Page 89 of Mr. Fixer Upper
“About that,” she said, shooting him an accusatory look. “It’s not exactly a standard size. Seems weird to me that you were able to build something that fit so perfectly in our space. It’s almost like you took measurements.”
He made a humming sound, and she knew she wasn’t getting anything out of him.
“Have you seen Cat lately?” he asked.
Paige nodded. “We had drinks last week. She told me about the Duluth deal.”
Gannon shook his head. “My sister the model for women’s work clothes.”
“The collection is going to be huge,” Paige predicted. “She showed me a couple pictures of the samples.”
“Of the two of us, she’s cut out for this crap,” Gannon said.
“And you’d rather be on a job site or in your shop,” Paige said, understanding.
“And you’d rather be telling stories that matter.”
She bit back a sigh, and they rode in silence for several minutes. When Gannon turned down an alley.
“This isn’t your place,” she said, peering at the squat brick building before them.
He pressed a button, and one of the three industrial sized garage doors rolled up, groaning in protest.
“I thought you wanted to see what I was working on?”
“This is your shop? Your secret lair?” Paige was delighted. It felt like she’d just received an invitation to tour Batman’s cave.
“This is the back of our offices. Used to be storage. Now it’s my shop.” He pulled into the bay, closed the door behind them, and shut off the engine.
They climbed down, and Gannon unlocked the door on the back of the garage wall. She smelled sawdust and stain, scents that always reminded her of him. Paige stepped inside while he flipped a row of dusty light switches, flooding the space with illumination.
“Holy crap,” she breathed. The perimeter of the room was ringed with shelves and tables stacked high with every kind of wood imaginable. A metal shelving system looked to almost buckle under the weight of polyurethanes, stains, paints, and bins of hardware.
He had several work tables and benches, most of which bore projects in varying stages of doneness. The dining table was front and center.
“Wow, Gannon.” Paige wandered up to the table, all eight feet of it, her heels muffled by neat piles of sawdust. It reminded her of the coffee table. He’d used the same reclaimed wood, distressed by decades of use, and the same design. Two fat pedestals on either end of the table acted as thick legs joined by a long board down the center.
“Like it?” He stood with his thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his jeans.
“Like is not the word,” she said, running a hand lovingly over the satin-smooth wood.
“That’s the buffet,” he said, jerking his chin toward the next table over.
It matched the length of the table and the style of wood. A combination of yet-to-be-finished drawers and cabinets made up the base of the buffet. Its top was a long expanse of that aged and battered wood.
“Thinking about doing open shelves above it,” Gannon said.
Yes. She could see it. Rustic wood shelves with the metal piping for brackets.
“Are these for you?” she asked, eyeing him.
He shrugged.
“Because I’ve seen your apartment. You add an eight-foot table, and you’d have to get rid of your couch.”
He glanced at his watch. “We’d better go before Nonni gets antsy.”
“Oh, God. There really is a nonni, isn’t there? This isn’t just some ploy to get me to your place?”
