As the Powertools foreman in every sense, Mike was too wise for games.
“Okay, I’ll tell them by the end of the week.”
“Do better than that.” Mike turned and glared. Could it be that carrying the weight of Joe’s secret was crushing him too?
“Fine. Next time we take a break or something.” Joe scrunched his eyes closed.
This was going to suck.
“Team meeting!” Mike bellowed, then grabbed Joe by the scruff of his T-shirt and dragged him into the stripped-down kitchen. Their current build was an old Victorian. It reminded him of the summer they’d spent renovating the house next to the one Kate had inherited from her grandfather. They’d gotten so lucky, meeting her then and seeing what the future could hold for them all. And had for many peaceful years.
Would his desire to evolve wreck all of that as sure as demolition day on a site like this?
Joe struggled to breathe, and not because of the manual labor he’d been doing that morning, tearing down the walls of this old house so they could rebuild them better. Stronger. Maybe that’s what he needed to do for himself, and the crew.
As he stood there trying to get his shit together, Dave, Neil, James, and Devon joined them.
“What’s this about?” Neil asked. “There’s at least an hour and a half until lunchtime. Not that I’m complaining. It’s getting hot out. We’re going to need some fans in here soon.”
Devon handed him a thermos, and for a minute they stood there breathing hard and chugging ice-cold water. It did nothing to cool Joe off. Not knowing what was coming.
“Joe has something he wants to share.” Mike elbowed him in the ribs.
“Looks more like there’s something you want him to say.” Dave arched a brow at Joe, his gray eyes turning stormy as the gravity of the situation sank in, smothering the satisfaction they got from making progress on a job like their current one.
Joe drew a deep, if shaky breath, then said, “I’m thinking about going to Middletown.”
“So?” Neil asked, lifting his hands and letting them slap his jeans below his tool belt. “It’s kind of a regular thing these days. Have fun—”
“For a month. At least.” Joe sighed, just saying it out loud easing some of the weight that had been compressing his chest for too long now. “Probably the whole summer, if we can swing it.”
“This is going to be a hell of a lot of work.” James looked around at the mountain of shit they had left to do. “But we can manage without you if you want a break. No problem.”
“Why does this sound like more than a visit?” Devon wasn’t accusatory, just curious. Figured that she would see right through him.
“It might be.” Joe shrugged. Honestly, the only thing holding him back from committing was the group of people standing in an arc around him right then. If it weren’t for the crew, he’d have already pulled the trigger on the house rental agreement he had completed and saved on his laptop. “Truth is, uh, Eli offered me a job. A good one.”
“What?” Dave looked like someone had kicked him in the nuts.
“Yeah. Turns out Sally is pregnant.” Joe wished the Hot Rods had told the crew themselves, but Eli had insisted the news should come from Joe directly along with the rest of the implications the situation had. Hell, he’d probably been talking to Mike since they’d both been pestering him to do this. But standing there, saying these things to the crew, and watching the mixture of disbelief, betrayal, and anger that flickered over their faces along with their other emotions…
It gutted him.
Devon softened a bit at that. “A baby? Oh, Joe. Of course you want to be there for that. I don’t blame you. That’s such great news.”
“So you’re, what? Going to be the kid’s nanny?” Dave crossed his arms. They had always been best friends. “And why the fuck didn’t you say so before?”
“I should have, sorry.” Joe winced. “I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you guys, it’s just that this is…hard. I can’t figure out the right thing to do.”
James stepped up, put his hand on Joe’s elbow and shot Dave a ferocious glare as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Joe. “You’re really struggling being apart from Eli and Tom. I’ve seen it. We all have. It’s a rough place to be in, living in two worlds.”
“There’s more,” Mike prodded.
“So, yeah, Eli decided that Hot Rods isn’t big enough for all of them anymore. Not with their family growing again. He wants me to design a new place for them and oversee the construction. Kyra, Ollie, and Van want a house at Hot Rides, too. They’re both major projects.”
“Hang on.” Dave swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re saying you’d be the foreman. With what crew?”
“I guess one I’d have to hire out there?” Joe swallowed hard. It felt wrong, even to him, even for the good of his family, to think about working with anyone but the Powertools he’d built this business with for the past two decades.
“I get it now. You have a big fucking head.” Dave flung out his arms, his mammoth fist nearly catching Joe’s jaw in the process. “You’re too good to be one of us and need to be the boss instead? Is this some kind of shitty midlife crisis or what?”
He winced, especially considering he’d had the same doubts initially. Only now, it seemed like so much more to him than that. Especially since Morgan agreed and encouraged his aspirations. “That’s not it at all.”
“Of course it isn’t,” Dave huffed.
Joe tried not to lose his cool, but a man could only take so much shit. Especially when making this decision was killing him. He didn’t take it lightly. “Did it fucking look like that the other night when I practically begged Mike to fuck me?”
Joe strode to Dave and put his hands on the other guy’s shoulders. “I want to do this for my family. And is it a challenge? Yeah, that too. Plus, we’ve outgrown our apartment, and Nathan wants a dog that we don’t even have a yard for. He and Klea deserve to know their cousin, too. There are lots of reasons this makes sense. Not one of them is because I feel like I’ve outgrown anything here or that I’m better than you guys. Come on. You know that’s not true, don’t you?”
Mike stepped between them, deescalating the situation before someone got knocked flat on their ass. “I know one way to prove it. If you’re still up for it.”
Joe blinked, and suddenly he was. His body raged against the implication that he didn’t give a shit about the crew when loving these people had damn near shredded his guts for the past year and might still in the year to come. He reached around Mike to grab Dave’s hand and brought it to his crotch.
There was no way his friend could miss the raging erection he had from just thinking about where this was headed. Because all of them could agree on that. It was better to fuck it out than fight it out.
11
It shocked Joe when Dave wrenched his hand from Joe’s dick as if scorched. Was he really that pissed that he would turn away in the face of Joe’s obvious arousal? He spun on his heel and lumbered from the room, too fast for his gait to be completely smooth given his old injury.