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“You just handed them to me.”
“I know. And I hate myself for it. Come on. You’re not going to be late on your first day back. You’ve already missed enough time as it is, and I will not hesit
ate to fire your ass.” He was about to turn around, but he stopped. His brow furrowed and he frowned. Then, gruffly, “I know you think that it didn’t work with Kelly because of you. But that’s not it. Or at least that’s not all of it. If he’s anything like me, he would rather have you here as you are than not at all. No matter what happens, no matter how long it takes, don’t ever think you won’t get to where you need to be. And we’ll be right there, every step of the way. Okay?”
I nodded dumbly.
“Okay. Now enough of the feelings shit. I already get too much of that with Mark. Move your ass. Don’t make me tell you again.”
Gordo’s had been fixed back up, the pictures reframed and hung back on the wall. Some still had obvious tears in them, but tape held them together. Someone had patched and repainted the wall.
My missing poster was gone.
The sun was barely over the horizon as Gordo sat me down at the front desk, pushing me down on the chair. Music poured in through the door that led to the garage. Chris and Tanner were laughing.
“This is yours,” Gordo said.
The desk was sticky, and the computer looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in months. A phone with multiple lines sat next to it, the handset smudged with something black. “Gee. All of this? You really shouldn’t have.”
He smacked the back of my head. “Less talking, more listening.”
I grimaced as I poked the mouse. It was crusty. “Do you guys ever clean here?”
He almost looked embarrassed. “We didn’t—shut up. It was easier when you were here. You kept things clean.” Then he grinned. “You made a good office wife.”
“Oh, fuck you, Gordo.”
“You answer the phones. You schedule appointments. You do intake when people bring in their cars.”
“I don’t even know the programs you use on the computer,” I pointed out.
“You wrote most them. You’ll figure it out.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. You get a break for lunch, and you can take a smoke break or two if you need it—”
“I smoked?” I asked, incredulous.
He snorted. “You tried once. Then you bitched for a week after that the smell wouldn’t go away.” He scratched the back of his neck. “None of us smoke, not anymore, though I would probably kill half of you for a cigarette, Mark be damned. But it’s the same principle. Smoke break is just a break. Any questions about office stuff, don’t ask me. I don’t understand half this shit.” He paused. “I may need you to look at my computer in the office. It’s beeping. At me. And runs really slow.”
“How did you guys ever survive without me?” I asked.
He was quiet for a moment as I turned the computer on. “I don’t know. Whatever it was, kid, it wasn’t survival. It was a holding pattern. Stasis. And it wasn’t good.”
I turned to look back at him, but he was already pushing his way through the door. He called out over his shoulder, “And there’s a damn Keurig machine that you won’t even remember asking for. You said it would make the place look more professional. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, but it’s there anyway.”
Everything was a mess.
I spent ten minutes wiping down the desk and keyboard with an ancient bottle of cleaner I found in one of the drawers. The Keurig sat on a card table next to a water cooler. An assortment of K-cups sat in an old wicker basket on the table. I sighed as I stared down at it. It didn’t look professional at all.
Before I could do anything about it, the front door opened.
Rico walked in, followed by Ox.
“—and it sucks, alfa, and I know that I’m part of it, but I don’t know how to let it go,” Rico was saying. “I don’t know how to fix… this.”
He stopped when he saw me standing next to the desk.
