CHAPTER 49
maverick
You’re kidding, right?” I demanded. I stared at Frank, waiting for the big gotcha moment, but it never came. Instead, the old man just shook his head, serious as ever.
“You’re the best repairman I’ve got, and the only one I trust to get this big of a job done,” he said simply. Any other time, I would’ve been thrilled with the compliment.
“But you know who lives at this address, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“So you know that I can’t go,” I snapped.
“You can, and you will,” Frank replied. He sighed as he crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair.
“Look, I admire what you’re trying to build for yourself here, kid, and I think you’ve got a lot of potential, but they’re influential customers.
They want to hire my company for a job, and so, I have to say yes, or I risk their wrath.
No one risks their wrath and comes out unscathed. I think you know that.”
Yeah, I fucking did.
“Now, I won’t be around to run this company forever. I have two choices… I can shut it down, or I can give it to someone.”
Wait… what?
“You want to give me your company?” I asked stupidly. That was what he was saying, right?
“Not yet, I don’t,” he said. “But it’s not off the table as far as options go for the future. You’re the hardest-working employee I’ve got, you’re not afraid to learn, and my customers actually like you. But you need to make nice with my customers—all my customers. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Sir,” I muttered and shut up. There was no way I was getting out of this assignment without losing my job. And I needed this job.
“Good. How did your last meeting go? Are you going to celebrate your last day of parole?”
“Yeah, I was thinking I’d go out and get drunk. See where the night goes,” I joked. It didn’t land. Not even close. The severe look on Frank’s face actually made me a little uncomfortable. “I’m fucking kidding, Frank. I’m not going out drinking.”
“Okay.” He let out a slight laugh, like he wasn’t quite sure he believed me.
“Jesus fuck,” I muttered and got to my feet. My anger flared, and I did my best to keep it in. After everything, I thought at least Frank believed in me. I wasn’t so sure anymore. “I’m not an idiot. I’m not about to throw away everything.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m going to do this job and show you I deserve the damn company.” Did I want the company? I didn’t have a clue. I was just mad at the insinuation that I’d throw everything away so easily like that. Not after everything I’d put into trying to do better. To be better.
“Kid,” Frank cut me off as I opened my mouth to keep ranting. “You’ve done good at getting your life back in order.”
The sentiment made me deflate instantly. He took my silence as an opportunity to keep going.
“You haven’t had it easy, but you’ve made the most of it,” he said quietly. “You’ve worked your ass off and done a damn good job in the process. I’m proud of you, and you should be proud of yourself.”
His pride shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. As dumb as it was, it did.
“I am.” Mostly I was. It was hard to be proud of the constant uphill battle.
“Good,” he replied. “Get the job done. When you get back, dinner’s on me tonight.”
“Thank you.”
The Lowell house loomed in my rearview as I sat in the truck.
I’d backed in to give myself a moment of privacy—a moment where Mrs. Lowell wasn’t staring out the window, glaring and plotting my demise.
I wanted nothing more than to go back to Frank and tell him to fire me because I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t.
Harley was gone. That much I knew. He hadn’t come back to Wilde Bay in years—the little bits of town gossip I kept up with had told me that one.
At least one of us had gotten out. Hopefully, that would make this less confrontational.
If her son wasn’t here, then technically, I wasn’t breaking my promise to never talk to him again.
I didn’t even know if that still applied, considering I wasn’t in prison anymore and Howard couldn’t get his hands on me, but I wasn’t about to fuck with Elizabeth Lowell.
I’d learned my lesson. I was expendable in the grand scheme of things.
Exhaling heavily, I climbed out of the truck.
Frank kept a work truck on site. Because everything I needed was within decent walking distance, I didn’t own a car.
I couldn’t afford it. At first, he’d been nice enough to let me use the truck for work calls, but over time, it became something I could use personally, too.
I grabbed my tool belt from the backseat, along with a few other generic things I might need. The job today was simple: get in, assess the situation, fix what I could, and make a plan for the rest.
I kept that list at the forefront of my mind as I approached the door and knocked. I heard something crash deep inside the house. Lord fucking help me if this woman fell while I was here and I had to save her ass. I was used to the universe screwing me over, but that would be a whole new low.
The door flew open, and it wasn’t Mrs. Lowell. It wasn’t Clifford either.
It was Harley.
The sight of him was a sucker punch to the gut that I did my best not to show.
For a wild second, my body forgot how to exist. My lungs stalled while my pulse soared.
The air pressed in around me, growing unbearably hot.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Everything inside me screamed with the instinct to turn and run, but I forced myself to remain still.
He looked as confused to see me as I was to see him.
That hesitation as we sized each other up gave me enough time to look at him—really study him.
The years hadn’t been kind to him. He was somehow prettier than he had been six years ago, and the unfairness of it almost made me angry.
The light beard along his jaw carved away the softness I remembered, replacing it with something rougher and unsettled.
His wet shirt clung to his frame, outlining how he’d thinned out in a way that made my chest ache uncomfortably—not fit, not healthy, just worn down.
What the hell had life done to him?
But it was his eyes that caught my attention. The profound sadness there tugged at my heart. I knew a broken man when I saw one. It raised questions, but I crushed them before they could fully form. Harley wasn’t mine to take care of. Not anymore. That ship had sailed a long time ago.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. The hostility in his words should’ve hurt, but they were well-earned after the things I’d said to him.
And if he hated me, that’d make things easier between us.
“Is your mother home?” I asked, my voice falling flat even in my ears.
“What?” he snapped as he frowned. Yeah, this wasn’t awkward at all.
“Is your mother home?” I repeated and enunciated every word loudly to make sure he heard me.
“Uh… no,” Harley whispered. He shook his head, his jaw working as if he was trying to untangle thoughts that wouldn’t cooperate.
I stood my ground because I recognized the spiral, but I refused to help.
That was a line I wouldn’t cross, even if some twisted, masochistic part of me wanted to.
“I’m sorry… it’s just been a long fucking day.
No, my mother is in an assisted living center. ”
My heart stuttered. She was what?
“So, she’s not here?” I replied. Maybe I’d heard him wrong—I’d probably heard him wrong.
“No, she’s not here.”
Apparently not.
“And she’s not coming back?” A little shred of hope flickered to life inside me. Maybe this whole thing wouldn’t fuck me over, and I’d be okay.
“God, I hope not,” he muttered. “Sorry, that was… no, she’s not coming—I’m sorry, the kitchen is flooding, did you want… you’re the repair guy, aren’t you? I called Frank.”
“I work for Frank again,” I told him.
“Of course, you do.” There was a resignation in how he said it, like he believed the universe was screwing him over, too. Apparently, we both still had something in common.
“Show me the kitchen.”