Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 90098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Maybe Ben could take him to the park. I’d already done that with Chip a few hours ago, and we’d discovered that Ziggy could be incredibly lazy. He was all energy when he was buzzing around someone’s legs, but faced with a park and greenery to run wild, he sat down next to the nearest park bench.
Hearing noises on the other side of the door, I knitted my brows and opened it, only to find Ben not alone. A big-ass truck was parked in the alley, and Ben and another man were hauling out wood that looked like it belonged in a junkyard. The planks were all different colors and types of wood, some long, some short.
There would be no fucking here, not that I’d actually believed it, but I was clearly walking into a scene with its own energy. They had to know each other, and the other man laughed at whatever Ben had just said.
Ben saw me and offered a quick smile before turning to the other guy. “Garrett, this is Trace, the young punk who’s saved my life twice.” That was going a bit far. “Trace, Garrett. We went to high school together, and he’s saved my ass too.”
“He’s exaggerating,” Garrett told me, coming over.
I nodded once and met him halfway down the stoop, and we shook hands. “Good, we’re on the same page. Nice to meet you.”
“You too, kid.”
Kid. Friends. Kid. Young punk. Friends.
Ben grunted as he dragged four wooden planks out of the bed of the truck. “If I’m gonna stay with you for a while, Trace… Ope—fuck.” He almost dropped one. “I’m building you a new bartop.”
My eyebrows crawled all the way up there.
“I called Garrett yesterday and asked if he had anything he wanted to get rid of,” he continued. He proceeded to carry the planks up the steps and into the stairwell. “Hey, Pip. How are ya, boy?” Ziggy ate up the attention.
“And I always do,” Garrett filled in. “We got cherry, hawthorn, oak, walnut, teak…”
I turned back to Ben, too dumbfounded to contribute a single response.
“It’ll take me a few weeks, but I think it’ll look great,” Ben said, coming out again.
I rubbed the back of my neck, and then Ben wiped sweat off his forehead, and I wanted to fucking die. Was everything he did gonna turn me on?
Also, I’d had that priced once, because I was curious what replacing our bartop would set me back, and the answer was roughly four grand from start to finish.
“I’m just happy to get rid of your crap, bud,” Garrett laughed.
Ben flashed a grin and turned to me. “I hope you don’t mind I store some tools upstairs. I left them with Garrett a few years ago and told him to throw me in the lake if I ever tried to sell them.”
Uh-huh.
“Not that they’re worth much,” he added, digging out his phone.
“Still quality shit,” Garrett said.
“Mm.” Ben nodded absently and read whatever, a message maybe, on his phone. “Gare, you mind dropping me off at my ma’s place? Alvin’s anxious. He had therapy today.”
That brought me out of my daze, like a rubber band snapping away every question and ounce of confusion.
“No, of course not,” Garrett replied.
I cleared my throat and stepped aside as Garrett carried more wood through the door. “Ben, can I have a word?” I walked down the last steps and gestured toward the dumpsters.
“Yeah, sure.” He pocketed his phone again and followed me down the alley. “Everything okay?”
Uh, that was my question to him.
I exhaled a laugh and rubbed the back of my neck. “Let’s start over. Hi,” I said pointedly. “How did it go today?”
Maybe it dawned on him that he’d sort of steamrolled in here like a new man.
He let out a chuckle and removed his beanie. “I’m a full-time employee with decent pay and good benefits. I haven’t felt this good in years.”
That made me smile. He’d mentioned yesterday that the original job he’d applied for was, like, twenty bucks an hour, and the one he’d eventually been offered was almost twenty-six, with opportunities for overtime. And he’d talked about a 401(k) as if it was a strange concept.
“Today was a short shift,” he said. “I have a week of in-house training and tagging along with someone who’s retiring soon, and that’s about it. I got my work clothes, my schedule, I pissed in a cup, and I’m picking up my work phone tomorrow.”
Fuck, I wanted to hug him—and then some. “What’s the schedule gonna look like?”
“Two weeks day shifts, one week nights,” he replied. “What they do is, I have a set of assigned buildings for the day shifts, and then I’m on call for the night shifts where several of us cover buildings throughout the city. Best part, I can stay here until I get called in. I just gotta report to my manager a few times.”