Page 13 of The Rules of Dating a Younger Man

Normally a woman like Kyra would be right up my alley, but I seemed to have a one-track mind lately. Just then, the object of those singular thoughts entered the room, walking with Chad, a decent-looking volunteer in his mid-forties. They were both smiling.

“Excuse me a minute,” I said to Holden. “I’m going to kick things off. I think an hour for coffee, a tour, and introductions is more than enough.”

Holden put a hand on my shoulder. “Go be the man of the hour, buddy.”

I tossed my empty Dunkin’ cup into the trash and walked into the center of the room. “Can I have everyone’s attention again, please?”

The group of twenty-two gathered around.

“We’re going to get started. As I mentioned when we did introductions earlier, we have two project leaders—Jason and Alex. Jason is going to lead half of you to work on electrical, plumbing, heating, and other mechanics. You’ll see different contractors coming by at various times during the weekends to do the work that requires a license or a special skill. But the teams will do the legwork to support the contractor. For example, an electrician will be coming in to rewire the house. He’ll deal with anything to do with live wires, but you guys might do things like running the Romex cable through the walls before everything is hooked up. The other team will be led by Alex, and they’ll focus on interior-design elements like paint, flooring, fixtures, and appliances. We have a contractor coming in this morning to give lessons on installing the Pergo flooring, and we’ll work alongside him to keep the costs down. Anyone have any questions so far?”

Everyone shook their heads.

I picked up a clipboard from the table. “Alright. Great. When you filled out the volunteer application, we asked if you had any construction experience. A few of you do, so we’re going to split you guys up so both groups have a mix of experienced and inexperienced workers. Everyone else we assigned randomly to one group or another.”

I looked down at the list of teams I’d put together last night and made a last-minute swap. Dave and Holden were the two with the most construction experience, so I’d assigned Holden to Jason’s group and Dave to Alex’s. Subconsciously, I’d probably separated my buddy, whom the ladies always loved, from the woman I had an interest in. But Holden was happily married, and Dave looked a little too excited to spend time with Alex for my liking. So I was definitely swapping the teams those two were on.

I was just about to read the list of team members when Kyra raised her hand. “I have a question.”

“Sure. What’s up?”

She grinned and swayed back and forth. “Can I be assigned to your team?”

From the corner of my eye, I caught Alex frowning. Maybe there’s hope after all. “Sorry. I’m not on any team. I float. But if you need anything, I’ll always be around.”

I read the list of names for each team, silently smirking at the disappointment on Dave’s face when I put him with Jason. After, I gave instructions on where each group would start and sent everyone on their merry way.

To keep the teams from bumping into each other, one group started on the first floor while the other would work on the second. Alex started up the stairs with her folks, but I grabbed Holden’s elbow before he could follow.

“Got a second?”

“For you, I have a lifetime, my friend.”

“Just to let you know, I made a connection with Alex.”

Holden grinned. “Oh yeah?”

“I’m not telling you to ward you off. I know you only have eyes for Lala. But maybe you can talk me up, if the opportunity arises.”

“If talk you up means tell her about the time you pissed your pants in first grade and tried to say one of the fish in Mrs. Reardon’s fish tank jumped out and splashed you, absolutely. I’ll fill her in.”

I shut my eyes. “Why the fuck did I even tell you I was into her?”

Holden chuckled. “Hell if I know. It was pretty dumb.” He lifted his hand. “Yo, Owen. Come here for a second.”

Owen walked over. “What’s up?”

“Our buddy here has the hots for Alex, the design-team leader.”

“Oh yeah? Does she know about when he was four and got angry at me because I accidentally hit him with the ball when we were practicing pitching in the yard, so he held his breath until he passed out and landed in a pile of dog shit?”

I groaned. “I hate you guys.”

Owen cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey, Colby! Come here for a minute.”

The last member of our squad joined us. “What’s going on?”

Holden lifted his chin to me. “Brayden here has the hots for one of the ladies.”