Chapter Thirteen

“HEY, Derek,” Thane said as he walked onto the construction site the next morning. Derek grunted at him from over his cup of coffee. Thane just smiled and peeled off his coat. They’d closed in the addition they were working on yesterday, and without the wind whistling through the open space, he wouldn’t need the coat.

“You’re in a good mood,” Derek observed.

“I am. The bullies who were bothering Kit and Phillip got caught red-handed last night. You should have seen Barnes come swooping down on their asses. They’ll be regretting they messed with my boys for a good long while.”

“I thought you said the guy was an ineffective stuffed shirt who’d just make things worse,” Derek replied.

Thane flushed beneath his beard. He probably hadn’t been that polite about it. “Turns out I misjudged him a bit. We don’t go about things the same way, but he got the job done last night, and in the end, that’s what really matters.”

“Does this mean you’re going to start pulling your weight around here again?”

Thane flipped Derek off. “I work harder in the time I’m here than most people do in two weeks, so don’t give me that shit. I was actually thinking I might go help out more. Barnes and the kids are doing a great job, but they tackled something huge with this show, and every pair of hands helps. I’ll work Saturdays at the jobsites to make up for it.”

“Hell, Dalton, I was giving you shit, not asking you to work extra hours. You own the company. If you wanted to spend all day in the office shooting spit wads at the ceiling, nobody would say a word. You don’t have to give up Saturdays with your nephews.”

“I didn’t build this company by shooting spit wads at the ceiling,” Thane said defensively. “I’ll bring the boys with me. It’ll be good for them to see the difference between what they do at stage crew and a real work site. They’re learning a lot, but they can take shortcuts on the sets that they could never take for real. Someday, I’m going to want to retire, and one of them may want to take over. If so, they should know what it entails.”

“That’s the second time today you’ve complimented Barnes, however backhanded it was. You feeling all right?”

Thane grinned despite his best intentions. He tried to cover it by taking a sip from his thermos, but Derek knew him too well, the bastard.

“What’s up with Barnes? You’ve got a shit-eating grin on your face.”

“He’s a nice guy,” Thane said. “He stood up for Kit and Phillip. I’m done thinking of him as the enemy.”

“Uh-huh, tell me another one. You like him.”

“I just told you he’s a nice guy. That implies I like him.”

Derek gave him the stink eye. “You like me. You’re interested in him.”

Thane opened his mouth to deny it, but the flash of attraction he’d felt the night before when Barnes stood up for Kit and Phillip hadn’t felt like friendship, no matter what he’d said aloud. “I don’t know him well enough to be interested in him.”

“Bullshit. You don’t have to say it out loud, but you aren’t fooling me. Yourself, maybe, but not me. You’re interested in him. Is that why you didn’t want to go to the school the day you hurt your hand last week? You figured it out but didn’t want to admit it?”

“Drop it, Derek.”

“Is he gay?” Derek asked.

Thane was tempted to throw the thermos at Derek, but that wouldn’t solve anything. “Yes. I ran into him at a bar Saturday a week ago. And then he stood up for the boys yesterday. And yeah, I like him. I just don’t know what to do about it.”

“Ask him out, of course. You like him. From everything the boys said, they adore him, so they aren’t going to care. It’ll do you some good to get some regular action. Maybe you’ll be less of a bastard around here if you’ve got a honey to go home to at night.”

“He has to say yes first,” Thane said, “and after the way I’ve been acting, I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t laugh in my face.”

“I’ve watched you on the prowl. Turn on the charm. He’ll say yes sooner or later.”

Thane scrubbed his hand over his face. “If he says no, I’m blaming it on you for convincing me this was a good idea.”

“If he says no, you’ll figure out why and convince him to change his mind,” Derek replied. “You never take no for an answer. It’s how you built this company.”

“Personal relationships are a little more complicated.”

“Only if you make them complicated. He’s gay, he’s single—he is single, right?” Thane nodded. Barnes hadn’t been with anyone at the club. Surely if he had a boyfriend, he wouldn’t have been there alone. “Good, so he’s gay, he’s single, and he’s attractive enough to catch your eye. What else do you need?”

For him to be interested in me.

“MR. Dalton. I didn’t expect to see you today,” Blake said when Thane walked into the theater that afternoon.

“I think you can call me Thane now,” Thane said. “Friends, remember?”

“I remember,” Blake said with a small smile that warmed Thane all the way through. “I’m afraid I have to ask you to keep calling me Mr. Barnes if there are any students around, but please call me Blake if it’s just us.”

That was an opening if ever Thane had heard one. “Speaking of that—”

“Mr. B.?”

“Excuse me,” Blake said. “I need to go see what they need.”

“I’ll come help.” If he was working beside Blake, the chances of getting to speak with him privately would be higher and maybe he’d get a chance to ask him out. And even if he didn’t, he’d get to spend time in his company, hopefully changing Blake’s impression of him for the better. However justified he might have been in his anger when they first met, he hadn’t done much since then to change the way Blake saw him.

Blake smiled at him as they walked together down to the stage. Blake veered to the side to climb the steps, but Thane couldn’t resist showing off a little. He planted his hands on the front of the stage and pressed hard, vaulting onto the stage. When he turned to watch Blake walk up the steps, he thought he caught a glimmer of interest on his face, but by the time Blake moved into the full light, his expression had returned to neutral. It didn’t matter. Thane had time. He didn’t have to convince Blake today. He didn’t even have to ask him out today if he couldn’t find an opportune moment. He could wage his campaign subtly now and be blunt about it later.

“Emma? You called me?”

“Stage left.”

Thane followed Blake toward the wings, trying not to stare too obviously at his ass. The sweatshirt was shorter today, much to his delight, and the jeans were snug enough to remind Thane of just how good Blake had looked at the club.

He pushed through the stage curtains one step behind Blake and waited to see what Emma needed them for.

“What’s up?” Blake asked.

“We’ve got the mission walls done. I wanted to ask about the roof. Are you still planning on trying to rough something in so it looks like there’s a roof on one side and a ceiling on the other?”

“That’s still the plan. We have over a month left and we’re further along than I expected we would be,” Blake said.

“What did you have in mind?” Thane asked, trying to picture something functional and relatively simple at the same time.

“It’s a Salvation Army mission from the Prohibition era,” Blake said. “It doesn’t need to be fancy. Just an angle away from the wall on the outside with something to approximate shingles and enough of a finish on the inside that it looks like a ceiling.”

“You need a couple of joists,” Thane said. “Actually, one might even do. You could cut it in half and put one half on each side to support the roof. Then you could put lauan over it as a sublayer and maybe some wooden shingles for the roof. Or… you know, we might have some leftover shingles from the project we’re working on now. If you can wait a week or two to actually finish the roof, I can donate anything we have left.”

“I thought you had a business to run,” Blake said, but he was smiling, so Thane smiled back.

“I do, but there’s not much I can do with half a bundle of shingles. I can get a joist for you at wholesale too, or I can teach your students how to make one themselves, although I’m pretty sure I can get a premade one for about the same price as the lumber to make one.”

“Let’s see if we have the right length boards here to make one, but if not, we’ll take you up on the offer,” Blake said. “Just remember it doesn’t have to actually meet code. It just has to not fall apart before the show is over.”

Thane laughed. “In other words, we can make it out of anything that’s the right shape instead of having to use two-by-fours or better?”

“Exactly.”

“Show me where you keep your extra wood. I’ll see what I can do.”

TWO hours later, Thane had managed to piece together functional joists with the help of Kit and Phillip and a very enthusiastic Emma and Zach, but Blake had disappeared somewhere. “Let’s go find Mr. B. and tell him what we got done,” Thane said, wanting to surprise Blake with the news.

“He went back to his office,” Emma said. “He said he needed to get something.”

Two weeks ago, Thane would have been furious at the idea of leaving the students unsupervised, but he’d come to appreciate how competent Emma and Zach were. “I’ll go find him if you want to keep working in here.”

He was sure they would see through the excuse, but they just shrugged and went on to the next task. He slipped out the stage door and walked the empty halls to Blake’s office. He met Blake about halfway there.

“Is there a problem?” Blake asked immediately.

“No problem,” Thane said. “The kids have a surprise, so I told them I’d come find you.”

“You could have waited. I was coming back.”

“I see that now, but it’s okay. I wanted a chance to talk with you alone,” Thane said.

“About the boys? You don’t have to worry. I spoke to the baseball coaches today. They were not happy about what happened and assured me they’d deal with the bullies once they were out of ISS. They won’t bother Kit and Phillip anymore.”

“That’s good to know, but that wasn’t actually what I wanted to talk about.”

“Oh?” Blake looked up at Thane, confusion clear on his face. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Have dinner with me on Saturday,” Thane blurted out.

Blake’s surprise was evident in his parted lips and wide eyes. Thane was tempted to lean down and kiss him, but he didn’t have the right to do that yet. Soon, he hoped, but not yet.

“I’m flattered, Thane. Really I am, and if you’d asked me out when we were in high school, I’d have said yes in a heartbeat, but I can’t. I’m sorry.”