by Andrew Grey
“It’s what a good manager does.” Trevor clapped Brent on the shoulder, and he left the office while Trevor made a call to his dad. He explained what was going on.
His dad listened to his plan before saying, “You’re doing the right thing. I’ll call the other guys and explain what we need to do.” Of course, that was after he swore up and down and threatened Alan with every kind of bodily harm possible for being a thief. “We’ll all do what we can.”
“Thanks, Dad. It will all be fine.” His dad would most likely offer him some of the money he had, but Trevor had no intention of taking it. If he went down, he had no intention of taking anyone else along with him. “I have some things to do, but I’ll talk to you later.” He ended the call and got his things together. He needed quiet to put a plan together, not the squeal of an air wrench and the constant chatter of the men as they worked.
Trevor got in his car, which he now wished he’d held off on buying. He loved the car, but it was just another source of worry, and therefore the joy he had from driving it was gone. Trevor intended to drive home, but called James instead. “I have some things to figure out and have the work with me. Do you want company?”
“God, yes.” James sounded excited, and Trevor continued south through town on the freeway. At James’s house, he parked and went inside.
James was on the sofa, foot resting on the arm, pillow under his head. “How did it go with the accountant?”
“Bad. Alan took quite a bit more than I thought, and now I don’t have enough cash to meet my obligations. I have savings that I’m going to have to put into the business.”
“What can I do to help?” James asked. “I know I can’t look at your books and stuff, but there has to be something.”
“I’m not sure. I’m going to have to spend time getting statements together so I can send them out to the people who owe me for work and haven’t paid yet. I hate doing things like that.” He set his paperwork on the table and sat on the edge of the sofa. “There are just things I have to do to try to generate cash for the business. I didn’t mean to bring my troubles and put them on you. That’s not fair.” This was his issue and he’d have to see it through somehow. “How’s your ankle feeling? Do you need ice for it?”
“It still hurts, but not as bad as it did. I’m doing what the doctor said for today. But mostly I’ve been lying here listening to a book and, God, I’m so bored, I could scream. The book is good, but I’m restless and jumpy.” James groaned and shifted so Trevor had more room. “You should get started. Take the entire table and figure out your plan.” He sat up and gave Trevor a kiss.
“I can go home if you want. It isn’t like I’m going to be good company.”
“Like I’m a barrel of laughs right now. Just do what you need to, and I’ll be right here.”
Grateful for the company, Trevor squeezed James’s hand. Then he stood, moved to the oak table, laid out his paperwork, and opened his laptop. It took him a while to set up the program to prepare the statements, but he got it done. Now all he needed to do was get them printed, stuffed, and sent. That seemed like such a daunting task, but hopefully checks would follow, which was what he needed. However, even by his calculations, he was still going to come up short. He could sell his house, but that was going to take time he didn’t have.
“Are you getting anywhere?” James asked.
“Yes and no. I have the statements ready to go out, and Dad sent a text that all the managers understand and will be careful about purchases.” He’d known they would. There were families relying on his business for their livelihood, and he wasn’t going to let them down.
James sat up and slowly hobbled over, sliding his hands along the side of the table until he located a chair. “How much do you need?”
“At this point, about thirty thousand dollars total. The businesses will continue to generate money on their own, but that’s what we believe is needed above what’s currently expected. So, additional business, being paid what we’re owed, cutting some expenses… all will get us a step in that direction, but it isn’t going to get us the whole way there.” He knew that. He was going to have to think of a place he could get the money. “I can get a good piece of the money by selling the Harley.”
“Trevor!” James said with shock ringing in his voice.
“It’s paid for and it’s worth a lot. I can get a good chunk of what I need, and it will hold off the wolves until I can get my legs under me again. I can’t do anything with the car because I bought it too recently. I have some other things I can probably sell, but they aren’t going to get me that kind of cash all at once.” His margin already running razor-thin, he had to hope there were zero unexpected expenses.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” James got up and limped through the house, returning with his scan-and-read machine. He placed it on the table, then turned to Trevor expectantly. “What can I do to help?”
Trevor really couldn’t think of anything. “I have a plan of sorts. I’m going to go down to the mailing center so I can print and send these out. Then I have to hope that people respond and settle their bills.” There were so many unknowns in this plan that he was thinking he should just use his credit cards to get them through and deal with the fallout over time.
“Where is the list of accounts?” James asked, holding out his hand. Trevor placed one of the pages in it, and James fed it into the machine. It read the page in a slow, mechanical voice. “Okay. You send out the bills, and once they go out, I’ll call them and remind them nicely that you need to be paid.”
“I don’t want to pressure people.”
James laughed, and even Trevor heard the ridiculousness in that statement. He liked to come across as a badass, but he really did care what people thought, even if he didn’t like to admit it, and he didn’t want to lose any of his customers.
“Just leave the list with me. I promise I’ll give it back and I’m not going to pressure anyone.”
Trevor reluctantly handed over the pages, and James ran his fingers over them before stacking them neatly. “How do you do that?”
“The printer is older and leaves a slight impression so I can feel which side is printed on. I can’t read it or anything, but that’s enough for me to stack the pages.” James set his neat pile at the corner of the table, patting the stack. “I’ll call in a few days.”
“I’m not sure what it’s going to do.” Trevor wasn’t sure of anything at the moment and hated feeling that way. He liked being in control of his life. He had what should be a successful business, and he’d done everything he could to make sure his life was reasonably ordered. Now everything was falling to hell.
James stood, running his hand back along the table until he found Trevor, then traveled up his arm to his shoulder and gently kneaded the muscles.
“You shouldn’t be standing….” The words trailed off into a moan as James’s fingers connected with a particularly tight area, and damn if it didn’t feel good.
“I’m going to be fine for a few minutes, and you need this. Your business is going to be fine because you’re capable and you’re driven.”
If he was so capable, how did Alan steal this much from him? He’d trusted his people, he still did… and that’s what hurt. He’d trained Alan and looked after him, and then he’d stabbed him in the back.
James stopped what he was doing and leaned over him, wrapping Trevor in his arms from behind. “I know you think you have to be strong all the time, but you can’t be. Sometimes you have to let the people who care about you help. That’s part of what being someone’s boyfriend means.”
“It’s hard to do.” Actually, it was damn near frightening.
“No.” James stepped back, and Trevor turned to look at him. James held out his hand. “All it takes is a little trust. You can’t go through life not allowing anyone close enough to you so you can learn to trust them. I know this thing with Alan only adds to that, but you can’t let it.”
“I keep thin
king that if I’d been looking closer… or if I’d have listened closer, I could have helped him.” Alan had been his friend, and the way he’d turned on him was like a knife to the gut. Trevor should have seen it coming long before he let Alan put his entire business and life at risk.
“But you couldn’t. He was stealing from you. What did you do, leave the money lying out with a sign that said Take My Shit? Of course not. He went behind your back and stole from the business that was providing for him and his family. That makes Alan a complete slime and a pile of dog crap. It doesn’t mean you should take that to heart. You aren’t to blame for what happened, and I’m sure you’ll put procedures into place to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“Yes. Ricky, my accountant, and I are already working on that.”
“Then trust but verify.” James slowly returned to his chair. “I know you don’t realize it, but remember when you took me home from the club that first night? That took trust.”
Trevor looked up from the papers he’d been reviewing and set them back on the table. “It did. I never thought about it, but you let me take you home that night and again at the country club—on a motorcycle, of all things.”
He watched James closely, realizing he’d been trusted almost since the first time they’d met. James lived his life trusting people. He let them guide him toward entrances, up strange walks, into buildings he didn’t know. Trust was an everyday part of James’s life. He was an expert at it, yet to Trevor it was something that, over time, had become something he doubted. Trevor needed to make a decision.
“Okay,” he said, then got up to take James’s hand.
“Good.” James slowly stood once again and hobbled to the sofa, where he lay back down and put his foot up.
“Do you need some ice?” Trevor asked.
“No. I’m okay. I just need to rest it.” He settled, and Trevor wondered what he could possibly have done to deserve someone like James. He was so relatively uncomplicated, trusting, caring, and—he couldn’t forget—hot, as he looked at James in a T-shirt that hugged him in all the right places.
Trevor pulled his attention away from James with great difficulty. He had to concentrate on what was necessary to do in order to get the money he needed, and if he watched James, his mind went to more carnal thoughts. Maybe coming here wasn’t such a great idea, because concentrating was becoming more and more difficult.
“What?” James asked from the sofa. “I can feel the tension rolling off you from here.”
“You’d be tense too if everything you built your entire life was falling apart in front of your eyes,” Trevor retorted, more harshly than he intended. He could try applying for a loan at the bank, but with the way they’d been lately, it wasn’t likely he’d get one.
“I know you see this as your own fault,” James said calmly. “But it isn’t, and you need to let that notion go. So tell me what you’ve come up with so far?”
“Well, if a good fraction of people pay me what they owe, and if I can cut purchases for a while, and if I can sell my bike, and business doesn’t go all to hell, and if I put nearly all the savings I have into the business, then maybe I’ll have enough to get me through the next two months and things will loosen up. I hope to God.” Trevor set aside what he’d been working on. He wasn’t going to get some divine inspiration from the charts and graphs that Ricky had given him. “I need to visit the shops on this side of town.” Trevor needed to get outside or he was going to start pacing and worrying like crazy.
James got his feet under him and stood. “Okay. Let’s go.”
“You want to go along with me?”
“Yeah. I want to see what your businesses look like. So to speak.” James flashed a smile.
“I’ll take you on a visit, I promise. But you need to stay off your feet for today. I’m going to pop in and look things over.” Trevor sighed at James’s frown. “I’ll come back in a few hours.” Trevor guided James back to the sofa. “Stay off your foot, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He needed to get out of here and have some time to himself right now. At the moment he had a lot in common with a kicked dog who needed some time to lick his wounds.
“Okay.” James clearly wasn’t happy, but he lay back down, and Trevor made sure he was settled and had his phone.
“I know you hate being stuck here, but let the sprain start to heal, and I’ll try to figure out something interesting that you and I can do together this weekend. Okay?” Something that wasn’t going to cost a bunch of money, because suddenly he didn’t have any.
“I want to be there for you. I know I can’t do what other boyfriends do, but I don’t want you to be alone.” James’s plaintive tone went right to Trevor’s heart. He could get used to being cared for like this.
“I’m not going to be gone that long, but I need to get his done.”
“But you’ll come back, right?”
Trevor nodded, and of course James couldn’t see him. “Yes.” That was the one bright spot in an otherwise terrible day. “That will give me something good to look forward to.”
TREVOR VISITED three of his garages, where rumors were flying like crazy. He reassured his men that this was temporary, that he had everything under control, and that they were all going to have a job. That was paramount to him—he needed to keep his teams together.
“You’ve been good to all of us,” John, the head mechanic at his Bay View location, said. “What can we do to help?”
“Watch what you spend and don’t buy what you don’t need. We’re going to have to be careful. I’m working on other areas of the business, and in the end, we’re going to come out of this whole and strong.” Trevor knew he was being a little bit of a cheerleader, but it was what he had to do at the moment. His guys needed to have confidence in him or they were going to leave and he would be in real trouble then. Trevor knew the number one assets in his business were the great people who worked for him. “I’m also going to ask that you talk up the business with your friends. Drum up business, because additional customers will help get us out of this as well.”
“You can count on us,” John said, and the other guys nodded before returning to work.
Trevor could only hope that tackling this head-on with the guys was the right thing to do.
“Thanks.” Trevor believed in treating people fairly, and he always hoped he’d be treated the same way in return. He’d doubted that after he’d found out about Alan’s theft, but these guys had wiped that away. Trevor needed them as much as they needed him.
He stayed until closing, working on a brake job with one of the newer guys. It felt good to get his hands dirty once again. At closing, he said good night to each of the men, got in his car, and drove back to James’s house.
James was still on the sofa with his phone resting on his chest. “How did it go?”
“Pretty well. The guys have heard some of what’s going on and they’re nervous. I hope I was able to reassure them.” He put his jacket on the back of the chair near the door and sat on the edge of the sofa. “I keep wondering what I’m going to do if I can’t get this together.”
“All you can do is keep trying. Can’t you ask for an extension if you need it?” James asked.
“Probably, but that’s only going to delay the issue and make the next quarter worse. The thing is, we have to get through this without killing our future.” Trevor wanted to wring Alan’s neck for what he’d done to him, but now all he could do was try to clean up the mess.
James sat up and hugged him, resting his head on Trevor’s shoulder. “It’s going to be all right.”
Trevor hoped that was true.
Chapter 8
JAMES MADE phone call after phone call for hours. He developed a process so he could call each person on the list without missing anyone and without bothering anyone more than once. Most people were polite, and James made sure he was kind and understanding. But had no idea if he was actually doing any good or not.
He sighed as he ended h
is final call. He was tired, even though he hadn’t actually done much. His ankle still ached, but it didn’t hurt as badly as it had. Still, he kept off his foot as much as possible.
He went into work on Friday, regardless of how his ankle felt, to spend some extra time with Lee. It had been difficult, but he’d made it through the day, and when he’d arrived home, he had expected to spend a quiet evening alone. Instead Marti had called and James had spent his evening having dinner with her and Zack, then reading Zack one of the books James had gotten him for his birthday. He loved the time with his nephew on his lap, resting his head on his uncle’s chest. Once he’d finished the story, Marti had put Zack to bed, and Zack had insisted on giving James a hug and a kiss on the cheek before lying down.
“He’s so amazing, Marti,” James told her once they were in the living room having tea. Tim had a work dinner that was keeping him late, so it was just the two of them.
“He asked me the other day if you were going to get a girlfriend, and I told him that you might have a boyfriend. He asked me if Uncle Jimmy’s boyfriend would see with his fingers the way you do. He didn’t ask if he’d be blind, but if he’d be able to see with his fingers. I really think he thinks you have eyes in your fingers.”
James chuckled. “I’m glad he’s not put off by me. I used to be afraid that he’d think I was weird or that he’d be afraid of me.”
“Nope. He adores you.” She sipped from her mug, and James did the same from his. They talked until Tim arrived, and he gave James a ride home.
“It looks like you have company,” Tim said as he pulled to a stop.
James thanked him for the ride and got out of the car. He heard Tim pull away, and James smelled Trevor before he said a word. “How long have you been waiting for me?”
“Not too long.” Trevor sounded different, his words mushy.
“Have you been drinking?” James asked.
“Yeah, celebrating, but not until I got here. I didn’t drink and drive.” Trevor wrapped James in his arms and kissed him, tasting slightly of beer. “People have been coming into the garages all day to pay off their bills. They’ve said that the nicest man called to remind them, and they said that it’s a shame that someone stole from us.”