The Memories We Made: Remembering Us, Part I (The Game #16)

Chapter 1

Twenty years ago

Philadelphia

Ash Riley

“Oi, what’s the goddamn holdup?” I yelled down toward the sidewalk. “We still don’t have a midrail on fourth!”

“Your old man left!” Davey hollered back.

I widened my arms. “That doesn’t answer my fuckin’ question, man!”

But where the fuck had Dad gone off to? He’d told me just last night I wasn’t ready to end my apprenticeship yet, and now he’d left me alone with his crew? In triple-digit heat in the middle of fucking Philly?

“There’s somethin’ goin’ on inside!” Garcia yelled. “They stopped construction, and someone wants to talk to you!”

Oh, for the love of—

I grabbed my discarded tee and tucked it into my belt, then started climbing down four flights of scaffolding—when all I wanted was to hit the nearest pool. I bet my brother wasn’t sick at all. He was probably over at our folks’ place enjoying said pool.

Once I was back to ground level, Garcia filled me in while I wiped sweat off my forehead and headed to the entrance of the office building.

I didn’t know what he meant by construction stopping, because approximately fourteen million power tools were currently running and quite possibly making this the loudest neighborhood in the city.

But Garcia explained that the problem concerned the offices near the front of the building, and several people working in there had complaints. One of them wanted to talk to “whoever’s in charge” too.

“Are they fucking joking?” I asked incredulously. “Did they think fixin’ the entire exterior and the lobby of an old building was gonna be quiet? And for the record, I’m not in charge. We’re the quietest crew around for miles.” We weren’t doing any construction.

“I don’t know what to tell you, man.” He shrugged, and he pointed toward the elevators. “One of the other guys told me to get the ‘loud, shirtless fucker shouting outside the windows on the fourth floor.’”

I rolled my eyes and stepped into the car.

Go figure, Garcia smirked and stayed in the lobby.

Whatever. I didn’t need to defend myself to nobody. I was following orders. And if someone bitched about shit being loud right now, they didn’t need to talk to a lowly apprentice working for his old man’s scaffolding business. They needed to talk to the contractors or whoever owned the building.

The elevator dinged on the fourth floor, and I stepped out, only to crash into a lanky suit guy.

“Shit, my bad—”

“Oh my God, I’m sorry,” he blurted out and stumbled back. He pushed up his glasses and widened his eyes—and lemme tell ya, those eyes wandered. He looked to be my age, maybe a little younger.

He was hot, in that dorky yuppie way. Dark hair, a little wavy, warm features, blue eyes. Nice, cut jaw.

I flexed a little bit. That was an eight-pack, not six. They deserved all the attention.

“Wait, it’s you.” He narrowed his eyes next. “You’re the guy screaming outside my boss’s office window.”

I lifted my brows and held the elevator doors open when they tried to close. “First of all, I don’t fuckin’ scream unless the Eagles are losing—”

“In other words, you’re a screamer.”

Whoa. Was this suit giving me hate-speech attitude?

It was my turn to narrow my eyes. “If I were you, I wouldn’t piss off the guy you need something from in order to please your dumbass boss. And on that note, what the hell is he expectin’? For the building to be renovated quietly?”

That made the yuppie glare, and he pointed down the hallway.

“She is currently consoling a wife who just lost her husband to cancer. All her patients have suffered trauma or are drowning in grief, and there you are, right outside her window, shouting about midrails, toeboards, and couplers—whatever the fuck that is—and it’s as if you’re physically unable of uttering a single sentence without saying motherfucker, bitch-ass shit, and goddammit. ”

Fuck me, he was getting hotter by the second.

I’d always liked them feisty…

“That sounds terrible,” I stated. “She shoulda rescheduled the sessions. We’ve had this job booked for months, so I’m assuming youse’ve been warned.” I leaned closer to him. “That’s three sentences without cursing, motherfucker.”

He snapped his mouth shut and clenched his jaw.

I had nothing else to say, so I backed into the elevator again and—

“You ate paste as a kid, right?”

My hand shot up and caught the doors when they tried to close again before I even knew it, and I stared at him, wondering if I’d heard him right. Had he just implied I was fucking stupid?

“Seriously,” he said, stepping closer. “Do you lack compassion altogether? Have you never lost anyone? We can’t just reschedule sessions with patients who depend on us in the darkest periods of their lives.

Are we supposed to sit in there till five PM every day and apologize for your language to patients who’ve just lost a loved one or struggle to get past a robbery—”

“Lemme stop you right there.” That was it. I’d lost my goddamn patience. This was ridiculous. “We. Don’t. Have. A. Fucking. Choice. Assembling scaffolding ain’t what’s causing all the noise around here, and construction tends to be loud. It has fuck-all to do with compassion, you piece of shit.”

He didn’t back down for a second. “Are you telling me you can’t assemble those structures without yelling motherfucker all the time?

We’re not fucking stupid. We understand construction is loud, but when you’re standing ten inches outside of a psychologist’s office window, slinging every curse word imaginable, the last issue we have is with everyone drilling in the walls. ”

Thank fuck he stormed away once he got all that out, because I didn’t have a good comeback.

Goddammit.

If his boss got off work at five PM, the yuppie should work similar hours, right?

I checked my watch and then squinted up at the building.

Five minutes past five.

A breath gusted out of me, and I ran a hand through my hair.

This was stupid. I should just head home, get out of my work clothes, and take a long shower.

And yet…I couldn’t shake the urge to smooth things over with the yuppie.

In all the chaos earlier, and the damn heat, I’d misinterpreted what Garcia had said.

Now I could recall his saying that several people had complained about the noise, and I’d applied it all to this suit guy.

But all he’d mentioned was my creative use of words.

He hadn’t technically bitched about the noise.

Hold up, is that him?

I held up a hand to shield my eyes from the late-afternoon sun, and I zeroed in on the guy coming out from the building.

It was him. He had put on his messenger bag, and he had a bike helmet in one hand.

Totally fit my impression of him. Yuppie on a bicycle.

I cleared my throat and trailed closer as he aimed for the row of bikes next to the stairs.

“Oi. Glasses.” I figured it was a better nickname than Yuppie.

Hey, it worked.

He threw a frown over his shoulder.

I gestured at myself. “The paste-eater from earlier.”

The frown faded, but he definitely nailed the standoffish vibe. “Now I remember.”

Okay, he had the biting, dry sense of humor down.

“I cut the goddammits and motherfuckers to a minimum after our productive chat,” I offered.

He unlocked his bike and stuffed the chain into his messenger bag. “My boss mentioned an improvement.” He side-eyed me. “Did you just get off work?”

“Half an hour ago,” I replied. “It’s possible I felt bad for how I acted earlier, so I decided to see if you were on your way out too.”

“I am. After a lovely day here, I’m looking forward to my evening shift at a hotel in Center City,” he drawled.

Oh damn. “That blows. I’m sorry about today, man. I won’t piss you off tomorrow, I promise.”

“Are you sure? You seem to have a knack for it.” He put on his helmet. Then he sighed and pulled out his bike. “Maybe I could’ve handled things better too.”

I smiled. “Water under the bridge.”

Except, now I kinda wanted this little meeting to run longer. He really was hot, and considering he’d checked me out before, it didn’t seem unlikely he was gay. A guy had to give it a go, didn’t he? My weekend was open.

“So, uh…do you have enough time to get something to eat before work?” I asked. “There’s a place down the street. They water down anything alcoholic, but their chips and guacamole are out of this world.”

He knitted his brows together. “You wanna spend happy hour with me?”

I’d prefer a date, but we could call it happy hour between two strangers.

“Of course.” I shrugged. “I obviously want a moment to explain myself. I didn’t fucking eat paste as a kid. I ate crayons.”

Fuck yeah, he actually smiled. “Okay. Happy hour sounds good.”

Fucking A.

Yeah, I definitely wanted this to be a date.

We had the perfect setting for it too. Shitty old cantina, graffiti all over, sticky floors, small booths with torn padding, another patron shooting pool and smoking like a chimney, dimmed lighting, ice-cold sodas, the best app platter with chips, salsa, guacamole, queso, lettuce, and taquitos, and…

a stereo blaring Phil Collins’s “A Groovy Kind of Love.” Romantically sticky and corny and gross and delicious. What more could a guy need?

Well, him. I sure as fuck wanted a round in the sack with him.

His name was Nathan. He was twenty-three years old and working three jobs in the summer to pay for college.

He was on a partial scholarship and headed for a master’s degree in clinical psychology.

One day, he was going to be like his current boss, specializing in trauma care.

He was currently assisting said boss with patients.

He was originally from Phoenix, so he didn’t have any family out here.

“We moved around a bit, but always close to the West Coast,” he added. “What about you? You sound like a local.”

I nodded. “Haverford.”

He let out a low whistle. “I’ve been here long enough to know that’s fancy.”