Work just wanted me there at seven.
“You planned this,” I said.
“I bought a raffle ticket for charity. You won. That’s not a plan; that’s grace.”
“You sat me in the front row.”
“Thatwas a plan,” he admitted cheerfully. “But the winning was all you. Even I can’t rig a fishbowl.”
I took the coffee from him on principle, since it was mine, drank some, and looked out at the half-framed house I was three weeks behind on.
Three months.
Somewhere in there, I could find one week.
Reyes, my number two, could hold the site together for five days. He’d done it before. The world wouldn’t end. Work would be there when I got back. It was always, eternally, going to be there when I got back.
“Fine,” I said. “Book it.”
Finn went very still again, the way a man does when he’s afraid that moving will spook the thing he’s just caught.
“Say that again.”
“Don’t make me regret this.”
“Say it again, slowly, so I can frame it.” He had the glossy packet clutched to his chest now like I might wrestle it away from him. “You’re letting me book a holiday for the both of us.”
“I’m letting you book a holiday before I come to my senses, which gives you aboutfour minutes.”
And that was all he needed.
Finn was already whipping out his phone, thumbs flying, narrating as he went. “Right. I’ll book it tonight. You’ll touch none of it. The one thing you’re allowed to do is turn up at the airport with a bag that does not contain a laptop. Can you manage that?”
“I can manage the airport.”
“The bag, Mark. The no-laptop part of the bag. That’s important.”
“I heard you.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“I’m not saying it.” I crossed my arms.
“Say, ‘I will not bring my laptop, Finn, light of my life, the only man who’s ever loved me enough to embarrass me in front of two hundred strangers.’”
“I’m leaving now.”
“You work here. You can’t leave. It’s your site.” He was laughing again, that big, unbothered, happy laugh only an Irishman could produce, the one that always seemed too large for his narrow frame. “We’re going on holiday. You’re going to hate every minute of it for about a day and a half. Then something in you is going to crack open, and you’re going to thank me. I’m going to be unbearable about it, and it’ll be the best week of your life.”
I told him not to get ahead of himself.
I told him it was five days, not a personality transplant, and that he shouldn’t expect miracles from a man who saved screws in a coffee can.
I told him a lot of things while standing on that job site with the saw whining behind me and the coffee going cold in my hand.
Every single one of them turned out to be wrong because Finn booked the trip that night, and he never read the fine print. Neither of us did. We saw “all-inclusive” and “tropical” and “worth more than both our cars combined,” and we never scrolled down to the part that would’ve told us exactly what kind of resort a travel company donates to a charity drag show.
In fairness to us both, the brochure photos were very tasteful.
