Jamie - the Journey Begins

I quickly stopped at home, ran in the side door of the house and straight into the office. Breathlessly, I grabbed the folder of information - it was pretty much a brief of evidence, years of training for the old man is hard to break free of. The brief that dad had assembled for me was quite in-depth, from property prices in the area and surrounding districts thru to tax claim rates for investment properties or primary residence bought off the plan.

Dad had highlighted sections with sticky tags and ten gone to town on those pages with the highlighter pens. "Hmmm, Dad... nice." There were substantial stamp duty and tax savings to be had, even including housing loan rates, fundable amounts for first home owners, scheme and repayment rates vs rental returns for a second property.

While driving home, Adam had messaged me the address of the lots that were being developed and asked that I meet him there. Apparently, there was a small café around the corner we could go to afterward.

Doing a double check and visual sweep almost like a 'job size up', I checked the office desk to make sure I hadn't missed anything. Crap I needed to get a wriggle on as Adam already texted me the address and I was super late.

Hate being late for stuff - it throws me off a bit - but I'm not all OCD over it, just prefer not to be late.

Ok, Jamie, you're going around in circles now. Get out the door buddy.

Bolting out the side door of the house and jumping down the steps along the pathway to my truck, I skidded to a stop, grabbing the door handle of my truck and reefing the door open.

In and seatbelt on in race car speeds, I fired up the Sat Nav on the Truck. It was way faster to use the voice command on the truck than try to type it in. Also helped me get going a fuck of a lot faster. I was offering in the instructions to it in my best parade ground voice and had the address loaded up into the Sat Nav before I'd cleared our block.

The address Adam sent me wasn't too far from Mom and Dad's place. I should only be 10 minutes tops, even with traffic.

I was just getting into a new song by 'Vance Joy' when the Sat Nav gave me the "destination reached", so I pulled over to the curb, amongst all these vacant lots and half-demolished buildings. Adam's company must have bought the old factory that was here. It took up an entire end of a block, having three street frontages. Wow it was a massive bit of land here!

Several farms were being subdivided into housing and lots of folks were getting pissed about it. They were much happier when industrial or poorly used land was repurposed - fair enough, too, I guess.

Looking down the street thirty yards, there he was - Adam Yates (Ads) who was leaning against his car talking to someone on his cell when he spotted me and waved. Fuck me - he hasn't aged at all! In fact, he's got hotter - damn!!

I slipped the truck into park and jumped out, walking up to Adam with a huge smile. It was great to see my favorite college buddy again.

Adam was waving to me to come over while he was finishing up his call. "Fuck, Jamie, where did all the muscles come from? You're ripped-and-a-half now buddy, shit!" He let out a laugh.

"You're not looking too bad at all Ads. Seems post-college has been good to us both."

"Yeah but, damn, look at you..." Adam, waved his hands up and down in front of me, then patted my chest and abs. "Whoa... abs of steel, Spence!"

We both started laughing at each other, then embraced in a hug.

"It's been too long Jamie, too long buddy, since we caught up. You kind of dropped off the radar for a while. Was it that crazy bitch you were married to? Kept you locked up or something?"

"Yeah, something like that," I was feeling somewhere between a deer in the headlights and very self-conscious that someone else could see what shit my ex had been doing to me on a subconscious level.

"Anyway, Ads, tell me about these townhouses and apartments you're building."

Looking around us, it was a beautiful location, slightly elevated so you'd get a nice sunrise, sunset depending which way you faced.

"I like the location, Ads."

Ads smiled a huge smile. He always had a sexy smile - it got him into and out of a load to trouble at college. I tried in vain to learn the ways, but was never as smooth as Adam.

"Well, I got wind that the old stock feeds factory was closing down. The family had sold the business to some multinationals, name only, but kept the landholding. The factory's new owners decided they wanted to build new facility over near the highway.

"So, I took a chance and called old Ma and Pa Owens, negotiated to buy the land from them for this really cool development. They liked the concept and eco-features and bang, signed the contract of sale, even gave me a few extra weeks to get the funding in place.

"I think they're sitting pretty with the sale of this business, so I think cash is not a problem, but they made me pay a good price though - got most of my family to help fund the land purchase to keep the borrowing costs down, so a greater return and profit for all."

"I'm impressed, Ads. So, do you have any plans or site layouts? What's the cool development you're thinking of? I can feel my inner engineering nerd on the rise."

"Yeah, sure... love it, Jamie. You know the parents and family just glaze over when I start going into the details."

We both laughed at Adam's admission of us still being engineering super-nerds.

"I've used all that time in college, well, when I wasn't trying to get into someone's pants, even yours too, Jamie, to good use."

I shot Adam a sneaky grin. "Well, you were always good at practical applications, Adam. If I remember, your solutions to friction and lubrication were... fun".

"Prac was ok, I guess," Adams face flushed bright red. "Still remember the look on your face in the lockers the first time, huh."

"Oh yeah, you hated class so much, Ads, didn't you... not! I still don't know how you did so well in your grades. If you weren't trying to get it on with someone in the lectures, you were swinging that meat bat of yours around in the lockers, trying to get me. Almost took my eye out."

"I call bullshit, Jamie. You had the locker next to me all the way through college, huh, and a fireman now. So, you finally get to use that hose for another purpose, not just scaring people with the size of it, and you never complained, not once buddy. "Adam poked my chest with his finger in a playful way. "Damn Jamie, you're like all muscle and hard still. Come on - give us a look with the shirt off for old time's sakes."

Again, with the red face, "Ads, focus on the buildings."

"No fun."

Tilting his head to the side and smiling, he continued, "Amazing how it happened really... the locker placement and all, you know, all the way through college."

I just grinned back at him, holding my hands up in fake surrender. "Ok, show me your goods, and not the ones in your pants either - the plans, Adam."

Smiling, Adam turned and opened the back door of his car. "The site recycles all its runoff water in underground tanks throughout the site, plus there will be six large solar arrays on the roof of the low-rise apartment blocks," he said, pointing to the location of the tanks and solar sections on the plans.

The look of sheer pleasure on Adam's face was exactly what I was feeling listening to him. This was awesome - I've missed engineering so much. Maybe I should look at getting into the systems side of things at work - can get off the fire-line...hmm...

"Oh, Jamie, you're going to love this, almost as much as looking at me, well you know, in the lockers," he continued with a wiggle of his eyebrows. I couldn't help but laugh. "Meat-bat, I think, was the term I gave it."

"There will be a battery storage for the power excess generated to reduce the power drawn from the grid after sunset or cloudy days."

"Jamie?"

"Yeah."

"Are you getting hard, you've got that look in your eyes you get before..."

Now it was my turn to flush bright red. "Shut up and tell me about this solar stuff and stop looking at my crotch."

My mind flashed back to college when Adam would walk around our dorm, with just his briefs on if I was lucky, or just socks. I never got it - he could have his cock swinging around like an elephant's trunk, even in winter. But Adam had to wear socks. Didn't like having cold toes. I was forever telling him to put clothes on, but the view was fucking hot though.

"Earth to Jamie, were you thinking about me naked again, you licked your lips?"

"Adam!"

"Okay, okay. Each apartment will have solar-boosted hot water and thermal heating, living filter gardens that run through the core of the site, even the stormwater, and general runoff flows into the small lakes, here and here." Ads pointed out...

His face was all lit up like I was looking at his baby, Oh my god we are such nerds when it comes to this stuff.

"Jamie, the sweetest part is the filtration is achieved through the specially planted out beds, then into an osmosis filter system. The end result is water that is safe to drink before it goes through an ozone plant to meet world health standards, then it is stored and pumped throughout the site for secondary use, like the toilet, laundry and all garden watering, carwash etc, plus encourages native wildlife and fauna"

"With all that filtration you should be able to drink that water, Ads, yeah?" I had to admit it, I was getting hard now. Slightly adjusting myself, I continued, "This is just awesome!"

"Adam, you've thought of everything for all different uses and reuse of natural resources on the site. It brilliant, mate!"

I leaned in and hugged him side on. Ads looked me in the eye. He was in heaven. I think it was the first time anyone had listened to the entire workup of the site and understood it. God, I was astonished.

"I was right! You're adjusting that hard-on you've got."

I looked down at Adam's crotch. I wasn't the only one that was turned on. Was it the engineering or the trips we were both making down memory lane, or both?

I let out a laugh, "shut-up and keep talking."

Adam laughed it off and pulled out drawings for the site showing the apartments and townhouse floor plans while running me through the whole engineering spec. I was impressed. They were great looking too - timeless, a modern take on a rural look, all with a slanted color-bond roofing, with the orientation to maximize natural heating and cooling, sunlight and even a common water gardens, underground parking. It was brilliant.

We chatted about the expected costs, plus the plan to meter the water and power captured and reused or made available to the individual apartments and townhouses, saving owners a bucket load on utilities just based on today's costs. I was sold on it.

"Love it, Ads," I commented as I put my hand across his back onto his shoulder. We packed up all the drawings and technical sheets he'd dragged out and decided to head over to the café around the corner where we could talk turkey.

A long story short, and a few coffees later. I ended up signing up three properties - a townhouse to live in and two apartments for investment rentals. Adam cut me a huge deal on the prices, so I was able to afford the third property. With the stamp duty savings as well, it was a sweet deal.

We chatted on for about an hour, Adam's phone just kept ringing. He'd ignored it for a while, but clearly he was wanted. I kept telling him to answer his cell, but no, we hadn't seen each other for years, so a little time off was ok he kept saying, but clearly he was getting uncomfortable with the number of missed calls.

Adam paid the check at the café and we ducked back out towards our cars.

I was a little taken back when Adam stopped and wrapped me up in a huge hug.

"It's so nice to see you again buddy. I hope we can catch up soon, not years ok?"

"Sure, Ads. I'm going away for a holiday soon. Am going to have a BBQ at Mom and Dad's. I'll send you an invite so you can catch up. The folks would love to see you again."

"Sure, love to, Jamie."

I walked back to my truck and jumped in. Adam had his cell stuck to his head. Deep in conversation, as he was about to get into his car, he stopped for a second, and waved to me, flashing that huge smile. He's a fantastic guy.

When I told Mom and Dad later that night about the project and the infrastructure they were building in, the old man's face lit up too. He was a bit of an engineering nut, not as bad as me. "Dad, even the water recycled onsite will be to a standard that it could be used for normal domestic use, a long-term reduction in town's main use for domestic water supply. He's not using it for that, as they want to trial the systems in the real world, and then possibly include this in future development sites planned."

Dad called Adam and arranged for him and Steph to meet him the following day. Steph wanted in, after she had found out from Mom that I was banging on about the project. Steph knew I was a nerd with this stuff, so actually followed my advice - go figure.

The Spence family ended up buying seven properties in all - my three, Stephanie bought one with an option for a second and Mom and Dad bought three. Although not at the same cost as what I had secured, it was still a sweet deal for them.

I'd never seen the old man so quick to sign a contract and hand over a deposit. He said they were set for retirement now. Once they sold the family home and moved into their townhouse, they'd be set.

Mom, Dad, Steph and I were discussing how Adam's plan was to make these developments low impact on utilities and the environment over a sustained period using engineering and renewable energies to reduce the ongoing costs. This turned out to be a winner later: he scored a massive contract to build another six sites over the following years. The original site sold out in several weeks. The Moms at the CWA made sure everyone knew about it. Adam even sold off one apartment on the next build, donating it back to the CWA as a thank you.

The CWA used the money as a high school support fund for kids that were in financial need - just a great outcome for everyone. That was so typical of Adam - a really nice guy, a fool like me at times, but a really nice guy when it counted.

..o0o..

Since all hell had broken loose at Julie's place while Mom and Dad where there, Mason showed up and tried to deny the affair, then blame me somehow, then it was Julie's fault.

At that, the old man lost it apparently, told him to go back to their house and wait for them to come home. When Mason tried to stand his ground with Dad, saying it was his house, he was a grown man and couldn't be ordered around, saying, according to Mom, who was pissed at this comment on top of what he'd done with Jules, 'I'm not a man-child like Jamie,' was just the icing on the cake.

The old man just lost it at him. They returned home with all of Mason's crap in the tub of Dad's truck a few hours later. I decided that it was just safer for all if I didn't stay at Mom and Dad's tonight with Mason thundering around the house like a child. I was slowly losing the battle not to have a go at the dickhead. God, he's such a dick at times!

Mason could be the best and brightest at things if he only lost that chip off his shoulder and stopped treating all those that loved him like crap.

So, after getting the property stuff all squared away at home, I grabbed a change of clothes, much to Mom protesting, and asked Sam if I could crash at his place tonight, explaining all that was going on at home. He was cool with it and that he had a way for me to earn my keep for the night... As I walked out the door, I walked straight up to Mason. Dad was eyeing me from the kitchen counter - I think he fully expected me to clock Mason one, but no, I resisted. I leaned in and said, "Life's too short to be an ass all the time, Mase. Time for you to grow up."

He just snorted, "That's funny, coming from you." I clenched my fists beside me - oh my god, I so wanted to clock him one, but that was just what he wants, then shift the focus onto me. No, not this time Mason, enjoy the spotlight. Gonna keep it trained on you for a long-time, buddy.

Turning away, I said, "Bye Mom, Dad. Have a great night," and I slipped out the door.

..o0o..

The next morning was all about organizing the BBQ, Sam came back to Mom and Dad's with me, as did all the guys, and even Jeff and Sam's sister Safi. We had the backyard set up in a few hours - party lights strung up between the house and the three huge lemon ghost gums that towered over the skyline. The slow cookers and BBQ's were all warming up. Mom and a working army of women in the kitchen were busy talking and laughing. I think a few bottles of wine may have been opened, too. They were having a good time. It was pure Mom driven military precision going on in there.

The only hiccup was when Mason came out the back door. I couldn't help myself, the rage just took over. He walked straight past me not even seeing me behind him. It was like I'd just been possessed by something - I was in remote control, almost. Leaping out of my spot on the side veranda, I tackled him to the ground, pinned him good and proper. Mike and a few of the guys dropped everything and ran over. Kelvin went to pull us apart but Gavin stopped him.

"Let 'em go. This is going to happen anyways, right? At least we can stop it before it goes too far or Mrs. Spence sees them."

I held Mason down. Thoughts of what he'd done to Jules were rushing through my mind like lightning. She was one of my oldest friends, and he did this to her. Through gritted teeth I growled into his ear, "You're lucky I don't beat the shit out of you, fuck-wad, but you're not worth it. She was always too good for you."

Dave ran over, grabbing me. "Guys, Mrs. Spence is on her way out. Think she heard the commotion. I heard her saying, 'If those boys are pitching a fit out back, I'm gonna tan their hides no matter how old they are.'"

I pushed off Mason with some extra force just as Mom came out the back door. We all were trying to look innocent, but in truth, looked guiltier than sin.

"What's been happening out here, boys? Y'all got plenty of work to do, or you want me to find you some? Mom surveyed around us all. Poor Sam didn't know which way to look.

"Mason! Get off the ground! This is no time to be lying about, damn it!" she chastised, turning around and walking back inside.

The relief was thick in the air. We all burst out laughing. But the joke was on us. Safi came out to say that they'd been watching inside also. Mom waited for it to get a bit out of hand before stopping it.

Loui and Lachlan arrived with a keg of beer in hand. They'd called Check Point Charlie's and ordered a keg of what we were drinking the other night. They were more than happy to help. So, the boys carried the keg in and set in an old plastic barrel that had been filled with ice. It would be nice and chilled in an hour or two.

The rest of the set up was pretty much a blur. Everyone had put in a stellar effort, plus Dad had done loads the day before too. I grabbed Sam and suggested we get cleaned up before everyone arrives, with a wink.

Taking Sam's hand we headed into the house, dragging Sam along through the kitchen and into the hallway. We both just smiled at everyone and slipped into the hallway quickly, but not quickly enough.

"You boys should get cleaned up. Use the ensuite, as the company would need the main bathroom. You take longer in the shower than your sisters, Jamie. Don't be all afternoon."

"Jeez Mom, you really know how to make a guy feel like a five-year-old, don't you?"