Two Months Later
The box markedKITCHEN UTENSILS is full of ammunition.
I set two bricks of nine-millimeter ammunition on the counter and keep digging. More bullets. A bore brush. One spatula, thrown in for plausibility.
“Tanner.”
He comes through the front door with a nightstand under one arm, shirt soaked down his spine from his fifth trip into the hundred-and-four-degree morning. “Yeah?”
I turn the box so the label faces him. “This says kitchen utensils.”
“It came out of the kitchen.”
“You mean the clubhouse kitchen?” I ask.
“Yeah. But it was my drawer in the clubhouse kitchen.” He crosses to the counter and picks up the ammunition bricks before setting them back down in a neat row. “Drawer under the coffee filters. Nobody looks under coffee filters.”
“I look under coffee filters. I drink coffee.” I dig the spatula out and hold it up between us. “Is this the club’s?”
He takes it, turns it over once, and hands it back. “It was in my drawer. It’s ours now.”
I point it at the ammunition. “We’re getting a safe.”
“Ordered one Tuesday.” He’s already moving for the door to grab the next load.
The Cholla Road house has been ours for eight days. The prospects painted and cleaned it before we got the keys, and when I tried to pay them, all of the guys refused.
So, I fed the guys casseroles instead. I’ve won them over.
Everything inside is new. I came from my parents’ house with one suitcase, and Viper lived at the clubhouse his whole adult life, so between the two of us, we didn’t own much.
My mother dropped off a housewarming box with cleaning supplies, pots and pans, spices, and some groceries.
Exactly one piece of furniture is assembled and in place: the bed. Viper built it the night we got the keys. Before the couch. Before the kitchen table.
A man with priorities.
This is a fresh start for both of us. He even put my name on the deed. I found out at the signing, with the pen already in my hand.
“Equal,” was all he said when I looked up. One word.
By early afternoon, he has emptied the truck alone, because he won’t let me carry anything bigger than a lamp.
I make him a turkey sandwich. I fill a glass from the door of our refrigerator, set both on the counter, and point at a stool.
“Sit.”
He sits.
“Drink the whole glass,” I say. “It’s a million degrees out there today, and you’ve been hauling furniture since seven. Fluids, protein, twenty minutes off your feet. Those are the rules.”
“Whose rules?”
“Mine. This is my house.” I wink.
“Half yours.”
“The kitchen half.”
