Chapter 7 #2
Ryan stayed put, watching the two of them chat.
He was barely watching Jasper, focusing his energy on Logan and staring at him like a creep.
He was essentially stalking a man he didn’t know because he had the audacity to work a job he’d been hired to do, and Ryan knew that. But right now, he didn’t care.
He should have just snuck out of the park and gone home. Sulked on Beni’s living room floor or headed to Boston to bring someone to his apartment, since Jasper was clearly moving on. Either option would have been more reasonable—less creepy, at least.
Instead, he tortured himself. Logan picked up the tools he’d left on the ground, sorted out his tool belt, and walked down the eastern trail that led to the restaurant, gesturing at buildings and attractions.
Jasper nodded, pretending to be impressed.
He would have laughed if he hadn’t been worried the reason for Jasper’s false awe was to get Logan to like him.
It wasn’t a rational concern, because it was clear Jasper was becoming increasingly worried about the state of the park, if his poorly hidden inspections of Logan’s handiwork were anything to go by, but Ryan wasn’t in a very rational place right now.
He continued following them from a distance.
“This is where I think we can line a bunch of extension cords. We’re pretty close to that building, there,” Logan said, pointing at a restroom about fifty feet away.
Jasper rubbed his chin. “Is that safe?”
“I wrap them with electrical tape.” Logan tapped his temple. “Less likely to light on fire that way.”
“I don’t, uh…” Jasper trailed off, swallowing and nodding. “Okay.”
Ryan clenched his jaw to stop himself from screaming, both from the stupidity of Logan’s comments and that he was putting Jasper in this position, knowing he struggled to stand up for himself.
Or, had. Until a few weeks ago.
They eventually reached the short fence that lined a gently sloped hill.
It had been rotting for years, and Jasper had complained about it, worried he’d end up with a lawsuit on his hands if someone leaned against it.
Ryan had started some repairs but never finished them, being called out for an extended tour last summer. His gut soured at the memory.
Now Logan was working on it, walking through the steps of the project with Jasper.
It took everything in Ryan’s power to stay quiet as he watched Logan take one of the fence posts from the ground and place it in the hole Warren had dug.
It was clear to Ryan the depth wasn’t even close to the frost line, which he may have been able to let slide if he’d been in a better mood.
But when Warren began filling the hole with loose dirt, Ryan had to close his eyes and focus on his breathing.
Logan stamped down on it, Warren added more dirt, then Logan stamped down again before giving it a little shake.
He spread his worthless, incapable hands out and lifted his chin, begging for praise.
“Is that… safe?” Jasper asked, watching the post wiggle back and forth. “It doesn’t seem any more secure than the old fence.”
"Seems solid enough,” Logan said, patting it like a horse’s rump.
Warren nodded, then they both moved to the next post.
It was too much. All of it. Ryan couldn’t hold back and burst out of the forest, making a beeline to Logan. “You’re done here,” he shouted.
All three men jumped and turned around. Logan pressed a hand to his chest. “Jesus! What the hell?”
“I said you’re done here.”
“Ryan, what the fuck?” Jasper said.
Logan stepped closer to Jasper. “I’m… what? Who are you?”
Ryan took a deep breath through his nose and walked to the post, giving it a heaving shove. It toppled over, kicking up dirt onto Ryan’s shoes. He unclenched his jaw just long enough to repeat himself again, jabbing a finger into Logan’s chest. “You’re done.”
Logan looked to Warren, who was balancing a fencepost in the next hole. He shrugged, and Logan looked back to Ryan. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“Where the hell did you come from?” Jasper asked.
Ryan ignored him, keeping his narrowed eyes on Logan. “I’ve been watching you. Everything you’ve touched, you’ve made worse. Are you qualified to do any of this shit?”
“What are you talking about?” Logan asked.
Ryan bent down and picked up some dirt. “Loose soil? No concrete footing? For a fence next to a fucking hill?”
“I’ve built fences before.”
“Is this pine?” Ryan asked, rubbing his hand over the boards on the ground. “You gonna come back and reinstall this fence in five years when it rots to shit again?”
“It’s cheap and it looks nice,” Logan said.
“This looks like shit. Everything you’ve touched here looks like shit. You look like shit,” Ryan said, flicking Logan’s shirt sleeve.
Logan huffed and crossed his arms. “It’s for a park. It doesn’t have to survive a hurricane.”
“Oh, is that the standard you work with?” Ryan asked, shoulders heaving from Logan’s negligence.
Jasper put his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “Hey, relax.”
Ryan’s entire body erupted in goosebumps from that gentle touch. He wanted to lean into it, feel the shape of Jasper’s hand, the warmth of his bundled-up body, the lines of each individual finger, but Logan started talking again.
“Listen,” Logan said. “Jasper hired me to get the work done quick. I’m doing what I was asked.”
“Quick and lazy aren’t the same thing,” Ryan said.
“What are you doing here?” Jasper asked again.
Ryan wanted to kick himself for not responding, but now that the flood gates of rage had opened, he was struggling to focus.
Logan opened his mouth to say something else, but Ryan had already stopped listening.
Something on the ground, unnaturally pale and covered by flecks of dirt, caught his eye.
He squinted at it, moving closer until he could see it clearly.
A thick tree root had been hacked clean through.
Ryan stared at it before finally looking up to Logan. “Did you cut this?”
“It was in the way of the fence line.”
“You can’t just cut through a structural root! Build the fence over it, you fucking tool!”
“It’s one root. Calm down.”
Ryan’s hands squeezed as he fought a vivid urge to pick up Logan by his tool belt and throw him down the hill. With no sturdy fence in the way, it would be easy.
“You need to leave.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Jasper said. His voice was stern now, earlier curiosity giving way to anger at Ryan’s presence.
“I’m not leaving. Jasper is paying me to get a job done.”
“You’re not getting the job done!” Ryan yelled.
He glanced around them and frowned at the endless evidence.
The broken tree root, the French drain his crew had destroyed, both ruining the trails Jasper had spent years trying to keep functional and pretty with no budget and nobody to help him.
“You’re making everything worse. You’re going to destroy the park.
That will destroy Jasper. And if that happens, I’ll destroy you. ”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Jasper said, pulling Ryan’s body away from Logan’s smaller one. “Calm down, John Wick.”
Ryan blew out a calming breath. It didn’t work. “Jasper, listen to me—”
“No.”
Logan grinned at them.
“You stop that, too,” Jasper said to Logan. “You’re both idiots.”
“But—” Ryan started.
“Ryan, you can’t stalk people through the woods and leap out to yell at them.” He turned to Logan. “Logan, you should have about five hundred more years of experience before you sell yourself as someone who can handle this level of work.”
“I’m—”