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He patted my hand, grinning down at me. “Your dad would’ve loved this.”
“A team of bulldozers wouldn’t have been able to keep him out of here once that carpet came up.” I smiled, and for once, the memory of my father didn’t come with a pinch in my heart. I could stand in this beautiful room and remember the handy, lovable, loving man he was. In a way, it felt like restoring this place was my way of showing him how much I’d learned from him, how much it meant to me to save this place and all the others that made New Elwood so special.
I glanced at the man who might destroy it all. Anderson had his arms clasped behind his back as he walked the perimeter of the room, inspecting the most damaged tiles. Calculating the cost of repairs, most likely. Coming up with excuses why it couldn’t be done.
Well. This flooring was another piece of evidence that would convince all the councilmen and women that the theater deserved a second life.
And maybe…
Maybe there was another way. What if we could find a compromise? If we could save part of this place while giving Sebastian something in return…wouldn’t that be better? A smaller hotel, maybe. Something that incorporated the existing architecture instead of razing it.
He wasn’t the bloodsucking capitalist I’d thought he was. All he wanted was to make sure no one suffered the same fate he had as a child. That was understandable, wasn’t it? Maybe even admirable?
I had no doubt that money played a role as well. He was a businessman. But after Friday night, I wondered if there was a solution that would leave us both happy. A safe, modern, profitable building that maintained the most important features we were in the process of revealing.
There was more work to do: cleaning and prepping and a thousand little tasks that I hadn’t planned. The tiling threw our program out the window, and we had to scramble to find time to finish all the work while leaving enough slack in the schedule to restore the flooring.
Surprisingly, Sebastian turned out to be a huge help. He managed the contractors with competence. He foresaw delays with some of the prep and hired extra laborers to work with the painters. The two of us drove around to three hardware stores and six lighting supply stores looking for the right marquee bulbs, only to find out we had to replace every single one if we wanted them to look right.
Sebastian had a contact in Arlington that could give us a discount on the order, so we didn’t blow our exterior budget on lightbulbs. I got closer to securing a deal for the advertising space on the marquee. By the end of the week, I felt like I had a teammate instead of a nemesis. The place was a mess, and the to-do list had only grown longer with not a single job complete other than the emergency exit stairs and the silicone on the ticket booth, but everything else felt doable.
Until I got home on Thursday afternoon.
The stairs creaked as I trudged up them, not bothering to place my feet where I knew the treads were quietest. It had been a long but productive week, and I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home.
When my feet hit the landing, I frowned. A bright-yellow sheet of paper had been tacked to my door, with the words “NOTICE OF INTENT TO DEMOLISH” emblazoned on the front of it. My stomach dropped. With shaking hands, I ripped the sheet off my door and blinked furiously until I could read what that rat bastard had written.
My fury mounted. We, the tenants, were being informed that the building did not meet with residential building codes and would be torn down. Lord Anderson, in his magnanimity, was giving us 180 days, which happened to be the legal minimum for this kind of notice and not a day more. But if we moved within thirty days, there’d be a sweet cash bonus in it for us lowly tenants. He was trying to buy us off.
He spent the week playing nice with me, only to stick this piece of garbage to my door like a coward. Not once—not once—had he said a word about this. We’d worked together for two weeks on this project. We’d reached a kind of truce! We’d laughed together. And now this?
His application hadn’t even come across my desk yet, which meant he didn’t have approval to do this!
The paper crumpled in my hand as I clenched it into a fist. Whirling on my feet, I stomped back down the stairs and marched to his door. My fist banged so hard the wood rattled in its frame.
“Anderson! You bastard! Answer the door and talk to me.” I kicked the bottom of the door. “Open the door!”
This man was smiling in my face and then stabbing me in the back. He was taking over my town and demolishing the only home I’d ever known. He was desecrating my parents’ memory. I’d thought he had depth? I’d thought I was wrong about him? Ha! No, he was scum.
I wound up for another kick, and the door opened. He stood there in gray sweats and a T-shirt that was askew, his hair wet as if I’d interrupted his shower. Good. I’d love to interrupt every pleasant thing he’d ever experienced. I wished him lumpy pillows and cold showers for the rest of his treacherous, two-faced life.
“Explain,” I bit off, thrusting the sheet of paper at his face.
He looked at the paper, then at me. “You are more than capable of reading, Reeves.”
“Wipe that smarmy expression off your face, you capitalist pig. You can’t get away with this.”
“Wow. Capitalist pig. Pulling out the big guns.”
“What makes you think you can destroy one of the oldest homes in this town? The only—” My voice broke. “The only home…”
Anderson frowned at me. “Reeves, it’s not personal but it has to be done.”
“No, it doesn’t!”
He scoffed and spread his arms. “Come on. You can’t stand there and tell me this place is habitable. You fell through the floor a couple of weeks ago. You could have broken your neck. We nearly burned the place down last week. One spark, Charlie. One spark, and this place would be a charred husk of nothing. I know that if this place stays standing, people will get hurt.”
“I’d expect that to be a bonus from your perspective.” I wasn’t buying the whole I-just-want-everyone-to-be-safe bullshit. He’d had me going for a few days, but this? To play nice and then turn around and stab me in the back, kick me out of my home? He could fix the place up. Fireproof it. He could try.
