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“Come on, we still have work to do,” Ed says, throwing open the driver’s door.
“I thought I was driving,” Ollie says.
“You drive like a pussy, and we still have two more locations to make.”
We left sometime in the afternoon, driving down to Wishing to sell off all the wood we collected in the last week. I make sure to keep my brothers in check and keep things sustainable around here. My brothers aren’t exactly too happy about that.
We mostly deal in lumber for the neighboring towns. We’ve cleared off an area in the nearby forest where our business comes from, mostly. But instead of doing it year-round, we target specific quarters to allow time for the lumber to grow, thus making our business more sustainable. This also means we aren’t exactly drowning in money, but the profit we make during the spring and summer lets us live comfortably for the rest of the year.
I’ve never lived anywhere but Wishing in my entire life. We make a few trips down to New York for meetings with the right investors or companies, but that’s it.
That’s the thing all three of us have in common. We hate the city. That’s why we made ourselves a home up in the mountains, where we can sustain ourselves. And when we aren’t dealing lumber, we sell the chopped wood from up the mountain to the Wishing folks.
“Who’s next?” Ed asks as he maneuvers the truck around the winding lanes of Wishing. Even though we don’t live in the main town, most people are friendly with us. There are more people than usual milling around, which is normal before the holiday season starts. There’s also a great skiing location a few miles ahead, opposite the mountain we live on.
Ollie checks the list. “Arthur’s girlfriend.”
“Stop it,” I say, rolling my eyes.
Ronnie flags us down in front of her shop. I flash her a grin. Ronnie is my favorite customer. She’s sixty-five years old, but she walks around like she isn’t a day more than thirty.
“You boys got any wood for me today?” she says with a smirk, quirking her brows. She obviously means it as an innuendo.
“Of course we do,” I say. “How could we forget our favorite customer?”
As I get off the truck, she comes around to press a kiss to my cheek and rubs my arm. Next to me, Ollie coughs innocuously.
We drop off wood on Ronnie’s porch three times a week. I often wonder what she does with all of it, but it’s not my place to question her.
Once we’re done, she waves us off.
“I wonder what it’s like to sleep with someone that old,” Ollie remarks.
I look at him sideways. “Don’t tell me you’re actually considering it.”
Ollie just laughs. I won’t be surprised if he does. He has a tendency to fuck anything that moves.
It takes us a little longer than we anticipated to finish our rounds and make our way back home.
“A storm’s coming,” Ed says.
“Oh, come on, the sky is clear. There’s only a little chill,” Ollie says from where he’s lounging in the back seat.
I crane my neck out the window, feeling the biting cold of the winter chill on my face till I’m numb, till I don’t feel anything. The sky is cloudy, and the moon peeks out once in a while.
“I don’t know about that. Ed’s always right about his predictions,” I say.
“I had to cancel a date with Denise. Do you know what that girl does to your balls when she’s riding you?” Ollie says.
“I don’t even want to know,” Ed says.
“It barely snowed last week. There’s a little sleet, but that’s November in Wishing,” Ollie continues.
“Mark my words,” Ed says, his eyes focused on the road ahead.
“He’s always creepily accurate,” I say, turning to Ollie. He’s back on his phone, typing away furiously. His beefy frame barely fits in the back.
I hum a song under my breath, settling into my seat. My thoughts drift to the blonde at the gas station. I wish I’d caught a closer look at her, or even gone up to talk to her. She didn’t look like she was from around Wishing.
