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-Maddox-
“Whatareweevendoing here?” I asked Xavi as he led me through the vendors at the flea market. “I don’t have any money.”
“Would you shut up?” he complained again. “I’m not making you buy shit. I just want you to meet someone.”
“This chick you and Nate are both dating?” I asked, hopeful.
“Hardly,” he scoffed. “That’s cooled off a bit anyway.”
“Why?” Better not have been because of me.
“If you shut up, I’ll buy you lunch.”
I didn’t know how he’d afford lunch, but I shut up. He and Nate had been working a lot in the five days since I got out, so maybe things would get better soon.
Devon hadn’t gone back to work yet. That idiot was obsessed with spending every second of the day with me. I mean, I wasn’t complaining, but we needed some damn money to get to whatever came next. It’d be hard to spend days without him come Monday when he went back, but it was for the best. Finding myself a job would be priority number one, and no matter how nervous I was about the prison stigma attached to a job application, I had to do it. Who the fuck wanted to hire a guy straight out of prison? It’s not like I could hide it. This was Garron. Everyone knew everyone’s business. I hadn’t been convicted of anything, and the charges had been dropped, but still. Prison attached itself to a guy’s reputation, and I had to get used to that.
We talked a bit about where we were going to live. For now, we’d stay at my mom’s, but it wouldn’t work long term. Lot 62 was being cleared and cleaned after being contained for so long, and then we’d be allowed back. After everything that had happened there, I didn’t know how I felt about moving in again. We needed somewhere new, somewhere we could start over without that black cloud hanging over our heads. Every time I looked at that place, I saw the panicked look in Devon’s eyes when I was shoved into the back of the cruiser. It scarred me.
My dad, being a completely new kind of opportunist since he got clean and sober, had been hired to be the new park manager. Gary got the boot, and my dad didn’t hesitate to step in and apply. He’d be starting in a few weeks, and he was pretty sure a trailer home came with the job. He’d been feeding us information about which lots would be coming available, but I hadn’t put much thought into it.
What if I didn’t want to live in Garron Park anymore? Could we actually get out? Could we afford somewhere else?
I followed Xavi through the rows, barely glancing at any of the knick-knacks. It was a farmers’ market, so there were tons of produce booths and people selling shit like honey and syrup, but there were crafters and antique peddlers, too. It all looked nice, but it all cost cash.
“Didn’t know you were into this shit, Xav.” I tried to figure out where he was leading me.
“I just know a guy who has a booth here,” Xavi said. “Told him I’d come check it out sometime.”
And he picked today of all days?
He read my mind. “Figured your unemployed ass would have nothing better to do.”
I’d be doing Devon if Xavi hadn’t dragged me out of bed at seven on a Saturday morning.
Xavi led me to a corner booth with a random assortment of shit. Real nice looking fruits and vegetables, canned goods, and some flowers filled one side, and the other side had old things and horse stuff. Trinkets spilled out from everywhere. What looked like homemade woodworking projects lined the top, and painted birdhouses and signs hung from the awning.
Xavi said he’d be right back, so I fumbled through some of this guy’s shit to kill time. I sorted through stacks of baseball cards, little toy cars, and unpolished old jewellery, trying to decide where I wanted Xavi to take me for lunch. Good food hadn’t ever been a part of my life, but the shit I ate in the past five days felt like fine dining compared to what I’d eaten for four months. Even my mom’s casserole.
I opened random drawers of decorative wooden boxes, wondering what Devon and Nate were up to. Maybe they’d meet us for lunch. Strings of fake pearls filled most of the drawers, but I kept opening them anyway, addicted to the hide-and-seek game. I sifted through plastic pearls until I found something that really piqued my interest.
“Madd!” Xavi shouted, walking up to me. He motioned to the guy behind the table, the owner of all this shit. “This is Pete, a customer of mine. Pete, this is my brother Maddox.”
I wiped my hand on my shirt and shook his. “Nice to meet ya.” I had no idea why I was meeting him, but he looked like a decent old prick. That prickly sort of gruff old man that took no shit but was honest about it. Probably what I’d be like if I lived that long.
He gripped my hand and shook it, skipping the pleasantries. “Heard you might be lookin’ for work,” he said instead.
“What?” My jaw dropped. I looked at Xavi, who just shrugged with a smirk on his face.
“You want a job or not?” Pete cut straight to the point.
“Here?” I asked. I mean, I’d take it, but I needed more than just Saturday mornings.
“I got a farm outside Garron. Just so happens I need a farmhand. Yeah?” Pete pursed his lips together, not one for smiling.
I looked between him and Xavi, trying not to get my hopes up too high. No fucking way this was happening. I had expected to struggle in the work department for months, staring at those little check boxes that asked if I’d ever been charged with a felony. I was Maddox Kane; I didn’t get this lucky.
“I’ve, uh, got a record.” Better to get it out there. This charge might be getting erased from my permanent record, but I still had one, and I still spent four months inside.
