“Twenty minutes,” he grumbled as they climbed into his truck. “It was going to take me twenty minutes, tops, and now half the day’s going to be gone.”
“How do you not have an ulcer? You should relax.”
If Ryan was an asshole, he’d point out Kowalski Custom Builders ran further into the black every year, while the Northern Star was barely treading water, and ask if maybe his brother thought there was a correlation to the whole “relax” thing. It would be a shitty thing to say, though, so he kept his mouth shut.
Besides, once Mitch had really dug into the books and laid it all out for them, Ryan didn’t see how Josh had kept the place going on his own for so long. It certainly hadn’t been by relaxing.
They swung by the barbershop first. Ryan’s original intention was to drop Josh off and go to the market alone, but he hadn’t seen a lot of Katie and the day was already half shot to hell anyway.
With the Red Sox knocked out of the post-season, Katie had transitioned to football. The Patriots logo on her ball cap matched the sweatshirt, and Ryan smiled when he saw her. She wasn’t a woman who wasted a lot of time shopping. A trip through a sporting goods store, a few pairs of jeans and she was good.
“Hey, kid,” Ryan said, giving her a quick hug. “How’s business?”
She waved her hand around the empty barbershop. “Gee, I’m not sure I can fit you two in.”
“I’m all set, actually. But the princess here says his hair’s tickling his ears.”
“When it starts getting long, it curls over the tops of my ears and drives me nuts.”
Katie shoved him toward the chair. “I told you your hair grows fast and if you don’t come in every four or five weeks, it’s going to tickle your ears.”
“I don’t see why you can’t cut it when you’re at the house.”
She snapped open a clean cape and draped it around his shoulders. “Because you don’t pay me when I cut it at the house.”
“I didn’t charge you that night you spent at the lodge because you stayed up too late playing cards with Rosie, did I?”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Josh held up his hands to Ryan, as though looking for support. “How do you figure that?”
“Because I have very sharp scissors a fraction of an inch from the tip of your ear and I said so.”
As usual, their arguing quickly turned to sports and Ryan tuned them out. He should have just gone to the market as he’d originally planned. Instead, he pulled out his phone and read through email, flagging some to respond to when he got home. One was urgent enough that he went through the laborious process of typing out a response on the tiny phone keys.
Finally, Katie brushed Josh off and removed the cape. “Fifteen bucks.”
“You still owe me twenty because of that blown field goal last Sunday.”
Ryan shook his head. Those two would bet on anything.
“That’s football. This is my business. I keep them separate and you owe me fifteen bucks.”
Josh grumbled while he dug out his wallet, but he kissed her cheek before they left. “See you later, kid.”
Since Josh was already heading out the door, Ryan knew he hadn’t seen the pink that tinged Katie’s cheeks or the way her mouth twisted when he called her kid. The guy was hopeless.
“See ya, Katie.”
The hardware store was next just because they’d have to drive past it to get to the market. Ryan had to park a few spaces down the street. “You want me to leave it running?”
“I’ll go in with you.”
“It’s going to take me two minutes.” When Josh opened his door and got out, Ryan cursed and shut the truck off.
He followed his brother into the store, then stepped aside for a couple who were on their way out.
“How goes it?” Josh asked, walking straight to the counter.
“It goes.”
Ryan looked around for a minute, but he didn’t feel like wading into the back room. “Hey, Dozer, do you have any flashing?”
He crossed his arms and gave Ryan a flat stare. “You can call me Mr. Dozynski, I think.”
“What?” Ryan had never heard anybody call him that. Ever. He’d been Dozer since he’d moved to Whitford and bought the hardware store in the seventies. “What did I do?”
“You molest my daughter and then come in here and think I’ll sell you flashing?”
“Whoa!” Ryan held up his hands. “Your daughter’s thirty-four years old. Nobody molested anybody.”
Dozer looked at Josh. “Is that not the word I wanted?”
Josh shook his head. Albert Dozynski had grown up speaking Polish at home and English at school and still had some trouble with the more outside-the-classroom words. “People use it joking around, but it’s not cool if you’re throwing out serious accusations.”
“What word do I want?”
Josh considered for a few seconds. “Soiled.”
“You soiled my daughter,” Dozer threw at Ryan.
He glared at his brother. “You asshole.”
“Hey, he needed a word.”
“Look, I didn’t soil Lauren, okay? I spent the night with her, yes. And I’m taking her to dinner tomorrow.”
“And you don’t come and talk to me about it, like a man?”