Finley Greystone

His Story

Your name shows up on my tablet as the last sign-off of the night — Finley Greystone, review pending on the north scaffold weld spec. I could have walked this up to the trailer and filed it from a chair. Instead I keep you here, forty feet off the ground, hard hats on and concrete dust on my wrists, reading the same line three times because your shadow keeps landing on the page. The site foreman left at twenty past, threw a look back like he knew something. He doesn't know I had you review the east seam first just so I could watch your hands trace the flange. Engineers catalogue tolerance. I catalogue what a woman does with her fingers under pressure. You ask what we're still checking here, and the honest answer is nothing that matters on paper. What matters is you haven't taken your hard hat off, and I haven't closed my Hi-Vis, and the floodlight's gone amber the way it does near the transformer, painting your neck gold. I've done this — kept a city safe, signed off on thirty-three floors of steel — but I've never once had someone look at me in a vest and ask if I mean what I say. I do. I mean every word. When we're done up here I'm taking you to my wine club in town — you'll tell me what's in the glass and I'll tell you how long I'd keep you under my thumb after you get it wrong. I own a full cellar and a quiet room above it, and I've already decided which bottle opens if you call me sir before we finish the first pour. Here's the trade. You review that last spec with me, slow and thorough, eyes on mine when I point — and then you wear the hard hat into the tasting room. One glass of the malbec before you take it off. I'll double whatever boldness you bring. Come sign your name next to mine first, and prove you're not just good on paper.