The longer I worked, the clearer it became that the house hadn’t just slipped recently. It’d been falling apart little by little for years—long before his mother’s decline.
It was a strong reminder that things under the surface didn’t always match the pristine surface. You could be broken and not look it on the outside. You could smile in public when you were supposed to and run a successful business, all while falling apart on the inside.
Yeah, the house reminded me a little too uncomfortably of Harley’s demise.
Some mornings I’d bring him coffee. I told myself it was practical. I was stopping anyway, making it a completely normal thing to bring him. Other mornings, Harley beat me to it and had coffee and pastries waiting for when I showed up. Every time, he’d make up a story about having to run into town, as if he needed a reason to buy us breakfast without pretense.
It was as if kindness between us required negotiation and logic.
Breakfast was eaten on the run. Sometimes our fingers brushed as we passed a cup or a bag. Every accidental touch landed heavier than it should’ve, sending my mind down a convoluted path to justify why it was okay that it felt like something.
Lunch was small talk or silence on the front steps. We talked about the weather. A lot. Way more than any reasonable person did. It was the safest topic we could settle on, something to fill the loaded silence when it became too much.
I usually clocked out at the time Frank expected me to, but then I lingered. I did extra things for Harley to make his life easier. I convinced myself it was just extra work to get the job done faster and move on. In reality, it was harder to walk awayfrom him at the end of the day than I wanted to admit out loud. Eleven years of feelings scratched their way to the surface a little more every day, despite how hard I tried to keep them buried.
I’d go home late to a fixer-upper of a home, eat a microwaveable meal, and bury myself under more work. I’d go until I was so tired I couldn’t see straight. The pure exhaustion meant I didn’t dream and didn’t obsessively think about Harley. I didn’t dissect every moment and try to strip it of the meaning I wanted to find.
And most days, I pretended not to notice the sour candy. He thought he was subtle, but he wasn’t. I’d catch the way his jaw ticked and he drew in unsteady breaths before the candy became a quick and quiet lifeline.
I never said anything.
But secretly, I liked being able to give him that safety net. Between getting sober and surviving prison, the anxiety I’d struggled with as a kid had come back with a vengeance—louder and more intense than I remembered it being. At first, it was debilitating, completely pulling me out of my element and rendering me useless.
Sour candy had been a trick I found online. I’d been convinced it was one of those fake hacks until I found the reasoning to back it up: shock the senses, ground yourself, and bring your mind back to the present. It worked, and it became an easy solution to a problem I couldn’t afford to have people find out about. As far as Frank’s customers knew, I just had a sweet tooth.I could live with that.
Mid-afternoon, I was in the downstairs bathroom fixing the cabinets when Harley appeared in the doorway.
“Do you know where I can rent a truck in town?” he asked quietly.
“What kind of truck?” I replied. I leaned back on my heels and pivoted slightly to better look up at him. Every day, I alsopretended not to notice how worn down he was. It became more and more apparent the longer I was with him. There was a strain in every inch of his body, like he was actively working to hold himself together. It killed me to see him like this.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I don’t need the furniture, but I figured it made more sense to donate it rather than toss it.”
“It is nice furniture.”Nicer than what most people had around here.“How much stuff are you needing to transport?”
“Um,” he made an awkward gesture to the house, “everything. At some point. I was just going to start bringing stuff over to the thrift store little by little. I didn’t have a plan.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding slowly. I pressed my lips together as I silently ran through my schedule to see what I could offer him. “We can use my truck if you don’t mind waiting until the end of my day. Frank wants me off the clock by six every night—something about labor laws and that crap. The thrift store closes at seven usually, so we could load the truck and head over there as soon as I’m done.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. It won’t be every night.”
“Of course not.”
“Sometimes I have plans.”A.A. counted as plans. I really needed more on my calendar besides A.A., Bobby, and work. Maybe I’d go hang out with Eduardo just to put something more in my schedule.
“Are you sure?” Harley asked. From the look on his face, he wasn’t convinced that my offer was legitimate. To be fair, I wasn’t even sure it was a good plan. Boundaries should’ve been a thing between us, especially with the rising emotions inside me, but when I saw how overwhelmed he was with the house, I just wanted to help.
Call me a simp. I couldn’t help it.
It was becoming real clear that five years hadn’t changed a damn thing where my feelings were concerned. No matter what happened, I’d always care about Harley.
“Yeah,” I told him, keeping my tone casual. He didn’t need to know of the tiny internal war I was having. I turned back to the cabinet and fussed with the hinges, using it as a much-needed distraction.
We made it to the thrift shop just before seven, barely squeezing in before closing. We unloaded the couch and two chairs while the store owner opened the back of the building for us. They were all that could fit, even after I’d removed every piece of equipment from the bed.
Sweat clung to the back of my neck, and my muscles ached after a long day of work. A small, treacherous part of me regretted offering to help. At this rate, we’d be making dozens of trips per floor in his house.
