Liar.
Itwould be nice if his subconscious would fucking butt out of his business too.
??
“Hey,Bennett!” Ralph Dillinger called from across the shop.
Beauglanced up from under the hood to see Ralph sitting at his desk. Figured. Theguy didn’t even bother to get up when he needed to chat.
Grabbingone of the shop towels, Beau wiped the grease off of his hands as best he couldand tossed the rag on the partially disassembled engine before he made his waythrough the messy garage.
Hehated how much of a slob Ricky was. Hated it. But it wasn’t like Beau could sayanything about the pigsty he had to work near. Ricky was Ralph’s youngerbrother, who happened to be Dillinger Automotive’s other mechanic. If he couldactually be considered a mechanic. The guy mainly stuck to oil changes when hebothered to come in to work at all.
Skirtingaround the tools that were strewn across the concrete floor, Beau made his wayto Ralph’s office.
“Yeah?”He didn’t bother going inside the little room. Most of the time, Ralph got akick out of calling Beau over for no reason other than to give him a hard time.Being that it was first thing Monday morning, he had hoped to be spared for atleast a few hours.
“Weneed to talk.”
Thatdidn’t sound good. Usually Ralph greeted him with some sort of barb, or a badjoke. This sounded serious.
“What’sup?”
“Takea seat,” Ralph said, blindly signaling toward one of the chairs on the oppositeside of his desk. Apparently, Ralph didn’t notice that both chairs were piledhigh with either boxes or papers or both. Figuring he wouldn’t need to sit downanyway, Beau gave him enough respect to move into the room, standing oppositehim.
“Son,”Ralph began.
Son?Ralph wasn’t much older than Beau, but he seemed to be under the impression hewas some sort of father figure. Beau had no idea where the guy came up withhalf of what he said, or why he acted the way he did, but being thenon-confrontational sort, Beau had never let on that Ralph’s condescendingattitude bothered him. And being referred to asson, made him want toboth laugh and punch the guy in the face.
“I’msure you’ve noticed how slow things are around here.”
Yeah,Beau had noticed. He also noticed that Ricky wasn’t even bothering to come intowork these days, so Beau was picking up all the slack. Made for at least a fullday’s work, but not much past that. If Ricky went through the trouble of comingin, one of them would likely be sitting on their ass. Beau didn’t figure itwould be him because, of the two of them, Ricky wasn’t all that interested indoing much more than downing a six pack.
Beaunodded his head, waiting for whatever Ralph had to say so he could get back towork.
WhenRalph made the effort to look up from his computer screen, Beau knew he wasn’tgoing to like what his boss was about to tell him.
“It’snot a secret that things are slowing down,” Ralph explained, repeating hispoint, his expression seemingly glum.
Beauwanted to remind Ralph that he also noticed that Ricky wasn’t bothering to evencome into work these days. Instead, he kept his mouth shut.
“Ijust don’t have enough work to warrant two mechanics right now.”
Beauwould agree. And he knew where this was going. But because he could see Ralph’sdiscomfort level was the equivalent to walking on hot coals barefoot, hedecided to let the other man spell it out for him.
“Look,Beau,” Ralph finally said after a minute of painful silence. “I’m gonna have tolet you go. When things pick back up, I’ll give you a shout. Until then, Ithink Ricky can handle what little work we do have.”
Beauglanced out into the shop, pretending to be looking for Ricky, and then back toRalph. Yeah, he’d like to see how well that was going to work out for them.
“Iknow what you’re thinkin’,” Ralph went on to say.
Doubtful.“Is that right?” Beau asked, the words breaking free before he could stop them.Damn it.
Ralph’seyes widened and he leaned back in his chair, propping his hands on hisprotruding belly, obviously gearing up for a confrontation. When Ralph clearedhis throat, Beau took a deep breath.
Itwasn’t like he didn’t know this day would come. When business was slow, therewasn’t much anyone could do. And even if Beau had enough work to put in fortyor more hours a week, that didn’t mean a thing when it came down to familyloyalty.
“Ineed Ricky to come in to work. He’s not coming in because he says there isn’tenough for him to do. He mentioned that you take all the work, and he doesn’twant to cause a scene.”
