“Nah, she just does my taxes. Good news, I got a refund last year.”
His mouth fell open. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
For one of the smartest men I’d ever met, Cal was also the most gullible. Being an orthopedic surgeon, his brain worked in logic and reason. He was funny as hell, but his humor was so damn literal that sarcasm sometimes floated right over his head. I was sure that growing up with Lex’s smart mouth had to have been an absolute hell for him, but somehow, they got along.
I walked around my desk and sank into my chair. “Yes, of course I’m shitting you. Now, tell me all about losing your virginity in Bermuda.”
Grinning, he settled into one of the chairs on the other side of the desk and stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankle. “Says the workaholic at the office on a Saturday who hasn’t been laid in so long I’m relatively sure his hymen has grown back at this point.”
“Spoken like a true medical professional.”
Intertwining his fingers, he rested them on his stomach. “They don’t call me Dr. Targaryen for nothing. So, listen, I distinctly remember telling you Vanessa registered us at Pottery Barn, yet somehow, when we opened wedding presents last night, I found a card that contained a design for a hundred-thousand-dollar swimming pool. Care to explain?”
I mirrored his posture, resting my joined hands on my abs. “Well, first, my guys dig a hole in the ground in your backyard. Then they lay a steel rebar frame, rough-in the plumbing, spray in a concrete shell, and then…” I shrugged. “You know what, it’s all very technical. All you need to know is it will be done in about a month, and I took the liberty of adding a diving board to the plans. It’s going to cost you a fortune in homeowners insurance, but Jack will love it.” I smiled. “You’re welcome by the way.”
He blinked at me for several seconds. I’d known Cal long enough to be able to see the gears turning in his head. Vanessa was probably at home, already scheduling pool parties with her girlfriends, and he was sitting in my office, debating if he could live with himself for accepting such an exorbitant gift from his best friend in the name of happy wife, happy life. Deep down, he wanted it though because Cal would do damn near anything to make Vanessa happy.
He’d come around. Eventually.
I was prepared for him and had played out our argument in my head long before I’d pulled the trigger on the pool.
Lurching to his feet, he started to pace. “There is no damn way I’m letting you buy us a pool as a wedding gift. Or any kind of gift, for that matter. And what the hell is wrong with you for trying? I know business is going well right now, but you have a kid, Hudson.”
“Yeah. A kid who will be swimming in your pool all the damn time. Honestly, this isn’t a hardship.”
My computer chimed with an incoming email notification, but I did my best to ignore it.
He stopped pacing and planted his hands on his hips. “So put the pool at your house.”
“What? Are you crazy? I’ve got a kid. He’ll drown.”
He ran a hand through the top of his hair. “He’ll drown at my place too!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He doesn’t sleepwalk at your house.” I leaned forward and propped my elbows on my desk. “Wait? Has Jack been hitchhiking to your house in the middle of the night again? That little punk.”
Cal shot me an unimpressed glare.
I had at least another week of this back-and-forth before he’d finally accept the pool, but if I didn’t want to make it a month, I needed to set the framework now. “Would you sit down and relax? Christ, I figured a week of getting laid would mellow you out. Though, judging by that tan, you spent more time on the beach than you did between the sheets. Trouble in paradise already?”
“Fuck off,” he shot back, but he finally relaxed into his chair.
“Look, it’s not a big deal. I own all the equipment, I’ve got a couple of guys who could really use the extra hours, and I called in a few favors on the shit I can’t do. It’ll cost me ten grand max.”
He barked a loud, humorless laugh. “Ten grand is still a lot of fucking money.”
He didn’t have to tell me that.
My financial situation had changed drastically over the six years since I had started Hud Construction. When Jack was first born, I was working for a different construction company across town and sleeping on Lauren’s couch. It wasn’t the best arrangement, but I’d wanted to be there those first few months to help out and bond with my son. Though, from watching Lauren struggle to finish school while my paycheck barely covered the power bill and formula, I’d been hungry for more.
So. Fucking. Hungry.
Taking handouts from her family wasn’t my style. So I worked every waking hour, trying to build Hud Construction from the ground up, all the while framing houses and pouring concrete at my nine-to-five to keep my boy in diapers. It was the most grueling year of my life.
But so incredibly worth it.
Repaying all the people who had stood by my side in the years when I’d had absolutely nothing to offer anyone—including myself—was priority number one.
If that meant buying a pool for my best friend, a kid who had paid for my football cleats senior year so I hadn’t looked like a slouch in front of the college recruiters and then stayed up all damn night to help me study to take the SATs a third time when it didn’t look like I wasn’t going to get picked up at all—the very same man who had sat beside me at my mother’s funeral, never once mentioning the tears I’d cried for a woman who didn’t deserve them—then so fucking be it.
As far as I was concerned, ten grand was almost an insult after everything Dr. Calvin whatever-the-hell-he-wanted-his-middle-name-to-be-that-day Lawson, MD had done for me.
I’d let him argue. I’d even let him think he was winning at times. But he was getting a pool if I had to dig that thing in the middle of the night, one shovel of dirt at a time.
“Just think about it, Cal.”
He shook his head. “No. No pool. Final answer.”
I lifted my hands in what he probably assumed was surrender. “Okay. Okay. But you have to break the news to Vanessa.”
He dropped his head back and stared up at the ceiling. Oh, yeah. He was going to need divine intervention for that conversation. While he let that sink in, he rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers.
Meanwhile, I glanced at my inbox.
Saved by the hellion.
I clicked on Lex’s latest email with the subject line reading: I’m still waiting on my quote, asshole.
“Your sister is a lunatic.”
He huffed at my understatement. “What did she do now?”
“She drew up this crazy blueprint of a stupid cat condo she wants to put in her guest bedroom.”
“Like a cat tree?”
“No. Although it does have three stories, two balconies, three bedrooms, two baths, and a cat den. She also wants these tandem bubble window porthole things that go through her exterior wall so they can—and I quote—work on their tans. And it also has a pair of porch swings.”
It did make me laugh though, because her design was meticulously professional and included all the measurements I’d need. I supposed she had learned a thing or two in design school, because barring how absurd it was, her prints were impressive.