Patterns - An Academy Story

Trade Secrets

Silas' POV

Daughter? Gamíseis (fuck me). I could feel my ears turn red. "Um, she's very good at that. I think all women should know how to use power tools well" I said to Liam, inclining my head in her direction. Nice save I thought to myself.

"Yeah" North replied. "Good skills like that are, uh, useful." I could tell he was just as embarrassed as I was for getting caught checking out Liam's daughter.

"Liam, are you giving those guys a hard time?"

I looked over and saw that she had turned around on the ladder and was looking at all of us.

"Not at all sweetheart" he chuckled "Not at all. Sang, this is Silas Korba" he said, nodding his head towards me. "And this is North Taylor" he said, waving his hand to North."

She climbed down from the ladder and walked over to where we were standing.

"Hi there, I'm Sang" she said, holding out her hand.

I looked down at her and took her hand in mine. Compared to my hand, hers was tiny. "I am happy to meet you." She was so little; I wanted to put her in my pocket. She looked up at me, a hint of laughter in her pretty green eyes. Even with construction dust in her dark blonde ponytail and on her shirt, she looked like an angel. My Aggele.

North stepped forward hand shook her hand. "Nice to meet you," he said, gruffly. "Uh, nice work on the sheet rock."

"I apologize for Liam," she laughed, looking at me and North. "He's a bit grumpy this morning because he thought we had enough grout to do the tiling. Truthfully, I think he wanted to be the one to do the hardware store run instead of Henry."

"Hush you, missy, enough of that," Liam chuckled. "You'll give away all of my trade secrets."

"I'd never do that," she retorted. "That would be like giving away all of my trade secrets, since I learned them from you!"

We heard a loud rumbling noise of a truck pulling up to the curb. "Alrighty then," Liam said. "The cabinets are here. C'mon boys, let's go get some cabinets. Sang, we'll leave you to your mudding and taping."

We turned to leave the room and I looked back at Aggele and gave her a wink.

For the rest of the morning, North and I helped the guys on the work crew carry in the cabinets and help install them in the kitchen. Occasionally we'd see Aggele walk through the kitchen where we were working.

Around 11 am Lily and Henry arrived with grout and paint that were going to be used in the kitchen. We all took a break, sitting around on various boxes, drinking bottled water that Aggele passed around to all of us. I didn't get a chance to say much to Aggele. She was talking quietly with Lily, giggling, their heads close together. I wanted to think that she was talking about me. I liked to look at her. Man, I thought, rubbing my hand across my face. She makes drinking water look sexy. I looked over a North and saw that he was watching her intently, too. Brother, I thought, I call dibs.

North's POV

Nice work on the sheet rock? Smooth, North, smooth. That's as bad as 'I brought the watermelon.'

Damn, she's cute.

Sang's POV

Down to the last piece of sheet rock. Yes! "Dave," I called out "bring that piece over here? I'm ready for it on this wall." Dave maneuvered through the doorway, around two big guys that had stopped by the entrance of the room. We lifted the last piece of sheet rock in to place, and he held it steady while I screwed it in place.