Tucker ground his teeth together. “Thanks for the recap.”

He wanted to shout that it had to have been longer than five minutes, even though, technically, he couldn’t remember much about the evening. As Nevada had pointed out, he’d been drunk. Not to mention out of his mind, lost in a tempest named Caterina Stoicasescu. Unfortunately, Nevada had also been caught up in the hurricane of Cat’s life, however briefly.

“You really blew it,” Will offered helpfully. “I thought she had potential.”

“She does. I’m not done with her.”

Will chortled. “Seriously? You think she’ll come work for you now?”

“She wants the job.”

“No. She wanted it. Past tense being the key here. Now she knows it means working for you. Hell, Tucker, five minutes?”

“Would you let go of that?”

“I guess I’m going to have to. Still, you were a smart kid, not ugly enough to crack a mirror. I figured some woman somewhere would take pity on you and show you the ropes. Guess I was wrong.”

Tucker pointed to the door. “Out.”

“Or what? Going to pull my hair?”

Will was still snickering when he limped out of the room.

If it had been anyone else making fun of him, Tucker would have been pissed. But Will was practically family. Barely ten years older than Tucker, Will had been working for Janack Construction since he’d left high school, and Tucker had always thought of him as the older brother he’d never had. Will had quickly moved up the ranks, until an accident six years ago had broken both his legs and fractured his back.

The company medical insurance had taken care of the bills, and Tucker’s father had kept Will on the payroll. Even after a year of healing, Will hadn’t been able to go back to working at a site.

Right about then Tucker had started running projects on his own. He’d offered Will the job as his right-hand man and they’d been working together ever since. They were a good team, which was why Tucker was willing to take so much crap from his friend. All of which was interesting, but didn’t solve the Nevada problem.