“Oh, I don’t know, why didn’tIthink of calling the house,repeatedly, and attempting to get in touch with the person I needed to speak to instead of calling you first and wasting both our time.” I don’t generally lower myself to sarcasm, but in this case I think I can be forgiven. “Of course I tried calling the house, but he wasn’t there. I assumed he was at the garage with you.”
“Heh, you know what they say about assuming, old man? Makes an Ass out of you and me.” Xan chuckles. ”Wait, did you say he isn’t at the house?”
I hear the garage bell jingle over the phone line, “Xan, man, we are backed up out here, get off the phone and come get bay one cleared so I can bring in the next one.”
There is a soft click as Xan sets the phone down, but I can hear Gabe’s raised voice in the background. “What do you meanhe isn’t at home? Where the fuck is my cell? Yeah, pull up the PackTrack app…Fuck me…where the hell is that?”
The phone clatters again as it’s lifted off the counter.
“Hey old man, change of plans. Wrap it up now, looks like Jacks went into the city and is at the Plaza Mall. We’ll swing by and grab you on the way over.” The phone disconnects and I stare dumbly at it for a moment before pulling up a map. Yes, just what I wanted to do, drive an hour one way to go shopping.
Oh Joy…and I’mnotold.
Jacks
My ass is vibrating, well, more specifically my phone in my back pocket is vibrating. With as many times as it has gone off in the last twenty minutes, I am gonna take a stab and say they finally figured out I didn’t go home–took long enough.
After all, I did take Xan’s wallet, so at least I would have a license and his debit card. We don’t look alike, but cops rarely bother to check everything if they pull you over, right?
Shit, maybe I should answer the phone.
But no, I’m almost done. I went by the mall because it has that candle store that’ll make custom scents for you. It took longer than I wanted, but I finally got the right smell down for each of us. Xan’s was the hardest to get right, that perfect smokey bourbon with petrichor. Too much one way or the other and you get either fishy swamp or smores, but I love his smell…so I got an extra one done for me. And of course some chocolate mint for the house. I need to be able to smell her, at least until she moves in.
Now I am at Nest-N-Stuff, and honestly, the choices are a little overwhelming. I got a pretty good feel for what she likes when I was marking all of her stuff, but nothing here feels quite the same. Newer fabrics of course, none of them well loved and broken in with repeat washing. But the colors.
Holy shit, so many colors, it’s like a rainbow threw up in here.
Her nest has several variations of blue, gray, and purple, so I am going to get some of those…then maybe add in a dark green.
Personally, I would do orange and tangerine everything–maybe I can find some highlights in that, a splash of sunshine for my Little Lion. They have a whole area dedicated to framed prints, so once I get this pillow section figured out, I will go over there.
I wonder if they deliver.
I wonder how soon they can deliver.
Ishould have brought thetruck.
Ugh…FINE!
I pull my phone out, and yeah, 25 missed calls and 18 text messages. But fuck it. I ring Xan back, not bothering to read the messages. I hear the rumble of the truck in the background, and Gabe yelling at me over Xan’s relieved sigh.
“Man, I was really worried there, what the fuck are you doing? And why the fuck have you not been answering your phone?”
Ignoring his question, I have my own reasons for calling. “Hey, where are you guys? I’m gonna need a little help here.” Silence meets the other end of the line. I only know they haven’t hung up because I can still hear the rumble of the truck as it moves down the road.
“Motherfuck, if youthinkfor one fucking sec-” Gabe cuts off as Leo takes the phone, and the background noise fades. Leo is often the levelheaded voice of reason, mostly.
“Alright, let's start over. Jacks, where are you, and what do you need help with? We just passed Mile marker 105 heading south, just past that big glass factory, so we should arrive soon…unless someone kills us all in a fiery wreck, or we get arrested for speeding. I am not discounting either of those possibilities at the moment.”
Wait, how did they know?
Tracking app.
Fuck.
It’s ok, play it cool.
“Well, I am at the big nesting store in Springfield. You know the one, or you can look it up. I may be buying more pillowsthan I can squeeze into the Jeep, and I still need to look at blankets. Do you think we should paint the walls in the nest, like, before she moves in, or wait and let her pick it out? I want it to be a surprise, but I also don’t want her to feel like she doesn't have a choice. Her nest walls were a medium gray, but so was the rest of her house, so I don’t know if it was an aesthetic choice, or if she just never got around to doing it?”
