Page 75 of One Bossy Date
“Okay?” I said, unsure what he was getting at. “But why exactly? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Things almost always go wrong on construction sites, and on a daily basis, and there are a lot of problems to address at once. Maybe you’ll have the chance to see what it’s like and how the managers or I handle that.”
I thought it over. It sounded sexy.No, Zoe, get your mind out of the gutter.It sounded educational.
“Okay.” I inclined my head in agreement. “Jim can handle the boutique without me.”
“Good.” Anders smiled, falling back into a comfortable silence.
27
ZOE
“This is another office building we’re working on.”
“It’s frickin’huge.”
“Yeah, thirty floors so far, it’ll go up to fifty.”
Holding my hand above my brow, I blocked the sun from my eyes to gaze up at the skeletal frame of the building. There were hundreds of construction workers, a whole team of managers, and so many things happening at once. One of the managers helped us with hard hats, safety glasses, and steel-toed boots. For me of course, they struggled to find a pair small enough, so I was clambering around in a pair too big for me and feeling like a little girl on “bring your child to work” day wearing her daddy’s boots.
We made our way around the site and up a temporary lift that sat on the outside of the building, following the site manager who explained each stage of the construction. There were teams of different professions working over each other—electrical, plumbing, someone called a wet engineer? Who knew how any of them could keep track of what was going on?
Unconcerned, Anders walked alongside the manager, systematically checking a list of sorts on his tablet and making quick notes for God knew what or who. Listening to all the setbacks and reasons for not being exactly on schedule, I realized that this job would be my worst nightmare. Nothing was going according to plan and apparently that was normal. The manager appeared tired as hell, stressed out even, and yet, he checked drawings and cleared up confusions for workers, all the while still leading Anders and me around the site. I was suddenly aware of why Anders had thought to bring me here.
We were now on the twentieth level, walking about on the unfinished concrete floor. There were no glass panes on the façade yet, and I felt the wind push against my back. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the area as an office space, but at this point, it was still dark and dusty without flooring or light fixtures.
“See this section here?” Anders gestured to a whole chunk of floor slab that was missing against the elevator shaft. I peered down to see the same portions missing on every other floor below as well. “This is called a service shaft. All the cables and pipes for each of the services will go down here, and there will be a ladder, so maintenance guys have access to it.”
“Really? People will actually be climbing down there? It’s adeathtrap.”
He seemed to be amused by that. The site manager chuckled. “They usually tether themselves to hooks that will be installed against the concrete wall.”
I shook my head, indicating that I would never take that chance.
The site manager smirked and shocked me further. “You think that’s scary? Try the guys who end up washing the glass on the outside. They basically scale the building, hanging from hooks on the edge of the roof.”
“Oh, my gosh, no thank you.” I didn’t even try to imagine that. An immediate panic attack would ensue.
After a few more successful attempts at terrifying me, a group of professional-looking people arrived on the floor we were perusing. Anders leaned down to speak to me privately. “Those are the architects doing a walk-through. Would you mind if I spoke to them for a moment?”
“Of course not. Go ahead, please. I’m good.”
“Just stay out of trouble, all right?” he asked, humor in his tone.
“I’ll give it my all,” I said. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
He chuckled, quickly brushed a strand of hair behind my ear and joined the site manager, who was already approaching the architects.
Naturally, I stood to the side, not wanting to be a bother to anyone, but it was tough with so much going on around me. I had to dodge workers walking by with long PVC pipes or massive toolboxes. Some even smiled or winked at me—not knowing who I was or why I was there—they only saw a young woman standing in their dusty pathway. I backed up against the solid concrete wall and planted my feet steady on the ground, not wanting to step on something or fall and embarrass myself. It was while I was avoiding eye contact with another flirty worker that I heard the scream.
Quickly, I turned my head, and my heart suddenly raced at full speed. It felt as though all my fears of this death site had culminated into reality. A worker knelt on the floor, holding his hand, as blood dripped all over the place. His face was scrunched up in pain while his colleagues fretted, shouting over each other. Someone knelt by the man as I tried to figure out what the hell had happened. Apparently, they were installing the metal ducts that hung from the slab above us, and that regulated the air in the building. There was a section of the metal tube next to the man, dripping with his blood as well. The puzzle pieces formed an image: One of them must’ve passed it to him, let it fall, and the edge sliced his hand right open.Ouch!
The site manager approached the rowdy workers and pulled them aside to discuss what had happened and whether anyone was at fault. The architects stood back, observing the scene. One of the female architects had turned a green hue.
But wait, where was…Anders? Of course.
He was the one kneeling next to the guy. He already had some kind of material wrapped tightly around the man’s bleeding hand and told him to press on the wound. While Anders had his phone to his ear, he eased the man back to lie on the floor and elevate his injury. He knew exactly what to do to stop the bleeding, or slow it at least. I assumed he was talking to a 911 operator, but soon enough, I realized there were medics on site, because they appeared next to Anders within minutes. That made complete sense to me now. Accidents must be a regular occurrence on huge sites like this, no matter how careful the workers were.