“You might just want to crash here. I’ve got more beer and plenty of bad TV. Or the Rockies are probably on.”
I thought about going home and finding the boys wearing out the Xbox or having some of the other guys over to watch the same baseball game. I’d rather watch the game with Molly then a bunch of loud dudes. Crashing here might be fun.
I gestured to the remote. Molly smiled and flicked on the television. She settled in next to me and again I thought how nice it was to be relaxed around someone. Relaxation didn’t happen in prison, and friends after prison were hard to come by.
“Glad you moved from Boulder?” she asked.
“Denver, and yes.”
Her brow furrowed. “Natalie mentioned Boulder.”
“That’s where we worked together. After I got…uh, moved to Denver.” I was shocked at what almost jumped out of my mouth. I’d never actually said the words.
After I got out of prison.
Everyone who knew me before already knew. Only Natalie had stayed the same. My other friends dropped me. A few tried to keep up the pretense of politeness until I got the hint with all the unanswered phone calls and canceled plans. The few acquaintances I made at work would put in for other schedules when the dickhead line manager made a point of letting my ex-con status known. I hadn’t met anyone I wanted to tell or needed to tell since. Yet with Molly, I’d almost just blurted it out. I couldn’t chance that she’d react like Natalie. I didn’t know her that well yet, and I liked her too much to lose her friendship. I felt conflicted about keeping this from her but not conflicted about how good it felt to have someone give me the same consideration as she would anyone else.
“Never lived there,” Molly continued, oblivious to my internal debate. “I go in every once in a while. Only place to find more than ten lesbians.”
I laughed. According to her, I’d met pretty much all the lesbians in town, but Joanna and Brandy rounded up the tourists better than an escort service. I’d met more lesbians over the past five weeks than I had in my two years in Denver.
“How’d you connect up with Nat again?”
“She was dropping someone off at the airport, and we ran into each other.” Not at the airport, but Molly didn’t need to know the embarrassing truth. Natalie was picking something up at the building supply store, and I was loitering in the parking lot with twenty other desperate for work guys trying to make some extra cash on the weekends. Having her see me in that situation had been pretty mortifying, but she made it okay for me. Like she was making this restart on my life okay for me.
“Lucky.”
“For me, very.” Understatement of the year. She’d saved me from many impending hardships given my financial situation and employment outlook.
“I was just curious when I asked this before, but now I’m invested. You are planning to stay, right?”
A smile crept across my face. It was nice hearing she enjoyed our budding friendship as much as I did. “I’d like to. Affordable housing is going to be a problem. Nat pays more than my last job, but Aspen is more expensive than Denver.”
“One of my neighbors is thinking of moving out. The landlord would give you a good rate because you’re handy. She’d rather have a no hassle renter for less income than her other tenants who call her when a light bulb needs changing.”
“I won’t know until we finish the house and Nat picks up more work, but thanks. Let me know if the neighbor leaves.” I finished off the bottle of water, already starting to feel the buzz leave me. I could safely drive home, but I didn’t want to. I’d rather celebrate the normalcy of hanging with a good friend. Of all the things I missed in prison, this luxury was at the top of the list.
“Did you decide what to do about J&B?”
I snorted at the recurring topic. Sometimes I brought it up, and other times she did. One or the other of them called to try to make plans at least once a week. The game they’d started had become somewhat amusing, especially since I could make fun of their efforts with Molly. “Nope. They know how to pour on the pressure though.”
“Wait until they drop by your work for a tour. That’s when you know they’re really getting serious. They aren’t the least bit interested in design or construction work.”
I chuckled, glad I’d listened to Molly’s first warning. I couldn’t know just how involved they’d get in trying to one up each other if I slept with one or the other. “So,” I drew out because Molly was having a little too much fun at my predicament. “What are you doing about Tessa?”
She whipped her head around. Suspicious brown eyes bored into me. “What about Tessa?”
“C’mon, Molly, I’m an outsider. You can tell me.” She needed to tell someone. If she talked it out maybe she’d see how difficult her quest would be.
“Tell you what?”
Her earnest tone gave me pause. I didn’t want to force her to talk about it, but I wanted to let her know she could trust me. “You like her, right?”
“No. I mean, sure. We’re buddies and she’s going through a rough time.” She couldn’t keep my gaze.
“A rough time that includes crying over a chick who never loved her and being willing to take that chick back when another chick is pining for her.”
As convoluted as my observation was, she seemed to follow it. She held up a hand to wave me off. “No way, man.”
“Like I said, I’m an outsider. If you need someone to talk to, I’m your woman.”
She seemed to consider that for a moment. “I’m not hung up on her.”
“She’s single, she’s pretty, she’s your type.” I counted each point on my fingers.
“How do you know my type?” Her gaze came back to mine with that familiar playful smile on her lips.
“Tessa, Glory, J&B. You like the pretty ones but not the gorgeous ones like Vivian, or I assume that’s why you never made a play for her.”
Her head dipped back, eyes large and amused. “They’re the only ones in town.”
“There was Nat.”
“Nat’s hotter than pretty.”
“That’s for sure,” I agreed. “Which brings us back to Tessa and your unrequited longing.”
Her laugh was a sharp bark this time. “Zip it, sister.”
“All right, but I’m a good listener.”
She sighed and admitted, “Kathleen’s a bitch.”
“Is she a bitch for what she did to Tessa?” I gave her a second to ponder that before posing, “Or is she a bitch because she can get Tessa back in a second even being the bitch she is?”
Molly’s gaze pinned me in place. That one hit home. “Let’s talk about you. Ever have a thing with Natalie?”
I choked in surprise. “She was way too young when I knew her.” When I met her, I should say. We’d established our relationship as big sister and little sister. No way I’d screw that up even when she got all hot and stuff.
“Otherwise you would have been all for her?” Molly’s teasing tone resurfaced.
“I like the pretty ones, too.” Which was why I’d never gone for the toned, non-girly types like Molly. When pretty was around, all other types got lost in the background.
“And Nat’s not pretty?”
“She’s hot, alluring, magnetic.” Sexy androgynous rather than pretty.
“Sizzling and very attached.”
“Yep, and I’m really happy for her.” Envious, too.
“Me, too, for Viv.”
“So, we’re just two chicks happy for our close friends who are madly in love and looking for love ourselves?”
“In a tiny town with almost no singles around, yep.” She raised her coffee mug to mine to clink. After taking a swig, she settled back next to me.
I didn’t get nervous that we’d run out of things to talk about while the game was on. I didn’t get nervous that it would be awkward to get this couch ready to crash on tonight. I wasn’t even nervous about seeing her in the morning after taking advantage of her hospitality. We had that kind of camaraderie now, and it made me very happy.
No one should have as much fun in a Bobcat as Molly was having right now. As soon as Tyler stepped out of the rented mini-loader, Molly swung herself up into it. She’d been taunting Tyler for over an hour while he joined the rest of us planting, raking, and shoveling in the front and backyards. She got to relocate trees, unload materials, and push things around all while sitting down. Tyler looked dejected. I’ll admit to being a little envious, but honestly, she was helping Vivian out and we were getting paid. It was the least we could allow.
“Ty, stop whining, dude,” Luis scolded him. “Move some of that river rock over here.”
“Mol can do it.” He shot another longing look at the Bobcat as it whizzed by us.
“Use your shovel.” Miguel made the motion of digging into the pile of rocks.
“I shoulda called in sick today,” Tyler griped as he plowed into the pile and scooped out a shovelful for the wheelbarrow.
I kept my chuckle silent. Six weeks on the job and I hadn’t seen one person call in sick yet. I wondered if they knew how different they were from every other crew I’d ever worked with. They didn’t show up late without first calling Natalie, they didn’t leave early without first telling Natalie, and they didn’t just not show, ever.
“Be glad Nat is letting us do this in May instead of waiting until August,” Miguel said. “I’ll take 70’s and breezy over 90’s and blazing for landscaping any day.”
“Yeah, or we could be getting screamed at by Mini-Cal right about now,” Ramón told Tyler.
“Hell no, man. We barely escaped that nimrod.”
“Who’s this?” I asked.
“Our old boss’s son. Dude hadn’t ever picked up a drill, and he becomes project manager the second he clears high school.”
That would have sucked. I’d worked with some real assholes in Boulder, but at least they all had construction experience. “Must be great to be out of that mess, huh?”
“You know it, Fos,” Luis confirmed.
“Thought I’d miss the overtime, but I’d rather have the comp time to coach my kid’s soccer team,” Tyler said.
“No screaming fits,” Ramón inserted.
“The boss works the job with us instead of showing up for a half hour and yelling,” Miguel pointed out.
“No working outside in the middle of winter,” Luis said.
“A whole week off after every major job,” Cole spoke up.
“Paid!” Curtis joined in.
“Paid!” Ramón agreed.
“Oh, yeah, gotta love that consistent salary!” Luis bumped Cole’s fist.
Sure did. Even when I was making a lot more doing only electrical work, no scheduled job for the day or week meant no paycheck. Natalie annualized the salary and paid every two weeks whether we worked or not. The guys told me they’d had three paid weeks off in less than a year. She promised another as soon as we were done with this house.
“Guys, we’ve got one more shipment of materials coming in fifteen minutes,” Natalie said as she approached with an empty wheelbarrow.
“That means stop yakking and start shoveling,” Miguel interpreted.
“Samantha needs another set of hands in the backyard.” She switched to the other wheelbarrow we’d been filling with rocks.
“All me,” Luis jumped forward before anyone else could ditch the shovel duty.
Ramón slapped Cole’s shoulder as they both watched him dart around the house to the backyard. “He should just ask her out. He’s making a dweeb of himself flitting around her like this.”