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Brandon pulled onto a narrow street. The homes in this neighborhood were cookie cutter, with broken wire fences, and tiny lawns, where the only differences between them were the angles of the leaning porches and the paint colors in various shades of faded.
There were a couple of trucks parked outside one of the houses at the end of a cul-de-sac. There was a large construction Dumpster on the front lawn, and this home’s fence had been pulled back to allow room for it. Ladders leaned against the exterior to allowed access to the roof.
Kevin was on the front lawn, studying a clipboard, a pencil behind his ear. Brandon pulled up against the curb. Kevin took one look at me and frowned.
I climbed out, but he focused on Brandon. “What’s she doing here?”
“She’s got to stay with us,” Brandon said.
“So you brought her here?”
“Yeah. Why?”
Kevin frowned. “Take her back to the apartment if you want to play. This is a work zone.”
“She’s here to work. Marc mentioned she could work here with us.”
“What? When did he say that?” Kevin asked.
“The other night while you were out. Again.”
Kevin brushed his palm against his forehead. “I knew it. He’s going to start fucking up. She’s going to figure out everything.”
“She already knows half of it.”
“What?”
“Come on,” Brandon said. “I’ll fill you in.”
I sighed, guessing this was something they needed to keep secret for the Academy, and I wasn’t allowed to know. I wondered how much Kevin really worked for their team, because he wasn’t around all that often. It seemed at every moment he could, he ran home to his girlfriend. Did she really need him that much? They didn’t seem perturbed at her like they did Marc’s ex-girlfriend, and she seemed like a clinger.
Nail guns cracked noisily up on the roof. I made my way to the ladder, not wanting to stay on the ground with Kevin if they were going to come back. I started up.
I found Axel and Raven on the roof on their knees. They both had nail guns and were starting at opposite ends, nailing the roof tile down. Both had on jeans. Raven wore a black tank shirt, soaked through with sweat and Axel was bare chested, the darker complexion along his body glistening in the sunlight. Raven’s shoulders were wider, but their biceps and their bodies were exquisite. Raven was a powerhouse, a tank, and Axel’s muscles seemed more precise, a little leaner.
I crouched on the roof, which had a soft slope. I sat on it, watching the guys work.
I wondered if Brandon was going to ever talk about last night with me. I told myself I wouldn’t start. It was too soon to act like we were a couple of anything like that. He’d said he wanted me to move in. I’d been a mess and terrified, and he comforted me until I could sleep again.
Now that it was morning, I knew better than to hold him to those same promises made in the night. You can’t cry in front of guys, and make them promise things, and then force them to stick to it after. I wasn’t that manipulative, and I didn’t need to be taken care of in that way.
Maybe it was best to pretend it never happened.
I was a thief. I worked alone. Alone was best for me, for someone who didn’t fit in anywhere. It never hurt. It never made promises it didn’t mean. Alone was who I was.
I had no idea what he saw in me. It was too terrifying to think that last night had been merely a moment of weakness and he didn’t have any intention of making whatever was between us a relationship. I wouldn’t want to make things awkward. If he really wanted me, he’d tell me in broad daylight when our emotions weren’t so stirred up.
Raven was the first to notice me. He jerked his head back, shooting the last nail into the roof without looking. When it was done, he lifted the nail gun and hit the switch to power it off. “Where have you been?” he asked.
“Where have you been?” I responded without really expecting an answer. “You didn’t tell me you did construction.”
“Little thief, I do everything.”
Axel stopped his nail gun and turned, looking at me. “What are you doing up here?”
“Brandon brought me.”
“You’re here to work?”
“I’m here to talk to Marc, but if you want me to work...”
Axel waggled a finger at me. “If you start a fight with Marc, I don’t want to be on this roof when it happens.” He shuffled on his knees, putting his nail gun down carefully on the roof. He wiped his brow with the back of his arm. Beads of sweat zigzagged down his chest, following the lines of his body. “So Brandon’s here?”
“Yeah, he’s down talking with Kevin.”
He stood up and bent at the knees to start easing his way over to the ladder. “I need to talk to him. Stay up here with Raven.”
“Want me to nail things?”
“Sure. Have Raven show you how.” He moved to the ladder and disappeared.
Raven curled his fingers at me. “Come on.”
I started to crawl over until the rough tile below my knees started to bite into the cuts from the day before. Raven held his nail gun in his hands and fiddled with the plastic casing.
I waved a hand at him. “Don’t shoot me.”
“I’m more worried you’ll shoot me.” He showed me the gun. “This isn’t bullets, but it’s just as bad.”
He showed me his nail gun, which was mostly gray with a black handle. There was a holder for the nails sticking out of it that looked a lot like a smaller version of the magazine I’d used on the 303 rifle.
“Shiny,” I said.
“It’s got a safety.” He flipped the button that powered it up. He aimed it at the roof but left an inch of space between it and the gun. He pulled the trigger but it locked up short and a nail never spit out. “You can’t fuck up. You have to push the nose down into the tile.” He rammed the end of the nail gun at the tile and shoved it until the frame around it pulled back. He pulled the trigger and the nail shot out.
“So you can’t shoot unless you push down?” I asked. Seemed easy enough.
He lifted the nail gun up. He used two fingers to pull back on the safety, showing me how it worked. He held the safety back and aimed the gun at the roof like that and let it spit a nail into the tile. “You could hold it back on your own like this, and it’ll shoot. Hurts like a bitch on your fingers after a while though.” He held the nail gun out to me.
I took it from him, aimed it at the tile and fired a quick shot right next to one of his nails. My arm jerked a bit at the force and my nail went in crooked
“You’ve got to lock your arm, like shooting a gun,” he said. “Didn’t you learn anything yesterday?”
“I didn’t get to shoot a pistol,” I said. “Just the rifles.”
“Remind me to show you a pistol. Shoot it again.”
I shot two more nails into the tile and when he was satisfied that I wasn’t going to shoot myself in the eye, he took his nail gun back. He planted another tile on the roof and lined it up.
“How come you didn’t tell me you did construction?” I asked. I sat on my butt next to him, watching him work. “I thought you just did spy stuff.”
“I do whatever job is on the table,” he said. “This week, we rebuild a roof. Next week, we’re in Europe chasing down someone’s long lost brother. I do whatever Axel tells me to do.”
With his Russian accent, the way he pronounced “r” rolled off his tongue in a way that made me want to get him to talk more just to hear it. “What if you do have to go to Europe next week?”
“Are you worried I’m going to leave you behind?” He snapped seven nails in quick order into the tile. “You think I’m going to leave you here to let you reign chaos over my city while I’m gone? No. You’ll go to Europe with me.”
He was so full of it. Still, I enjoyed the idea. “I don’t have a passport.”
“I’ll get you a passport.” He planted another tile into place, and aligned it.
“I
don’t have money for a plane ticket.”
“I’ll buy you a plane ticket.”
I smirked. “What if I don’t want to go to Europe?”
He started firing. “Then we’ll go to Russia,” he shouted over the noise of his nail gun going off. “Or China. Or Africa. Whatever the fuck. I don’t care.” He finished the nails and then started lining up another tile. “Get out of here. You’re distracting.”
I figured I’d pushed his buttons enough, and he did have a loaded gun. I backed away and claimed Axel’s nail gun that he’d left behind. His was yellow, and older, but it had pretty much the same design. I started lining up the tiles and nailing them in.
