Page 1 of Kicking it for Convenience

Chapter One

Levi

Crowded around several pushed-together tables piled high with greasy foods and cluttered with beer glasses were my longtime best friends, Theo, Cam, Parker, Bennett, and Jared, along with Ethan and Archer, two newer additions to our group. We were parked in Jock Strap, Port Grandlin’s best—and only—gay sports bar, winding down from a kickball game where we’d had our asses handed to us. Our team, Out and Kickin’, wasn’t the worst team in the local LGBT kickball league, not by far, but we were on a losing streak and it was starting to get the better of us mentally. We’d been drowning our sorrows for at least an hour at that point.

“I say fuck those guys,” Parker announced, eliciting a round of cheers from the table.

Before I could say anything else, my phone chirped in my hand. “Oh shit,” I muttered, jumping up so quickly I nearly overturned the table. My glass wobbled dangerously, sloshing beer over the rim, and I stepped back before the spilled beer could stain my khakis.

Jared grabbed napkins and started mopping up my mess. “You okay, man?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I just realized I’m going to be late if I don’t leave now.”

“Go,” Cam said. “We’ve got this.”

I looked around for the server who’d been taking care of our table. Where had she gone? “I need to settle up my tab.”

Theo shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, we’ve got it.”

Bennett nodded in agreement and shooed me away with his hands. “Seriously, don’t be late for your grandpa’s will reading. You don’t want to miss anything important.”

I took a shaky breath and stepped back a little more. “Thanks guys. See you next week.”

“Sure, sure. Go.” Parker said before picking up a chip and shoving it into his mouth. “We’ll still be here when you’re done.”

I hurried to the car and slid inside. With shaking hands, I started the engine and headed toward downtown Port Grandlin, where the attorney’s office was. I wound through the city and was surprised when the GPS took me to a part of town that was going through a revitalization. Many of the buildings in that part of town had been renovated in the past five years, after having been built a hundred years ago and sitting dormant for at least a decade before the “Rebuild Northport” projects had begun.

The small construction company I owned had been involved in several of the projects, and as I passed the buildings we’d worked on, I smiled and my chest swelled with pride. They really did look good, and traffic to Northport was starting to really pick up again. One of the few buildings left was the old Radiance Cinema. It was a shame that the old theater had gone out of business and had been left to its own devices for so long. The building had a lot of history and my hands practically itched to get in to see how my team could renovate it.

I parked a half-mile away from the Radiance, near what had been an old bank-turned-wedding venue, and walked a few short blocks to the attorney’s office. The office was in a two-story brick building and when I pushed the door open, a receptionist with sandy-colored hair and tired eyes looked up from her desk and smiled warmly at me.

“Can I help you, sir?”

I glanced at my phone to check the time. I wasn’t late, so where was everyone? My parents and sister were supposed to be in on the reading, too. “I’m here for the reading of the Davies will. I’m Levi Hayes.”

She nodded and picked up a phone from the cradle. She murmured something into the phone before hanging up and smiling at me again. “Mr. Dixon will be right out.”

Before I could even have a seat, an older man made his way down a hall to my left. “Levi Hayes?” When I nodded, he gestured for me to follow him. “Right this way.”

I nodded in thanks to the receptionist and did as he’d instructed, following him down a long hallway and into an office at the very end. Inside the office, my parents sat on chairs in front of the massive cherry wood desk, Mom with a purse clutched in her lap and a tissue in hand. My sister Amelia was perched on the edge of a blue velvet couch, legs crossed at the ankles and tucked under her. I took a seat next to Amelia and leaned close.

“Where’s Todd? And the kids?”

She shook her head. “Didn’t think they really needed to be here for this. Hopefully it won’t take long. I don’t know if I trust Todd to keep the kids from burning down the house.”

I wanted to say something snarky about Todd being a grown-up, but I knew he wasn’t much of an adult, so instead, I shrugged and held up my hands. I didn’t have time to say anything else before Mr. Dixon cleared his throat.

“Thank you all for joining me today. Virgil was a very good friend of mine. I’m sorry for your loss. I’ve done hundreds of these readings and they never get easier.”

Mom dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “We appreciate the way you helped my father, Mr. Dixon.”

The lawyer waved one hand as he took a seat. “Please, call me Ron. Virgil certainly did. We were friends for a long time—members of the same country club, you know. We’d play golf together nearly every Sunday until last year when the walking became too much for him, even with a cart to drive around in. It was his version of church, he always said.”

Mom gave him a watery smile and nodded. “Well, Ron, we thank you for making time for us on a Saturday afternoon. I’m sure you have other things you’d like to be doing.”

“Anything for Virgil.” He paused a beat before looking down at the file folder on his desk. “Well, let’s get started, shall we?”

He read the first few lines, which affirmed my grandpa’s mental status at the time the will was drafted, along with the date and who the witnesses had been. When Ron began reading the bequeathments, he started with possessions. My grandpa had owned two antique cars and was passing those down to Todd, of all people. The generous gift took me by surprise. He gave Mom his property, including his house and the land it had been on. I would receive the contents of his tool collection.

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