And don’t forget he’s seen your underwear, too.

I mentally cringed for the four-billionth time.

He came close enough to nearly brush my shoulder, tucking his thumbs into his pockets as Steve paused his list of everything that was wrong with my house.

“Jackson, how’s it going?” Steve grinned, and the two reached out to shake hands.

“It’s going,” Jackson answered. “Don’t stop on my account. I’m dying to know your thoughts. If that’s okay?” he asked me. “Steve did the major reno stuff on my house a few years ago.”

I glanced at him and nodded. He’d be subjected to the noise of the remodel, so it seemed like a fair enough trade.

“Shit, you did most of that yourself,” Steve countered with a shake of his head. “Now, Ms. Bartley, that list doesn’t even touch cosmetic stuff like the kitchen or the flooring. We’re just talking about what the house needs in order to survive the next decade. I’ve always loved this house, and I want it to stay standing, so when I ask you how much money you have, it’s not because I’m looking to inflate your invoice. It’s because there’s going to be a hefty base price, and then you’re going to have to decide what upgrades you need versus what you want and what you’re willing to pay for.”

“I definitely want everything you would structurally recommend.” The rest, I would scrape and clean and sand it to smooth on my own. If it took years and every penny I had, so be it. There would be one thing in my life that was perfect. That no one could take from me.

“What about hurricane-proofing it?” Jackson asked.

“I definitely want to hear about that.” I was used to tornados in Alabama, but hurricanes were a whole different ball game on the coast.

Steve nodded. “Sure, if you want to go all-out, you could definitely use some reinforcement.” He studied the house quietly for a moment, his eyes darting over the structure. “We’d probably need lifts, but we could drive a steel support alongside the one you have running through the house, but go deeper, and change the positions of anchors on your roof when we put on the new one so it’s structurally like those new-built, hurricane-proof ones, but you’d still stay within your legal limits for the remodel. I mean, it’s already got those nice faceted lines on the ocean side, which is probably how it’s stood this long. But you’re digging into cost again.”

“And timeline, I assume,” I said with a small sigh.

“That part isn’t too bad. We’d probably get the supports and roof on in about two weeks, and we actually have an opening if you want to start—”

“So can you give her a couple different estimates?” Jackson interrupted.

I shot him some side-eye. Listening in was one thing, but this wasn’t a situation where I needed—or wanted—to be rescued.

“What?” Jackson shrugged. “Don’t you want to know the cost of what has to be done by professionals versus what you can do yourself, versus what you might like to have done by experts?” Those eyes of his cut right through me in a way that was more than a little unsettling and left me feeling exposed, like I was still standing there in my underwear.