And what’s weird is, I don’t care. It feels like I should, but I don’t.
Which makes me wonder—what if I used to be the guy who got it all wrong because he didn’t stop to look, to think? What if I was the guy who hurt people and didn’t care?
What if I’m good at this now—plans, execution, details—because I have a clean slate I didn’t ask for?
And it’s an ache. Knowing I’m missing part of myself and acknowledging that it hurts. It feels like there’s a hole in me that can never be filled. But at the same time that hole gnaws away at me, there’s also an indescribable freedom, like I’ve been given a second chance and I better not screw it up.
Living. It feels like I’m really living.
Which begs the question: What was I doing before?
“Boss?”
Isaac blinks at me expectantly.
I drag my gaze from the clipboard I’m holding. “Yeah?”
“The city,” he reminds me. “You get the go-ahead?”
“Right, about that.”
Coco steps up, Hercules attached to her skirt. She bends to shoo him off, but the lamb jumps away before she can touch him.
“The city’s given the all clear, Isaac,” she explains.
He scrunches his face in confusion. “But I thought things were on hold.”
“We’re going with new plans, new supplies. I ordered the concrete to be busted up,” I explain. “We’re starting over with different materials.”
Ron and Isaac exchange a charged look. It’s Ron who speaks. “New plans?”
“Well, mostly the same plans with tweaks, but we’re changing materials. The others were, um, affecting the health of the town.”
Coco suggested not mentioning that I can see ley lines. With everything else that’s happened, keeping one more secret doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.
“So we’re to bust all this up?” Isaac asks, sounding worried.
“Yep. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish and can get the new structure in place. I’ve got shipments arriving starting tomorrow.”
Ron stares at the bones of the resort like a man facing death. “It’s a lot of work.”
I clap his shoulder. Is that something I would do? Feels right. I’m going with it. “That’s why we’re gonna need more men, more bodies capable of doing this right. You know some workers?”
When they stall, I say, “What about the guy I asked you to let go?” I snap my fingers, trying to appear as if his name is on the tip of my tongue. “Who was that, again?”
Isaac’s eyes nearly pop out of his head. “You mean Antoine? The one with the bricks?”
“That’s the one. Why don’t you see if he can come back? Tell him I made a mistake.”
Ron and Isaac exchange another look. Isaac peers at me quizzically. “You feeling okay?”
“Never better.”
The guys look from me to Coco and then back to me. Realization washes over their faces. They’re wrong in their thinking, obviously. I’m not sleeping with Coco.
Right?
We’re not, are we?
