Bounty (Page 28)

He looked to me, the bag, then back to me.

“Plans say tile floor in here,” he declared. “You rejected that tile. I’d recommend concrete. Easy to clean. Grout won’t get fucked up. And you glaze it, shit looks awesome.”

“Can you do that?” I asked.

“Yep,” he answered.

“Concrete it is,” I told him.

“You’ll need to pick it, Jus.”

“I don’t think I got concrete brochures from Mindy, Deke.”

“Best get on that, gypsy,” he stated, moving from his wall, coming to me, bending low and snagging his bag.

But in sucking in breath at his proximity, I got a whiff of him.

He smelled clean, like soap.

It was amazing.

How could he smell good drywalling?

Gah!

He lifted the bag, tipped his head down, opened it and looked inside.

“What’s today?” he asked.

“Warmed honey-roasted ham, melted provolone, Dijon-mayo on an onion bun with Fritos. I’m sorry to say, the deli doesn’t do prime rib sandwiches. This means I’m on a mission. Someone in this county has to make them or I’m taking over someone’s kitchen and doing it myself. That’s the bad news. The good news is Shambles was in a marshmallow mood. I have absolutely no clue what that marshmallow thing is but I do know it has chocolate and cashews and I ate two and they fuckin’ rock.”

He lifted his head. “You buy me two?”

“I have a fire pit, Deke. I bought you four. You don’t have a stomach big enough to consume them all for lunch, you can take them home.”

“Future reference, Jus, Fritos, affirmative. Chips, sour cream and chive. Barbeque. Cheddar cheese. Anything. Just not plain,” he shared.

Why did I feel like I cracked the Da Vinci Code?

“Monday, I’ll get saucy,” I promised.

He shook his head and I was realizing he did that when he thought I was being an idiot.

I just hoped he thought I was being a cute, amusing idiot.

“You gonna get out of the door so I can plant my ass somewhere and eat?” he asked.

I vacated the door.

He shifted out of it, down the hall and I went to the garage to grab a bottle of water before I went in search of him, finding him sitting on the stack of drywall in the living room.

I handed him the water.

He took it but didn’t express gratitude.

“Eat hearty,” I bid as I moved away, wishing I could sit next to him, hang with him, shoot the shit with him. If he wasn’t into me, at least be his friend.

I exited the space and moved into my bedroom.

He did not call me back.

* * * * *

Deke

The next afternoon, Deke sat in his deck chair close to the shore, his line in the lake, a cooler of beer in between him and his bud, Wood, the only guy Deke knew in Carnal who liked to fish.

Luckily, he was a decent guy, was good with being quiet and being in the sun by the lake with a rod and a beer, but when he talked, it wasn’t about bullshit or the man could be funny.

“Hear Max’s got you workin’,” Wood noted.

“Place on Ponderosa Road,” Deke answered.

“Flash?” Wood asked, being a lifetime Carnal resident, knowing that area and knowing most of it now, with new builds and renos, was flash.

“Yeah and no. Gonna be the shit when it’s done, but not in-your-face the shit.”

“Who’s the client?”

“Woman named Jus. Loaded. Crazy.”

“Crazy-loaded or loaded and crazy?”

“Both.”

“Pain in your ass?”

“She brings me sandwiches.”

Deke felt Wood’s eyes so he looked to him.

“That’s crazy?” Wood asked, grinning.

“Don’t want her bein’ nice to me, don’t need her charity.”

Wood quit grinning and started looking watchful but puzzled. “Charity?”

“Rich bitches like that, gotta stay alert. They give with one hand, take a lot more with the other.”

“Seems you got experience,” Wood muttered, still watchful.

Deke absolutely fucking did.

“Dad got dead when I was two,” he told Wood. “Ma did what she could, which meant bein’ a maid. Live-in ’cause she needed a roof over our heads. Ate shit for as long as I could remember. Watched her do it. Folks she worked for had three daughters. Little cunts, all of ’em. Treated Ma like dirt, same with me. They had friends, not a one of them better than the three. Wife of the man who paid my mom was no better. She had friends too. Different colored hair, cut from the same cloth. So yeah, Wood, I got experience.”

“This Jus woman like that?” Wood asked.

“They don’t come off like that when they need somethin’ from you, so no. All that kind got it in ’em, though.”

Wood looked to the lake. “Didn’t think you had it in you, paint everyone with the same brush.”

“You watch your mother clean up vomit splashes every fucking day, ’cause two of those bitches were bulimic and one was the mom. Watch them shout at her like the world was about to end when she didn’t set a table like they wanted, that bein’ not buyin’ coral roses for a centerpiece instead of peach, whatever the fuckin’ difference is. I could go on for days, brother. Fuckin’ days, and it gets worse. So Jus seems cool. But I don’t open wide for women like that. No fuckin’ way. You don’t keep your shit, you get burned.”

“Not bein’ funny, just pointing out, known you years, first I heard of this so you don’t open wide for anyone, Deke. That bein’ said, you the last man standin’ in our posse who doesn’t have a chain you don’t mind dangling from your ankle, it’s especially with women,” Wood remarked.