Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 55395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
It's now Monday night back in Whispering Oaks, and my day started at six o’clock this morning with going over contracts, plans, and bids. By noon, I was over it. The coffee I had earlier in the day long since lost its effect. My eyes were done with looking at paperwork of any kind. I grabbed my phone, which I continued to leave on silent, though now it was turned on, but I’d yet to go through all the notifications that have piled up.
Instead, I went around to the job sites, looked at what needed to be done, and got to work. The need to get my hands dirty, to get my mind in the right frame to be any kind of company, was exactly what I needed and what I was after. A new job we’d picked up needed heavy demolition. The crew started earlier in the day, and when I showed up, I went to work right beside them.
We worked until the sun went down. I was tempted to set up a few lights and keep at it. Except I’d be useless tomorrow, muscles sore, joints aching, and too tired to get out of bed. The closer I get to forty, the longer it takes to recover. So, the crew and I packed our tools into our respective work trucks. I learned a long time ago that while having a storage shed on site to keep everything handy, it comes at a price, one I’m not paying again. We’d locked everything up using heavy duty locks and all, yet still, the thieves used a grinder and cut through the metal on the backside where no one could see if they drove by. That shit was a nightmare, one I’ll never repeat. I also never recovered the tools that were stolen or the money it took to replace them all.
“Figured I’d find you here.” I’m sitting in a booth at Twisted Oak, a bar in Whispering Oaks, with a bottle of beer in front of me, realizing the things I used to do aren’t fulfilling me anymore. I’ve already quit playing footloose and fancy free, as my grandmother would call it. In other terms, quit being an idiot, find a woman to settle down with, and stop looking good for right nows, and stumble upon a forever kind of good. The dissatisfaction caught up with me. The next morning, I’d wake up with nothing but regrets and a feeling of emptiness.
No one knows that while I joke about being the playboy of the group and never wanting to settle down, those times have come and gone. It’s been me and rosy palmer for so long I can’t even remember.
What’s fucking next?
The adrenaline rush I need to quit making my heart pound. After this past weekend, that very well might come true.
“The cavalry send you?” I ask Luke as he slides into the seat in front of me.
“Nah, figured I’d find you here when you didn’t respond to my text outside of the group chat. You good?” The doctor isn’t in his usual scrubs and white coat, which means he did the same thing I did. After work, I went home, stripped out of my work clothes, tossed them in the laundry room, and headed straight for the shower. Twenty minutes later, I’d washed the dirt and sweat off my body, walked out of the bathroom and through the house. I didn’t bother with wrapping a towel around my waist or putting on clothes. There wasn’t any point when I’m the only one who lives there, and Jude’s fancy alarm system he installed alerts me when someone pulls down the drive. I moved through the house, heading for the back patio, needing the outside noise to help drown out the too quiet house.
It took me two minutes to realize staying in for the night would be out of the question, and now here I am.
“Yeah, I’m good, brother. You?” Luke quirks an eyebrow in question to my response.
“Never better. You want to talk about anything in particular?” I nod my head to the waitress when she signals to ask if I need another. I respond with two fingers, knowing Luke has the same taste as I do in beer.
“Not necessarily.” It’s the cold fucking truth, too.
“Alright. You at least have a good trip?” Luke brings up another subject that has me ready to call it a night. Except I won’t. I’m not that much of an asshole to leave him when he only got here and it’s clear he only stopped after seeing my truck in the front parking lot.
“Wasn’t bad. Went by too fast, like most weekends do. You know how that goes.” Five days of work and two days of downtime is never enough, not for anyone, if you ask me. I’d prefer to work Monday through Thursday, from sunup to sundown, but nobody else does in the business world.