“Isn’t that dangerous?” I ask, though we both already know that regardless of his answer, I’m onboard with the idea. I’m onboard two hundred percent.

Logan takes one of the hardhats and places it on my head. “Just keep this on… You may need it.” His eyes gleam with enthusiasm, he’s brimming with playfulness.

Matching him, I straighten it up, grinning, “Oh, la la!”

“There are just a few people we have to bypass first,” he then unexpectedly announces, taking my hand, and leading me through the entrance into the first construction site that I’ve ever stepped foot on.

It’s all much tidier than I presumed it would be, which is comforting for a neat-freak like me. We walk together in the direction of blaring music, which is issuing from a white site-hut. Bryan Adams, I recognise the tune. Nice choice.

Inside the hut, four men and a woman are huddled around a desk, looking over a large design plan which is spread out on top of it.

“The whole crazy team,” Logan tells me, announcing our arrival to his employees, who all look up upon hearing their boss’s voice.

It surmises they’re just wrapping up a head-of-departments meeting, which means that right now I’m faced with Leary Constructions’ elite. Guillaume, who stands at least six foot five and has a perfect handlebar moustache, is an engineer. Benjamin, who’s short, stocky, and very muscular, is chief-builder, and I vaguely remember Jerry working with him. Antoine, whose bespectacled face and bow tied shirt convinces me that he’s an architect — way to stereotype, Gem, I chide myself — until I’m told that that’s exactly what he is. Michel, Logan’s second in command and very good friend, whose spiky platinum-coloured hair stands out strikingly against his dark skin, is filling in for their absent human resources colleague. And Grace, a dark-blonde, salt of the earth type of woman, who true to Logan’s word, is at least seven months pregnant and so large in her belly that her high-vis vest struggles to shut.

I shake hands with each of them, though Grace is by far the most formal.

“Grace DiCenzo,” she says, holding out her hand. “Tête de la gestion des projets.” The head of project management. She’s the overseer of all elements of the build, and given how huge this site is, I don’t envy her.

“Gemima,” I say for the fifth time, smiling at her. “It’s wonderful to meet all of you,” I then say to the group at large, automatically taking a step closer to Logan. I wrap my arm around his back, and immediately realise that Michel is the only one who knows that we’re a couple, because his eyes are the only ones that don’t widen at my show of affection.

“Gemima is my girlfriend,” Logan is quick to reveal with an air of smugness, before beaming down at me.

“Quoi?” Grace says. What? She sounds so shocked that Logan, I and everyone else start laughing.

“Is that unheard of?” I giggle, playfully pinching Logan’s waist.

“Yes!” they tell me in unison.

“You could have met her last week,” Logan says to Guillaume and Antoine, “if you ever bothered to show up to those topping off parties.”

Ah-ha, so they were meant to be there last Thursday night, I note. I wonder if the animosity between Logan and Jerry would have been any different if they were.

“That’s why he got into a fight with Jerry Cassidy,” Michel mutters, his thoughts similar to mine, and his intention being to fill in all the holes in the industry gossip.

However, when almost everyone looks bemused, Logan admits, “He’s Gemima’s ex.”

“Unfortunately,” I add.

Teasing of Logan commences less than one second later and continues for five minutes straight. They’ve never known him to have a girlfriend, nor to be the type to throw a punch in a woman’s honour, but it seems that both of these new, illuminating sides to him are very appealing.

The sparring back and forth is pure comedy to watch. Logan’s their boss, sure, but they all interact with one another as though they’re on an even keel. They seem more like friends than colleagues, and if, over time, I could build these sorts of working relationships at Pierson House, then off-days like today would surely become a lot more tolerable. I’d have someone to vent with, and laugh with, and talk to about problem clients.

“So, have you brought Gemima here to show off your big playground?” Grace toys with Logan.

“I’m the interior designer for the project,” I announce. “Logan just wants to give me a quick tour,” I say. And do me on the top floor, I don’t say.

“Which company are you with?” Michel asks me.

“The Pierson Group,” I tell him proudly. Oh, it’s so nice to finally be at a company that I’m proud to be a part of, instead of embarrassed by.

“I expect we’ll see the bosslady on Saturday night,” he says, referring to Amélie and Logan’s upcoming party.

“I wish I could go,” Grace sighs.

“Why don’t you?” Benjamin and Guillaume ask together.

She gives them a humorously scathing look. “Watch this,” she instructs. She takes a very big, deep breath in and her hig-vis vest bursts open over her large belly, making us all chuckle. “Now imagine me in a ball gown…Yeah, I don’t think so,” she shakes her head.

“I’m still going to mention you in my speech,” Logan assures her.

“You have to give a speech?” I ask in surprise, and he nods petulantly, clearly unhappy about it.

“I’ve been trying not to think about it,” he tells me, which is probably why he hasn’t mentioned it before. Out of sight, out of mind. “I haven’t even started it yet. Have you started yours?” he asks Michel, who will be speaking too.

“Already finished.”

Everyone makes an urgh sound, and Logan quickly explains it, by laughing, “Michel is a constant overachiever. He makes the rest of us look terrible. I don’t even know where to start mine.”

“At the beginning,” Guillaume says unhelpfully.

“Once upon a time,” Michel suggests.

Logan groans, and from the look in his eyes, I can tell that he’s genuinely dreading it. I find his hand and give it a squeeze.

“I’ll write it for you,” I grin at him. If there’s one thing to fear more than writing and reciting a speech, it’s doing those things in conjunction with my American Mouth.

Logan grasps that notion exceptionally fast. “I’ll take my chances, baby,” he laughs.Hearing Logan utter the word baby, reignites the teasing. Round two, I think, and I prop myself on the edge of a desk, watching their repartee with glee.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, once his colleagues have cleared out for the day, Logan locks up the site-hut, and we start walking to the other side of the vast building site, coming across no one on our journey.

It’s eerily deserted, I think, looking around the huge spaces that all too soon, I will be in charge of decorating. But then again, work on construction sites starts early and ends early. I remember that aspect of Jerry’s work — he was always home before me, and elected to spend his afternoons lying on the sofa. Lazy bastard. I put up with that for eight fucking years, I remind myself with a shudder. Why, why, why, I wonder angrily. Maybe I was in a self-depleting phase?

Tentatively, I reveal to Logan that Jerry was waiting for me outside of work. “And you were right, he did lie about his mom. He only told you that because he thought it would make me call him, and when I didn’t, he thought rocking up at my work would be appropriate,” I say sardonically.

Logan’s whole body tenses next to me as we keep on walking. “Why did he want to talk to you?” he asks.

“He wants me back,” I sigh. “I told him, again, that that’s never going to happen. Then I got slight dramatic and told him that if he ever ambushes me again, I’ll take out a restraining order.”