I send Joss a text and varnish the fuckin’ shelves without waiting on his reply.
Mr. Garfinkel appears as I’m finishing up. He’s brought me challah from his wife and calls the electrician a putz.
He ain’t wrong. But he’s still slow as hell, and I’m so done by the time he’s finished his walk around, that I leave him at the door and run for my life.
The Wildfoot truck is loaded and ready to go. I drive back to HQ and park, glancing inside the glass-fronted building on autopilot, looking for Jax. I haven’t seen him since whatever fuckery he said to Joss tipped him into a tailspin, and I haven’t figured out if I’m pissed at him. Which tells me I’m probably not. I’m not that guy, man. Jax loves Joss. He loves me. If he opened his big fat mouth it was for the right reasons.
And…he wasn’t altogether wrong. I am fuckin’ fragile. And I don’t know how I’m gonna deal when Joss inevitably leaves.
That’s why I’m not thinking about it.
Living in the moment.
I turn away from Wildfoot, but as luck would have it, Jax is pulling up in another truck.
He hops out, rounds the hood, and he’s in front of me before I can blink. “Sorry I’m a dick.”
“Whatever do you mean?” I retort dryly.
“Don’t be sarky, mate. You’re not arseholey enough.”
“You want me to be?”
Jax grins. “Maybe. Joss gave me a hug this morning, and I feel like I don’t deserve it if I fucked things up between you.”
“You didn’t.”
“You’re okay?”
“I am.”
“And Joss?”
“You didn’t ask him?”
Jax leans against the truck I’ve commandeered as mine. At some point, I’ll have to give it back or buy my own. Or get a job that doesn’t need one. Months ago, contemplating a decision like that woulda sucked the life out of me. Right now, I can see the logic in dragging my ass to Roland’s Used Cars and getting shit done.
“I did ask him,” Jax says. “He had his head in the fridge and called me a bellend.”
“After he hugged you?”
“Yup.”
I can’t find the sense in that, but Joss and Jax often bemuse me. Their conversations go in circles, littered with insults that could be terms of endearment. Why these cats can’t just say what they mean, I have no damn idea. “Are you done for the day?”
Jax sighs. “I wish. I’m heading out for a night camp in a bit. Told Jerry I’d get some dawn loon footage, but I keep blowing it off to stay in and fuck, you know?”
I do know. Not that I’m in the habit of crawling along riverbanks and pointing cameras at wildlife, but the rest of it is everything I want. “Sounds great,” I say absently.
Jax laughs. He says something else, but I’m already walking away.
I cross the street and find myself smack bang in front of the construction site that’s been bugging me for weeks. Most days, I don’t look, but keeping my infatuation with Joss to myself has taken all my spoons, and I glance up before I catch myself.Goddamn. Some idiot has piled even more lumber against the weak foundation wall. Enough to pull the whole building down. Holy shit, where do they find these dumbfucks?
The site looks shut down for the day, but as I prepare to walk on by, I see a contractor kicking a downspout out of the very wall that could collapse on his head at any moment. “Hey!”
My shout startles him. Then he glares. “What?”
I push through the barrier that guards the site from the general public and pick my way to where he’s standing. There’s a script to situations like this—I remember them from the days I spent volunteering at the fire department. But I’m less patient than I was back then. More aware that life passes too fast. “Are you out of your fuckin’ mind?”
