Chapter 5
It wasn't a sunny day and it only got worse as Bailey finished work and he and Joey headed to the beach house. The strong wind was whipping up the waves and driving dark clouds over the sky. Joey pouted at the weather.
"I don't think it will clear up today," Bailey warned Joey.
"Maybe it will," Joey said, such an optimist.
As they arrived at the beach house, they found Matt waiting for them. He was leaning on the porch railing.
"Glad you could do this. I hope I'm not keeping you from anything," Bailey said as they stepped up on the porch.
"No. I'm happy to be here," Matt said in his usual cheerful way.
He might have no complaints but Joey did. "I'm not gonna get to swim today."
"It's not the day for it," Bailey told him and pointed at a very stormy sky. "We're lucky we didn't get caught in the rain."
"Today is a day for staying indoors," Matt told him.
"And playing video games," Joey said and held up the bag with his tablet and also some snacks.
"Go set up in the living room," Bailey told him as he unlocked the door.
"It's nice that he still wants to go swimming when he has video games as an option," Matt said.
Bailey agreed but he didn't expect it to last. "He probably won't in a few years. I would have picked video games any day."
"Where do you want to get started?" Matt asked as he and Bailey stood in the hallway.
"My grandfather's office. I want to go through his papers, shred what needs to be shredded.
We'll see if we have time left for anything else," Bailey told him and they went into an office which had one too many filing cabinets in it and not enough space.
"We might not both fit. Especially you," Bailey said. He was mostly kidding.
In a small space, Matt's physique was even more imposing, but he got in there anyway. "I'll manage," Matt said and he wedged himself between the desk and the window leaving room for Bailey to make it over to the office closet. He found too many files and boxes of papers in there too.
Matt was wondering where the shredder was, but Bailey was afraid no shredder could handle what they were dealing with. They got to work and found mostly stuff that didn't need to be shredded because it shouldn't have been kept in the first place.
"It looks like my grandfather didn't throw away a single receipt in his whole life," Bailey noted as he dumped another shoe box full of them into a trash bag.
"He didn't live here that long, right?" Matt said.
"No. It was after my grandmother died. He moved into the beach house just in time for me to come here for spring break," Bailey said.
The wind was rattling the window panes and rain was hitting the glass.
It was stormy out there and Bailey thought about him and Grandpa sitting on the porch in the rain, Grandpa fiddling with something and Bailey on his phone.
Matt was thinking about the past too. "I remember you hanging out with Gwen. I thought you were into her," he said with a smile.
Bailey was surprised he remembered him. "Were you spying on us?"
"Of course. That's what little brothers do," Matt said and his smile turned a little sad. "I was always afraid someone was going to steal Gwen away from me. She was the only good one in our family. I thought you might be the one to take her away. I used to call you 'that college boy'."
"That's you now," Bailey said.
"I just need to earn a little more money and I'll be back at it and finally get my degree," Matt said.
"What are your plans after college?" Bailey wondered.
"I'm getting a business management degree, so I hope to be managing something," Matt said but then he sighed. "I just hope I won't have to move too far away from Gwen for some job."
As he said that, Bailey realized that Matt might have been able to earn money for college faster somewhere else. Laurel Beach wasn't as busy as some of the other beach towns.
"So Gwen is the reason you haven't gone to one of the resort towns to earn money?" Bailey asked.
"I did try it, but... people get grabby," Matt said. His frown deepened and he kept looking anywhere but at Bailey.
"Sorry," Bailey said. Matt must have had some unpleasant experiences and that must have been another reason he stayed close to home.
Bailey felt like he should say something but he didn't think Matt wanted to talk about it. Then Joey came to the door.
He looked around the office then told them, "I was just checking that you aren't having fun without me."
"And I thought you might be looking for food," Bailey said.
"Do you have some. I ate my snack," Joey said.
"I was going to order something," he said then looked out the window. "I feel bad making someone deliver to us in this rain."
"They're probably already out there making deliveries, just give them a good tip," Matt said.
Bailey remembered that Matt told them he had done that kind of work so he would know. "Then we're ordering in."
"Pizza!" was Joey's suggestion.
Bailey looked at Matt. "I never say no to pizza," he said.
When the pizza arrived, Matt was the one who opened the door and Bailey heard him chatting with the guy who delivered it while Bailey was in the kitchen washing out some glasses and plates so they could use them.
The delivery guy was saying how some party on the beach got called off and told Matt about some other party that was still on.
Bringing in the pizza, Matt told Bailey, "Dave thanked you for the tip."
"He's a friend of yours?" Bailey asked.
"You're friends with a pizza guy?" Joey said, impressed that Matt had such high level connections.
"I know him," Matt said with a shrug, and that made it sound like they weren't exactly friends.
"And you're going to a party," Joey said so he must have heard them talking too.
"I'm already at a party," Matt claimed. "We have pizza, we have soda."
Joey didn't agree. "No. We don't have cake."
"This is a rainy day party. It's just pizza, soda and rain," Bailey told him.
Joey made a face at that then he wanted to know, "Did you find anything good in that room?"
"That's the office and we found some photos and a box full of keychains. You get to pick out a few to keep," Bailey told him. "Just a few."
After dinner, Bailey didn't feel like going through any more papers, but he worried that he was taking away Matt's chance to earn enough money. While he avoided going back to the office, somehow they all ended up sitting on the porch to watch the rain.
"I found a hole over here," Joey noticed and pointed out a gap in the porch floor.
He was peering down there and Bailey was thinking how he needed to have that fixed. Then he wondered, "The porch can use some attention, is that something you can do, Matt?"
Matt had mentioned doing some handywork and now he went over to have a better look. "Some of these boards need to be replaced. I can manage that. And a coat of paint?"
"Sounds good," Bailey told him, glad to be able to give him more work.
Now Matt was asking, "Are you maybe thinking of staying here, maybe keeping the place?"
"Umm, that's an idea." Bailey had daydreamed about it.
He noticed that Joey didn't comment on that and he realized he was trying to look under the porch. "Don't get under there. Matt is going to be fixing the porch for us."
"I wanna watch," Joey said.
"You think porch fixing is exciting stuff?" Bailey asked him.
"Maybe?" Joey said.
"You can be my helper if you're around for it," Matt told him. Then he looked at his phone. "I might be able to do it tomorrow afternoon so you guys can drop by."
"That works for us," Bailey said, but if he kept spending any more time with Matt, he wasn't sure he could hold back this hopeless infatuation that was building inside him.