Elements of Retrofit Read Free Page A

and did it all without looking up from her computer.
    “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I told her. “But thank you. You’re really worth more money.”
    She smiled, and just before we went separate ways on the sidewalk, she said, “Don’t work too hard.”
    Every weekend, and most nights, was about work for me. I’d had a slew of one-night stands, I’d tried dating. And in the beginning, after the separation from my wife, it was exciting. It was new and exciting and everything I dreamt it would be.
    I tried everything, once, sometimes twice, I did it all—safely, of course—but four years on and I was looking for something else. I just didn’t know what. I’d met a guy, Peter, and theoretically, he should have been perfect for me. Similar age, similar interests, similar everything. But he was too passive, too agreeable to everything. I had ended things with him a few weeks before and had happily dived headfirst into work.
    I had every intention of spending a quiet weekend at home, finalising two case files. I went to the gym once, treated myself to some online porn and ordered in food. It was perfect.
    Except on Sunday night, I dreamt of Cooper.
    It was vivid and hot. I dreamt I was fucking him. His head was thrown back and his mouth was open and I was inside him. He groaned with every thrust.
    It was so real, I woke up so fucking hard, I could almost taste his cologne on my tongue.
    I got to work a few hours later on Monday morning and almost tripped over my own feet when I saw him.
    It was absurd. Ridiculous. Wrong, even. He was the same age as my son!
    And yet there he stood, wearing grey suit pants and a matching vest over a crisp white shirt. His vest pulled in at the waist and showed the shape of his ass. He was talking to someone else, but he smiled at me and my heart thumped in my chest.
    Fuck.
    “Good morning, Mr Elkin,” Jennifer said with a bright, wide smile.
    I cleared my throat and still croaked when I spoke. “Morning.”
    “Busy schedule,” she said matter-of-factly. “First meeting at nine.”
    “Good.” I needed the distraction. I needed work and meetings and appointments, difficult clients and over-budget builders. Anything to distract me from a certain twenty-two-year-old man, whose eyes I could feel on me, burning into my skin, from across the room.
     
     

Chapter Three
     
     
     
    I managed to avoid Cooper all day. Mondays were always busy, and I told myself I was imagining the attraction. The thought of me being attracted to him was preposterous. He was twenty-two, and I was forty-four. He was just a kid!
    But every day I saw him, and every day I looked for him. I had his schedule jam-packed and he seemed to thrive.
    I’d managed to quash any notion that I could have been interested in him. The fact he spoke about my work with a passion like mine was nothing more than a professional admiration. Even in my line of work, it wasn’t every day I met someone who loved architecture like I did, and it had just thrown me, that was all.
    At least that was what I told myself.
    It was late on the Friday evening of Cooper’s third week when he dropped some files on my desk for me and looked at the board in the corner of the room. It was the first time he’d been in my office without anyone else with him. He eyed the draughting board in my office like it was the space shuttle to a young, wannabe astronaut.
    The draughting board itself was rarely used these days. Nearly all draughting was done in CAD programmes, which took precision to an art form, but I still liked to use the old-school draughting board and blueprints in paper.
    “I’ve seen you eye it a few times. You can go look at it,” I told him, looking up from my paperwork.
    He grinned, walked over to it and ran his finger along the wooden frame. “It’s like touching an artist’s easel,” he said quietly.
    I smiled at that analogy. “I guess it is.”
    Cooper looked at me, then back to the draughting board. “This is the