I cried, long and hard, for how my entire life had fallen apart in the space of a single day.
Crying is supposed to be cathartic, but I didn’t feel much better when the tears finally ran dry and I pulled my hands away. I felt emptied, depleted, but no better for it. I still wanted to go crawl into my bed, pull the covers over my head and never come out – but I couldn’t even do that, since my bed, and its sheets, were nothing but ashes.
Instead, I dug my phone out of my purse. “At least you still have your phone, didn’t lose that in the fire!” chirped the positive little voice inside my head. I wished that I could stab that particular part of my brain with an icepick.
I found my best friend’s phone number, dialed, prayed that she’d pick up.
“Hey, Ellie, is this really important?” Lisa said as soon as she picked up, after the seventh ring. “I’m just getting into the car to pick up Shay from tennis practice, and she has to make it to her violin lesson-“
“Lisa,” I said, and my voice cracked and broke at the end of her name.
She heard that, instantly changed her tone. “Oh shit. What happened, Ellie?”
“My house. My job.” I stopped, unable to even admit out loud that they were both gone. “Lisa, I need...” I trailed off. I didn’t even know what I needed.
“Just take a breath,” she instructed. “You’re panicking. I remember this from my Lamaze classes. You need to focus on breathing, focusing just on this moment. Don’t worry – just get through this moment.”
I tried taking a couple of deep breaths. It worked, slightly, as long as I didn’t think at all about the past or the future. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Now, what do you need most?”
To wake back up again this morning, get to redo this entire, horrible day from the start. “Uh, someplace to sleep. And some clothes.”
“You want to come over here? We could pull out the couch for you.”
“No, that’s okay.” I didn’t want to impose, even though I really needed to just lie down somewhere. “I’ll get a motel room. I can make do. If I can figure things out, it should just be a couple of days.”
“If you’re sure,” Lisa said, a little uncertain. “At least, let’s find a time to talk again – in person. Got plans for this Saturday?”
I laughed bitterly. “I don’t have any plans for the future at all, right now.”
“I’m sure that won’t last long. This Saturday, ten AM, farmer’s market in downtown. I’ll see you there, okay?”
“Okay.” I swallowed, wishing that Lisa was there so I could throw my arms around her, cling to her as my rock in the churning seas.
“Great. See you then! Oh crap, and now I’m late to pick up Shay from her violin lessons. Look, talk to you soon!”
I lowered the phone after she’d hung up. With tracking all the activities of her five-year-old, Lisa always seemed to have a million things on her plate – just like I’d felt, before I lost my job and my home.
I looked down at the Integrated Technologies mug in my hands. A sudden surge of anger made me lift it, about to dash it to pieces against the concrete slab of my home’s foundation – but something stayed my hand.
Maybe it was just that this was all I had, the only possession left to me besides the contents of my car and purse.
Whatever the reason, I brought the mug back with me to my car. After brushing off the worst of the mud from my knees and legs, I climbed back behind the wheel, pulling a three-point turn to head away from the still-smoking wreckage of my life, burned to the ground. There were a couple of cheap motels on the outskirts of town. I still had more than enough in my checking account to cover a week at one of them.
Once there, maybe I could begin to figure out how to start putting my life back together.
Chapter Four
Rick
* * *
I woke up in an unfamiliar bed and felt paralyzed for a second from existential panic as I stared up at a foreign ceiling.
It wasn’t until I sat halfway up and felt a slight movement beside me, turned to look down at a pile of loose blonde hair, that some memories of the previous night came rushing back. Oh yeah. There’d been booze, and dancing, and some dares, and more drinking, and flirting, and even more drinking...
I lifted the corner of the sheet, peeked underneath it, grinned. Yep, things definitely turned out well, even if I couldn’t quite remember all the particular components of the evening that led up to me waking up in a stranger’s bed. I didn’t know this girl’s name, but she was naked, and I was naked, and that probably meant that good times had occurred between us the night before in her bed.
I sat up the rest of the way, and immediately regretted it as my head spun woozily on my shoulders. Lots of drinking. I raised one hand to my temple, pressing in and wincing at the pain of a dozen red-hot ball bearings ricocheting around inside my cranium. Too much drinking, maybe. I was getting kind of old for this.
Once the ball bearings stopped rolling around, I slowly lifted one leg, then the other, pivoting them and swinging them out of the warmth beneath the sheets. Moving with excruciating slowness, I lifted my body out of the depression it had made in the saggy mattress springs.
Yes, I was up! Now, to find my clothes. I located them one by one, scattered around the bedroom, and also began to get a sense of this woman. I clearly had a few years on her, I reflected as I looked down at an untidy pile of college textbooks. Her dresser was covered in makeup and bottles of perfume, and a stack of fashion and popular women’s magazines stood next to her side of the bed. I carefully lifted my boxers off a rather creepy stuffed teddy bear, its button eyes judging me.
“Knock it off,” I muttered to the bear. I pulled on my boxers, then added the rest of my clothes. I even still had my phone in my pocket! Fishing it out, I saw that it had a quarter of a charge. Great. Now, I just had to slip out of here undetected, and then I could-
“Oh, hey.”
I froze at the sleepy greeting. Dammit. I hadn’t meant to wake her.
“Hey there,” I said, pasting a smile across my face and fighting off the urge to wince as I turned to look back at the girl, now blinking sleep from her eyes. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“That’s okay.” Crap, she was sounding more awake by the moment. She sat up, smiled at me, showing none of the hangover’s pain that burned inside my own skull. “Last night was fun, wasn’t it?”
“Fun, yeah,” I agreed. I cast a glance towards her bedroom door. Escape, just a few feet away. “But I’d better get going...”
“You’ll call me, won’t you?”
Dammit. I hated that question. I looked back at her, felt my libido war with my common sense as the sheet slipped a little lower to reveal more of her chest. She had a great chest, perky with two little points aimed right at me, targeting the sucker. “Look, maybe we shouldn’t make more of this,” I began.
She was up and moving, hopping out of bed, parading unashamedly across her bedroom to drape her arms around me. Normally, I’d be thrilled to have a naked woman like her hanging off me – but my hangover overrode any lecherous thoughts, and I winced at just the idea of energetic sex. Right now, I’d much rather be back at my home, pressing a bag of frozen peas against my forehead while I laid back on my couch and didn’t make any sudden movements...
“You could always come back to bed,” she purred, stretching to her tiptoes, clearly angling for a kiss.
My dick hated me for doing it, but I broke free of her arms, stepped away. Dammit, I didn’t even remember her name. “I would love to,” I lied. “But I really do need to get going. I’ve got a meeting starting in... what time is it?”
She picked up her phone from her bedside table – which, I noticed, was made out of a cheap plastic crate. “Nine thirty.”
“Oh crap, I’m late!” I slapped my forehead in faux panic. “I’m so sorry, I’ve got to run!”
“But you’ll call, won’t you?” she called after me as I yanked her bedroom do
or open.
“Sure thing!” I shouted back, hating myself for it.
I stepped out, looked up and down the hallway in confusion. What sort of house had long hallways like this, with doors that had stickers and nametags on them-
Oh, shit.
I was in a college dorm.
My head pounding and burning at me every step of the way, I stumbled out of the dormitory. I nearly screamed as the bright morning sun pierced straight through my eyelids and into my brain to reignite the simmering fires of my hangover, but I was out. I looked around the parking lot for-
A memory drifted hazily back to me from the previous night. Me, sitting on a public bus, the girl from upstairs perched on my lap and straddling me, her friends cheering as she bounced her ass up and down on top of my crotch.
I’d taken the bus. Damn, but last night must have been fun, if I could just remember any of it. More importantly, this meant that I didn’t have any way of getting back to my house.
Well, I did have one way... but it wouldn’t be enjoyable.
Still, any port in a storm. I fished out my phone, found the number I needed in my phone book. It wasn’t that hard to locate; it was one of the very few numbers that wasn’t female, and didn’t have any sort of emoji following it. How the hell did they even put emojis in their names?
I dialed the number, crossed my fingers that he’d be in a good mood as I lifted it to my ear and listened to the ringing.
It took six rings, but Niall answered. “Ugh, what now?” he grumbled.
Perhaps not the best start, but I gamely pressed on. “Hey Niall, buddy,” I said.
A loud sigh echoed through the phone, accompanied by the static crackling of feedback. “What do you need from me, Rick?”
“What makes you think that I need anything?”
“Because I know you, idiot,” he said matter-of-factly. “And you never call me before noon unless you’re stuck somewhere and need a favor.”
“Well, now that you mention it...”
“Yeah, there it is. What did you do now? No, wait, let me guess,” he kept going before I could get a word in. “You were out at some shitty college dive bar last night, hanging out with girls way too young for you, and you somehow managed to convince one of them, probably the drunkest one, to take you home. And now, after lying to her to make your escape, you’re realizing that you don’t have any way of getting your sorry ass back home.”
“That’s not how I’d put things at all,” I said, after a second of stunned silence at the accuracy of his guess.
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“Because it makes me sound like the bad guy,” I said.
He laughed. “You’re not a bad guy, Rick. You’ve got no ambition or purpose, but you’re more like the lovable rogue. Which is probably why I’m leaving my tea half-finished in order to come pick up your sorry ass. Where are you at?”
I wandered a few steps down the street until I spotted the signs at the intersection. “Corner of Broadhurst and Pine. Know where that is?”
“I can find it in my phone. Give me fifteen.” Niall chuckled. “Maybe twenty, if the drive-through coffee line is slow.”
“How about you pick me up first, and then I’ll pay for the coffee?”
“You sure you’ve got enough left in your bank account for that level of generosity?” He laughed to take the sting out of the slight. “Seriously, just hang tight. Watch for my truck.”
“The one held together mostly by rust. I’ll keep my eyes peeled.” I hung up on Niall before he could volley back another insult, leaned against a wall and closed my eyes to temporarily block out some of the burning bright sunlight.
Carrie. Cassie? Callie? It had been some name that started with a C, I was fairly sure. She’d seemed nice enough, a pleasant little distraction for the night – although, despite my reluctant promise, I didn’t have any intention of calling her. Most likely, by the time the post-sex haze wore off, she’d realize that things were better this way.
Early in my barfly career, I’d made the mistake of actually following up and calling the women who took me home. More often than not, it led to a very awkward first date, after which we both gratefully agreed that it had been a mistake and that we’d do better to go our separate ways. Once or twice, I got the husband on the line instead of the wife. I’d definitely ruined a couple marriages before figuring out that it was better to just not call – although if the wife is out sleeping around, I don’t think I’m the one killing the marriage. And I never hit on anyone with a wedding ring.
For now, I didn’t have any complaints. I’d felt a little bad about sneaking out on C-girl this morning, but I’d rather be sneaking out of a woman’s bedroom than stuck at home instead of going out to have fun. I had a couple of friends who got married – had, past tense. I never saw them again, and whenever I asked them what adventures they’d had recently, they’d just go on and on about staying home, having a ‘night in with the wife.’
Sounded awful. Give me a night out on the town, any day.
When I next opened my eyes, the bright sunlight didn’t hurt quite so badly. If Niall was grabbing coffee, I’d do the same while waiting. I stopped in a nearby café, ordered a cup, and requested that they add a splash of whiskey to help me with a bit of the hair of the dog.
The waitress smirked. “Coming off a rough night?”
“A fun one,” I corrected. I smiled up at her, and I saw her reflexively smile back, sizing me up. She had a few more curves than C-girl, but she still looked about college age, a very pleasant handful.
I knew the effect that I had on women. At a few inches over six feet, with broad shoulders and a strong jawline that I inherited from my father, I made a striking first impression. I kept my sandy blond hair short for minimum maintenance, but it always seemed to pick up a mussy, slightly unkempt appearance, which one woman informed me “drove her crazy, made her want to run her fingers over every inch of my head.” A little weird, but I’m not going to argue against it.
The waitress’s blue eyes lingered on my own green ones. “We’re not supposed to serve liquor before six PM,” she said, her smile growing, “but you look like you really need it, so I’ll see if the cook can make an exception.”
“I greatly appreciate it,” I told her, and caught a hint of a blush blooming on her cheeks before she turned away.
I smiled, kept one eye out the window watching for Niall’s truck as I waited for the coffee. Yep, I still had it. Despite what he would undoubtedly tell me, preaching at me in his Irish brogue and trying to convince me to turn my life around, I didn’t need to make any adjustments.
Thankfully, I managed to find enough change in my pocket to cover the coffee cost – and it helped that the waitress left off any price adjustment for the generous splash of whiskey she’d added. She gave me back my copy of the receipt, and I was totally unsurprised to find her name – Maria, with a little heart over the I – and number written on the back.
Sending one last smile her way, knowing that I’d make her melt, I sauntered out of the little shop as Niall pulled around the corner in his rattling pickup.
Life was good, no matter what he had to say.
Chapter Five
Rick
* * *
“You really need to rethink your life, man,” Niall said, as soon as I opened the passenger side door of his rustbucket of a truck.
I held up a hand to forestall him. “Just let me down my coffee before you lay into me with the Third Degree, okay?”
He rolled his eyes, put the truck into gear. I felt the vehicle shudder in protest at the very idea of driving forward, but it rattled into motion. “You know that I’m only here picking you up out of the goodness of my heart, right?”
“Or is it because you can’t resist the chance to lecture me, Dad?” Coffee cup at my lips, I shot a look sidelong at Niall. His shock of bright orange-red ginger hair made him instantly recognizable in a crowd, and his temper often matched his locks. He’d flare
up unexpectedly over slights, but cooled off almost as soon as he finished announcing his protest. I’d learned over the years how to ride out his mercurial moods.
Niall sighed. “Let me guess, Rick. You think that your life is great, and you wouldn’t change a single thing about it. Right?”
“Got it in one, mate.” I settled back in the seat, double-checking that my seatbelt was locked in place. I knew better than to voice my lackluster opinion of Niall’s driving style, even without considering his preferred style of vehicle.
He wrenched the wheel hard to turn through an intersection, grunting a little as the tires skidded on the pavement. “Probably going to be time for an upgrade soon,” he said, more to himself than to me.
I seized the conversational thread, eager to get the heat off me. “You actually going to buy a truck from this century, this time?”
“Hey!” he protested. “You know how much I paid for this truck?”
“Four hundred bucks, bargained him down from seven hundred.” I’d heard this story plenty of times before.
“Four hundred dollars!” he repeated, not letting the issue go. “For a working vehicle! Just four hundred dollars! Considering my line of work, that’s a bargain that I can’t afford to pass up.” He pointed a finger across the central console at me. “And you should be paying more attention to your own finances, considering your situation.”
“You don’t know anything about my situation, Niall.”
That one earned me a flat look, eyebrows slightly raised in utter doubt. “Rick, you sell your wood carvings and sculptures at my store,” he pointed out. “I’m the one who cuts you checks for your sales at the end of each week. I probably have a better idea of your finances than you do.”
He was totally right, and I knew that I didn’t have a leg to stand on in this argument. “Fine,” I ceded the point. “But look, I’m doing okay! I make enough to cover food and taxes, and I’ve got my house all paid off. Why should I waste my time worrying about money, when I’m doing just fine?”
The Woodworker Page 3