Chapter 6
Present Day
Since growing past the days of one lawnmower and a weed wacker, Anderson Lawn had two teams: residential and commercial. I strongly preferred working on commercial properties. Unfortunately, so did Derek, an old family friend and only hire that ever truly put forth the effort to communicate with me. Derek’s aunt lived next door, and he used to come over during the weekends as a kid and teach us how to play first-person shooter games on his Xbox. He was only a couple of years older than Nate, so the two would often bond when it came to being protective over me while simultaneously making my life more difficult.
“What’s going on?” Derek asked when I approached his parked truck.
I placed my hands on his rolled-down window and gave him the saddest eyes possible.
He sighed. “The answer’s no.”
“We played rock, paper, scissors last time so we should do that again,” I argued, immediately getting rid of my sad face.
“You always win every round.”
“It’s not my fault you keep choosing paper,” I protested.
Behind us, Dad, Nate, and Leo were loading our truck for the morning rounds. I had ten minutes tops to convince Derek to give up the commercial route. We only had three clients on it currently, but the landscaping for the community center alone took five hours. I enjoyed getting into a lull when working. I couldn’t very well do that when packing up equipment every hour while mowing yards.
“Paper always feels like a safer bet because one day, you’re going to think I’m going to choose it and I won’t.” Derek turned off the truck because he knew he was going to be here for a minute.
“That’s such a worthless long con. You’ll win one game, two max before I catch on,” I told him. “Now, come on, I have a new trainee today so we gotta get this show on the road.”
Derek looked over my shoulder and snorted. “Leo? He’s working this summer?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, apparently he wants to slum it with the rest of us.”
“Don’t those coast kids have the pick of the litter when it comes to jobs?”
“He probably just wants to goof off with Nate.” I waved my hand, trying to dismiss his suspicion.
“Nate’s on my team,” Derek reminded me. “I need the extra hands since Elijah and the gang has the month off.”
I nodded, remembering his brother skipping town a few weeks ago with his friends, leaving us down three employees. “I forgot. You want Leo too?”
Derek laughed and opened his console, rummaged around in a hunt for something. “Nice try. I’m not in the mood to train some rich kid who wants to pretend he’s struggling for the summer.”
“Seriously, are you ever in the mood? To do anything, really?”
“No,” he confirmed and held up a shiny nickel. “Want to flip a coin instead?”
“Fine. Works for me.”
“Heads?” he asked.
“Tails.”
Derek flipped the coin and placed it on the back of his hand. I smiled when he groaned in defeat.
“Best out of three?” He raised a brow.
I smiled. “Do you really think you’re going to win?”
He stared at me for a moment. “No. Damn it.”
I laughed. “I’ll text you the new client’s addresses.”
“Tell Nate to hurry his ass up. We’re going to be out here till sundown and I got a date tonight.”
