Story of My Life (Story Lake #1)

14. Punchable smirks

14

PUNCHABLE SMIRKS

CAMPBELL

I hate roof jobs,” Levi complained from Erleen Dabner’s ridgeline. Erleen was the kind of lady who collected crystals and tarot cards and grew herbs in a greenhouse attached to her weirdly whimsical ranch house. A ranch house with a leaky roof.

“You’d hate bankruptcy more,” I assured him, prying off the asphalt shingles around the vent pipe.

There had been a time when we would have contracted out for a project like this. But subcontractors had either moved out of the area or gotten too expensive to justify the cost when we could do it ourselves.

“Be glad it’s a one-story,” Gage said, strolling along the peak like a mountain goat in work boots. “Found another weak spot over here. Might have some rotting.”

“I’ll grab another bundle of shingles,” Levi volunteered and hauled ass down the ladder to Erleen’s driveway and my truck.

“Lookin’ forward to the town meeting?” Gage asked me as he began to strip the new spot.

“I circled it with a heart in my fucking calendar.”

A Bishop had held a seat on the town council for three generations. Another family tradition we just couldn’t let die.

“Just wondering. Should be pretty entertaining with our new council member and how worked up folks are,” Gage mused.

I hurled another shingle toward the trailer we were using as a dumpster. “You’re only saying that because you don’t have to sit through the whole circus.” Gage had held the seat before me and had laughed himself almost to tears when I was surprised by the election win after my idiot siblings organized a secret write-in campaign.

“I paid my dues. It’s your turn,” he said cheerfully.

I stopped my examination of the exposed plywood and looked at him. “Why are you always in such a good mood?”

“Probably the same reason you’re always in a shitty one. Born that way.”

“I’m not always in a shitty mood,” I argued. I just woke up aware that bad shit happened to people you loved every day.

Gage scoffed. “Man, your frown lines have frown lines.”

“Just because I don’t stroll around town with some big stupid smile on my face twenty-four seven doesn’t mean I’m in a shitty mood.”

“Laura thinks it’s because you felt like you had to move back here. Levi thinks it’s because of that time he hit you in the head when he was swinging for the pinata at Wes’s birthday party. Personally, I think it’s because you realize you’re never going to be as good-looking and charming as I am.”

“You all talk shit about me behind my back?”

“Most of it is to your face, but some of it ends up in the Everyone but Cam message group.”

I gave the plywood a testing knock with the pry bar. “You don’t think there’s an Everyone but Gage group?”

His smirk was punchable. “I know for a fact that’s the only group that doesn’t exist because I, unlike you, get along with everyone.”

I made a mental note to start an Everyone but Gage group as soon as I got off this damn roof.

Gage hurled two more ruined shingles into the trailer below. “I’m just sayin’ it’s obvious coming home didn’t make you a happier, friendlier person.”

“I came home to a sister in the hospital and a failing family business. So you and your ‘Cam doesn’t smile like an idiot enough’ complaints can fuck right off.”

No, giving up the life I’d built, the reputation I’d carved out on my own, hadn’t made me want to go skipping through a field of daisies while yodeling or whatever it was happy people did. But it wasn’t like building that life had sparked any joy either.

Once, on my way to a jobsite, my phone had gotten stuck under the seat and I’d unintentionally ended up listening to a podcast interview with some organizer person who spent an hour talking about building a life that sparked joy.

I’d thought about just shutting off the stereo but had embarrassingly listened to the entire thing, wondering why I hadn’t done anything as an adult that made me feel anything close to joy.

“It’s okay to be jealous, Cam. One look at me swinging a hammer or doing something equally manly in her house, and Hazel is going to get down on one knee and propose to me.”

“If we were on a higher roof, I’d push you off.”

Gage’s grin was lightning quick. “Have to catch me first. And you’re older and slower.”

“I’m not that much older than you, you smiley little shit,” I reminded him.

“Better-looking, more charming, and younger. Plus, I saw her first and you know that gives me dibs.”

“Who?” I asked, pretending I’d forgotten who we were talking about.

“Hazel Hart. Resident romance novelist, source of all recent town gossip and entertainment, and soon-to-be new client of Bishop Brothers.”

“Go ahead and call dibs. I don’t care. Hell, I’ll give the toast at your wedding.”

“Uh-huh. That’s why you’ve got that pry bar in a death grip.”

I glanced down and immediately loosened my hold until color returned to my knuckles.

I was just getting ready to figure out how best to lure Gage closer so I could shove him off the roof into one of Erleen’s holly bushes when a familiar whistle rang out.

Gage and I moved to the lip of the roof and spotted Dad with two trays of to-go coffees in hand. Levi was next to him already drinking one.

“You boys want a caffeine break?” he called up.

I was immediately suspicious. Francisco Bishop said the only two good times for a break were lunchtime and quitting time, and we were smack-dab in the middle of them. “Why does he have six coffees?”

“The man had a stroke. Maybe it’s a bad math day,” my annoyingly optimistic brother guessed.

I shook my head. “He’s up to something.”

“See? This is where we differ. Dad’s up to something and you automatically assume it’s something bad. I, on the superior-son hand, can’t wait to be entertained.”

“Hi,” a gratingly familiar voice called out from the street.

“Fuck me,” I muttered under my breath as Hazel and Zoey came into view on the sidewalk. She was still wearing the blinding yellow shorts and T-shirt she’d bought from the store and looked like a ball of sunshine.

I started to turn back to the work, but Gage grabbed my arm.

“Who. Is. That?”

“That’s Hazel, moron.”

My brother shook his head, still not taking his eyes off the approaching women. “The one with the…” He lifted his free hand and made some weird floaty gesture.

“The head?” I supplied.

All I did was yank my arm free. I swear on Gram’s lemon squares I didn’t push him even though he was annoying me and deserved it. Bishops might like our horseplay, but we didn’t fuck around on roofs.

All the same, Gage wobbled and stepped sideways to counterbalance. But he kept right on staring as his foot slipped.

“Shit,” I said as my brother toppled off the roof right into the holly bush.

Hazel and Zoey rushed forward.

My dad and Levi stood sipping coffee and waiting for Gage to emerge from the bush.

On a long-suffering sigh, I headed for the ladder. To be clear, I was ready for coffee. I wasn’t in any way concerned about how many broken bones my brother might have. Levi and I knew from big brother experience that Gage’s bones were made of rubber.

Gage’s foot popped out of the bush first, followed by an arm and then his head.

“Are you okay?” Hazel asked.

My idiot brother stared up at her. “Hey, Big City. Who’s your friend?”

“Gas Station Hero,” Hazel said, recognizing him. “You just fell off a roof.”

“Eh. It was only one story.” He brushed mulch and leaves off himself.

“Gas Station Hero, this is Zoey. Zoey, this is my gas station hero from yesterday, and judging from the eyes, he must be the third Bishop brother.”

Gage held up both hands. Hazel and Zoey each took one and pulled him to his feet. “Gage Bishop, at your service,” he said gallantly.

I stomped over to my dad and helped myself to a coffee.

“You’re bleeding and you have a leaf in your ear,” Zoey observed.

Gage grinned. “It’s all part of the experience.”

“Like I said, I broke down the estimate by project to make it easier for you to pick and choose,” Dad explained to Hazel.

“There. Good as new,” Hazel said, as she applied the last mustache Band-Aid to the scrape on my brother’s chin as he sat on the tailgate of my truck.

“Chicks dig mustaches and scars, right?” Gage said with a wink.

“It makes you look very tough,” she promised.

“Tough like a hardheaded toddler,” I muttered under my breath.

Levi didn’t laugh. He was too busy watching Hazel’s attempts at first aid on our brother with narrowed eyes. Was this woman giving off some kind of Bishop-targeting pheromone?

“How’s it look, Zoey?” Hazel asked her agent.

Zoey was studying a copy of the printout my dad had handed over from the safety of the other side of the truck. “It looks like you’re gonna need to start selling more books.”

“There’s a fifty percent down payment required,” I announced, pushing my way between Hazel and Gage and pretending to dig through one of the tool totes in the bed of the truck.

Hazel glanced up at me and raised an accusing eyebrow. I returned the stare and pulled the first tool I found free. It was a carpentry square that I had no actual use for. I marched back over to Levi and pretended to mark an angle on the sheet of plywood we had set up on top of a pair of sawhorses.

“Remember, we can do this in phases,” Dad said to Hazel in a significantly friendlier tone. “If you don’t want to get it all done at once, we can start with the necessities. We’re flexible.”

“For now,” I added ominously.

Levi elbowed me in the gut.

“Ow! What was that for, and why is your elbow so sharp?” I muttered, rubbing my ribs.

Dad gave Levi a pointed look. My brother clamped a hand on the back of my neck and steered me away from the driveway coffee klatch.

“Are you trying to fuck us over?” he demanded.

I shoved out of his grip. “I’m trying to protect us.”

“By pissing off a potential client with a job that big? You know the only thing we have on our schedule after this roof patch is a fucking washer and dryer install and giving Lacresha a fourth quote on that backyard chicken coop.”

It might have been the most words I’d heard Levi string together at one time since his passionate defense in the Great Paintball Incident.

“Come on. Look at her.” I gestured toward Hazel.

“I am.”

He was. I found I didn’t care for it, so I stepped in front of him. “She’s not gonna stick around. We’re gonna get stuck with a bunch of materials and a giant hole in our schedule when she changes her mind. She’s got city written all over her.”

“She’s literally got Story Lake written all over her,” Levi pointed out, nodding at the hideous yellow outfit.

“You know what I mean.”

“Look, man. I can’t believe this has to be said, but you need to get on board. We need this. That we includes you now too.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve had a life outside of us, outside of this place. That was your choice. The rest of us stuck. Not because we had to. Because we wanted to. If we don’t start bringing in more business, Bishop Brothers will be just another company that closed up shop, and you’ll move on like you always do. But where does that leave the rest of us?”

I didn’t know what was inspiring Levi’s verbosity or what I was supposed to say in response. I wanted to tell him he was wrong, but in some kind of tangled up way, there might have been a bit of truth.

“We need you. But we’re all used to not having you around. So either get on board or hit the road. Again,” he said and gave me one last brotherly shove. I tripped over a hulking lavender bush and ended up on my ass.

“Dumbasses wouldn’t know common sense if it punched them in the face,” I muttered as I regained my feet. I followed him back to the unofficial driveway meeting, vowing revenge.

My attention zeroed in on Hazel. She was perusing the estimate with an unreadable expression.

When she got to the last page, she let out a little, “Ouch.”

“Big number for a big job,” Dad said.

“You won’t regret taking a chance on us,” Gage added earnestly.

Hazel looked up and locked eyes with me. I did my best not to look quite so assholish. Judging by her quick frown, I guessed I hadn’t succeeded.

She turned to my dad. “How are you at raccoon removal, Mr. Bishop?”

“Call me Frank. And I don’t mean to brag, but I am an expert-level raccoon whisperer.”

That was a dirty lie, but family loyalty didn’t allow any of us to show it.

Hazel nodded and took a deep breath. “Okay. Then if you’re all in, I’m all in.”