Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
* * *
“Can you, like, add an inch to a piece of wood?” Rye mumbled, internally cursing the second it was out of his mouth.
Charlie didn’t laugh, though the twinkle in his eye betrayed his amusement. Rye glared.
Very slowly and very gently, Charlie said, “It would really help me answer your question if you would tell me what you’re trying to do.” Then he added, “I mean that in a totally professional, nonbossy, nonheroic way.”
Rye snorted. He hated not knowing what he was doing. Even more, he hated not being able to fake that he knew what he was doing—after all, acting like you had your shit figured out was ninety percent of survival. But clearly this Charlie dude knew his shit, and Rye had to acknowledge that could be useful.
“Fine. I need to prop up the ceiling of the house and my boards are all the wrong length.” At the first sign that Charlie was going to say that he had not cut the boards the wrong length, Rye specified, “I mean, the house is the wrong height. Different heights. All different fucking heights. It’s, like, droopy.”
Charlie’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you not doing demo inside first?”
Demo. Demolition. Right.
“Uh. Well. I’m just seeing if I can... What would that look like, exactly?”
“With a structure like yours—and I’ve only seen the outside; it’d help to see inside—usually you’d want to demo the old interior to check that the foundation and load-bearing posts are sound, and see about the roof. If the floor is sagging, that might mean it just needs to be replaced, or it could mean the foundation is buckling, from age or from water or from termite damage. If there’s any drywall in there you’d want to rip that out so you can reframe the walls square. Really, you’d want to take it down to the studs and give yourself a clean canvas. That would allow you to check the wiring, the plumbing, the heat.”
Each word Charlie said gathered in a haze around him—thick and oily green-black, it cracked over his head like an egg and slid down his neck and into his eyes.
Rye shook his head, trying to dislodge the haze, to stuff it back down in the tiny place it lived in his gut. He fisted his hands so tight his knuckles cracked and looked around the hardware store like perhaps the magic tool that would enable him to succeed lay right out of reach.
What the hell had he done? He’d moved away from the only place and people he’d ever known. He had no job, no prospect of a job, and from Charlie’s words it was clear that what little cash he had was nowhere near enough to fix up this damn house. If he was lucky he’d be able to sell it for the land. If he was lucky he could at least camp there through the summer. If he was lucky...
But Rye didn’t believe in luck. Luck was just what happened when you were privileged and didn’t know it. Inheriting this godforsaken house was the quote unquote luckiest thing that’d ever happened to him, and look how that was turning out.
“Fuck,” Rye breathed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
He needed to get to a place where he could be alone and think this through. And by think this through, he meant get to a place where an entire hardware store wouldn’t see him lose his shit in public.
Chapter Four
Charlie
Charlie had just been trying to get Rye to see that he needed help—help Charlie was happy to provide. But the look on the beautiful man’s face when Charlie outlined even the basics of demoing the house...it betrayed an emotion Charlie recognized with his whole being: despair.
And if Charlie could intercede so that Rye didn’t have to feel it, then he’d do anything he could.
“Marie, I’m gonna go...”
She just raised an eyebrow and nodded knowingly after Rye, her expression half sympathy and half amusement—both, he was fairly sure, for him. And, fine, the person who’d first told him he had a hero complex? It was her.
When Charlie got to Rye’s house, his car wasn’t there, so Charlie figured Rye’d gone back to his hotel to rage or panic or whatever his version of despair was.
He knew it was an invasion of Rye’s privacy, but curiosity about the scope of the project drove him to approach the house and try the door. It opened easily. With a quick glance at the road to make sure Rye wasn’t coming, Charlie went inside. Maybe if he saw what the project entailed, he could subtly point Rye in the right direction when it came to tools and materials.
Unsurprisingly, the house was cold and smelled of mold, damp, and disuse.
Charlie switched on the flashlight on his keychain to inspect the place before he ventured in. He was heavy and he didn’t want to fall through a weak spot in the floor.