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“Yeah,” Tyler agreed. “Last time he pulled a disappearing act it turned out to be something with his mom. She’s probably got some other issue at the house.”
“So why wouldn’t he—“
“Because he’s Zane, that’s why,” said Axel. “If he can do something himself, he does. Besides, after all that time we spent fixing the roof, he probably doesn’t want to ask.”
As the customers made it to the counter they gave me two quick kisses — both of them, right on the lips. It was something we did, as boyfriends and girlfriend. It never occurred to us that we should hide it.
“And Saturday…” I called after them as they walked away. “Don’t forget about Saturday.”
Tyler laughed. “C’mon. You think you have to remind us about your show?”
Halfway through the door Axel turned and blew me another kiss.
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world, baby.”
~ 42 ~
AXEL
“YOOOOO!”
Rocky’s voice boomed through the tall metal enclosure, reverberating off the corrugated aluminum walls. It rose easily over the noise of my forklift. Rolling the steering wheel ball in my palm, I swung it deftly around to face him.
“Kid, what the fuck happened this morning!?” he demanded. “Half the delivery is missing!”
I shot forward and turned ninety-degrees, lowering the banded stack of lumber onto the pallets I’d previously arranged to receive it. I hated leaving any weight on the fork, even for a few minutes. On a machine this old, it screwed with the hydraulics.
And Rocky rarely took less than a few minutes.
“We’re missing untreated studs,” he said, looking down at his purchase order. “Deck boards aren’t here. Six-inch and eight-inch pressure treated should’ve been on that truck. Not to mention—“
“It was all delivered.”
Rocky blinked. “It was?”
“Sure.”
He scratched angrily at his scraggly, salt-and-pepper beard. “So why the fuck didn’t you—“
“Because most of the stuff on the truck this morning looked like that.”
I pointed, and Rocky followed my gaze to the other side of the lumberyard. His bloodshot eyes went so wide I thought they’d fall out of his head.
“What in the—“
“I know.”
The stack in question was so bowed, so crooked, each board looked like a giant banana. They were frayed and delaminated, dry as a bone. The pressure treating had long since worn out of them.
“We didn’t pay for these two-by-sixteens!” he roared. “Did we? Because if they think I’m—“
“Hell no,” I cut him off quickly. “Are you kidding? I refused to sign that invoice the second I saw them.”
With that revelation, he seemed to take it down a notch. “Then why are they here?”
“Because I can cut the middle out of a few of them,” I explained. “Maybe make a couple of eight or ten footers. Plus they were free.”
My boss bit his mustached lip. “Free is good.”
