“Fuck off.”
“Heard you’ve been a hot mess today,” Racer pushes. I start down the stairs of the house we’re working on and head to my truck for lunch. “Heard you were searching for your hammer for five minutes until you realized it was still attached to your hip.”
“It wasn’t five fucking minutes,” I grumble.
I fish out my lunch and bring it over to a stack of wood where I take a seat, setting my hat down next to me. Racer joins me, his lunch pail in hand as well. When he sits down, he removes his hat and runs his hand through his thick and sweaty hair.
“What was it then? Two minutes?”
“A few seconds. Christ.” I unzip my lunch and Racer immediately starts sifting through it as if we’re in grade school sitting in the cafeteria.
“Dude, what’s that shit? Salad?” He fingers the lettuce I have in a bag.
“It’s lettuce for my tacos.”
“Tacos?” Racer eyes my lunch again and then his. “Want to trade?” Yeah, we are in grade school.
Being that Racer is one of my closest friends, I know the ins and outs of his life, and I would bet a thousand dollars on what he has in his lunch box right now. It’s always the same thing: two bologna sandwiches with mustard, a Coke Zero, and grapes. There is no way I’m trading in my tacos for bologna.
“Never. I never want to trade.”
“Suit yourself.” He unzips one of his sandwiches and takes a big bite out of it. He’s a man-child. “Is Julius on your back again today? Is that why it took you an hour to find your hammer today?”
“An hour?” I quirk a quizzical brow in his direction. “It went from five minutes to an hour. That’s quite the fucking leap.”
He holds up his hands. “Hey, I’m just repeating what’s being thrown around by the guys.”
“Dickheads will be getting pay cuts. All of them.” I start to put together my tacos when I answer Racer. “Just saw an old friend last night.” I have no clue why seeing Emma is throwing me off though.
“An old friend, huh? Was it Sadie?”
Racer and Smalls are not blind to what I went through the last couple years; they were the ones I leaned on when it felt like I had no one else. They were there when Sadie told me she was pregnant, they were there when I bought my house, when Sadie lost the baby, and when she met someone else. They were the ones who picked me up when I was a distanced motherfucker.
So Racer’s question doesn’t surprise me.
I shake my head. “Not Sadie. One of her best friends I grew up with actually.”
“Yeah? Is she hot?” Horny fucking bastard.
“Emma?” I ask, thinking about the question. “Uh . . . I never really thought about her that way. She’s always been the mom of the group somehow.”
“Moms can be hot. Moms also need a little dick tickling every now and then.”
“She’s not really a mom, asshole.” I shove the rest of one of my tacos in my mouth and chew.
“Doesn’t matter, even a pretend mom gets me going. Do you think she would wear an apron for me?”
“What?” I shake my head.
“You’re going to introduce me, right?” Racer’s eagerness is starting to grate my nerves.
“How did this conversation turn into a hookup for you?”
He shrugs his shoulder and takes another bite out of his second sandwich. Talking with his mouth full, he says, “I like to put my name in the running before it’s even an option. Being proactive and all.”
“You’re not going out with her. You’re a dick when it comes to girls, I won’t subject Emma to that.”
“That’s not true,” Racer says, defending himself. “I’m not a dick, I just know what I want right now.”
“Spread legs and commitment free, I know.” Racer is like a brother to me, but he’s an asshole.
He bends his head back and finishes his drink before saying, “Enough about me. Why does Emma have you out of fucking sorts? You don’t like her, do you?”
“No,” I answer quickly. “I guess seeing a blast from the past is fucking with my brain.” I rub the back of my neck and look over to Racer. “I, uh, I kind of offered her to stay with me.”
Racer pops a grape in his mouth as his brows pull together. “You what?”
A long groan flows from the pit of my stomach out past my lips. I lean back on the wood and look up into the grey cloudy sky of Binghamton. “It happened so fucking fast. I was caught off guard seeing her, she invited me to talk to her friends, she was so different than the Emma I grew up with, like really fucking different, and her friend mentioned Emma was being evicted in two days and had nowhere to go. I offered up my house before I could stop myself.”
“Dude, you don’t ever have anyone over? Hell, I’ve never been over to your place and you’ve had it for over a year.”
“I know. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”
“What did she say?” The joking tone in Racer’s voice has vanished and in its place a growing sense of concern.
“That she would think about it. She hasn’t texted me or anything, so I’m thinking it’s going to be a no. Last night it sounded like she had to be out of the place by tomorrow. Thought I would’ve heard from her by now.”
“Tomorrow? And she hasn’t texted you yet? I bet she found a place. Although,” Racer sits up, “a little heads-up on her end would be fucking polite. A quick text so you don’t have to sit around with your dick in a twist.”
“She might be in class or doing her nursing stuff, whatever that entails.”
“She’s a nurse?” Racer smacks my arm. “Dude, you have to hook us up now. You know I’ve always had a nurse fantasy. Those little red crosses pasted over her nipples and that’s it, boner heaven. Come on, introduce me.”
“No, never going to fucking happen. She’s not one of your bimbos. She’s a long-term kind of girl. She looks for guys who want to get married and have babies.”
“Fuck.” Racer shivers. “Marriage is terrifying. Commitment and seeing each other poop, no fucking thank you.”
I knew that would scare him off. And it’s the truth. Emma has always been the girl who wants the white picket fence, the loving husband, and the beautifully smart children.
I look at my watch. Ten more minutes before I have to get back up.
“Are you heading to Reardon tonight?” Racer asks, shortening the name of our favorite bar.
I’m about to answer when my phone beeps in my pocket. A sinking feeling starts to crawl up my spine. Not many people text me, and the people who do are on the same job site as me, one of them sitting right next to me.
When I pull my phone from my pocket, Racer leans over and looks at the screen with me. Since I have it set on privacy mode, you can only see who the text is from, no preview. Clear as day, Emma’s name appears.
“Huh, maybe she’s polite after all,” Racer says, slicing some of the tension from my shoulders.
That’s exactly what it is. She’s saying thank you, but I found a place. It’s the kind of person Emma is. She’d tell me the outcome of her decision. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she sent me an e-card to say thank you.