’t feel guilty about being incapacitated. Getting the Pilates classes covered is the best way to do that because he hates teaching it anyway.”
I nodded and searched my brain for the state the abandoned cottage on the edge of the farm had been in last time I’d seen it. “When do you actually need it by? Give me a date, and I’ll tell you if it’s possible.”
“Next Monday.”
“No chance. I need to rewire the whole downstairs and get a real sparky in to sign it off, and then it needs plastering before I can paint it. Even if I work all weekend, the plaster won’t be dry for a few days.”
“Damn it. That’s why I needed to speak to you. I knew you’d be the only one who remembered all that.”
“It’s my job to remember. At least we got the plumbing done, though. Without it, you’d be looking at a month, at least, before anyone could live there.”
Harry sighed. “I was afraid of all this, but this guy is the best possible replacement for Angelo. He’s amazing, we’d be so lucky to have him. And he needs the job as much as we need him.”
“Why?”
“Family stuff.”
Harry was the king of discretion to my nosiness. I could usually trick Joe into telling me just about anything, but never Harry. Not that it mattered. What did I care for the personal circumstances of some yuppie Pilates teacher? The only impact it had on my life was the fact that I had to provide him somewhere liveable to lay his head in a miraculous space of time.
“You know, I was wondering,” Harry continued as my mind strayed to the socket installation I needed to plan. “Cole isn’t going to know anyone down here when he arrives, no one local, at least. Do you think you could show him around?”
“Show him around where? The farm?”
“Well, yeah, that too. But I meant the area in general. The town, the beaches, the pubs. Joe doesn’t go out much in case he punches someone, and no one else knows this place better than you.”
“I don’t know if I’ll have time. I’ll probably still be working on the cottage as he’s moving in.”
“Even better. You’ll have no choice but to talk to him.”
I wanted to ask if the bloke was hot because I had no spoons left for more sinfully attractive older men in my life, but as usual, when it came to anything like that, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Maybe I could’ve asked Angelo, but he wasn’t here. “Whatever.” I feigned nonchalance. “I’ll do whatever needs doing.”
* * *
Cole
My car wasn’t built for country roads. Though it was shiny enough on the outside, beyond the alloy wheels and lowered suspension, it was a heap of shit, and I cursed as I scraped round another rocky bend.