Page 60 of Falling Too Late

Something hard hit me in the head.?

“Hey, what the fuck, man?” I looked to Troy as a nail hit the sheet and rolled down off the roof.??

“Well, I’ve been talking to you for the last twenty minutes andyou’re off in fucking la-la land.” He shook his head at me. “Being on a fucking roof is the last place you need to be daydreaming.??

I could hear the seriousness in Troy’s tone. Troy was never serious. He and Gavin were always playing jokes on each other, but he took safety precautions seriously.??

“Sorry, man, off in my head.”??

“I can fucking see that.” He grumbled some more before he shook his head, finishing tacking in the sheet. “So, are you coming to Dave’s tonight with us or not?”?

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” I confirmed, wiping the back of my arm over my forehead.?“I need to shower first.”

“Our angel is here!” Gavin shouted from inside the house.?

We turned to the road to see a company pickup pulling up to the site, causing dust to fly all over the place. A few of the other guys hooted and hollered in excitement.??

“Lunchtime,” Troy piped up, walking the roofline to the ladder and heading down. Wren got out of the truck, rounded the back of it, and dropped the tailgate. Her hair was down in a mass of unruly curls. I could still remember the excitement she had when she found hair products that were meant for curly hair and could afford them. Splurging on the small luxuries was a win. Every paycheck we got was a win. Every present we surprised Ma with was a win.??

With the heat being so bad these days, they had been sending her out of the office with water refills and lunch. The last thing any of us wanted was for someone to have a heatstroke and be sent to the hospital. I got down off the roof and headed over to the water spicket, running it, washing my hands, and splashing my face.??

The rest of the guys grabbed their lunch and headed into the tool trailer where we had an AC unit running inside. Troy and Gav stood around the pickup with her. Slowly, I walked up. They were asking her out to the bar tonight. It wasn’t an unusual thing, Wren joined us out most of the time, but now that I knew she was thinking about dating, I didn’t like it.??

“Yeah. Sounds like a good time.” She smiled at them. She finally looked at me. “Hey, you.” She wrinkled her nose at me. “You smell.”??

“Well, hello to you too.” I paused, my hands on my hips, feigning hurt, before I lurched forward, snatching her up in a hug and spinning her. She shrieked, and to me it sounded like trilling bells. I loved the sound of her laughter. I loved seeing her happy.??

“Alexander James! Now I’m going to smell like your sweaty ass all day,” she grumbled, but there was still a smile on her face.?

“Now you are just hurting my feelings.”??

She rolled her eyes at me before handing me my sandwich. “You guys need anything else?” Gavin reached in the back of her truck, picking up the water cooler.

“Nah, I think we are good.”

“Oh, Gav, is it okay if I invite a friend to the bar tonight?”

I saw the way Troy and Gavin looked at each other, then glanced at me. “Nope. It’s an open invitation.”??

I was struck by how odd it was that she was asking them. She wasn’t even looking at me.??

“Great. See you guys there then.”??

Without even glancing my way, she got into the truck and drove off.??

What. The. Fuck.??

“Oooh,” Gavin whispered to Troy as we watched her drive down the road. “Mom is mad at Dad.”

I spent the rest of the day in a mood and all the guys knew it, so they avoided me. When we finished cleaning up the site, I sped back to the office to confront Wren, but by the time I got there, she had already left.??

“Yeah, she left early to go pick her friend up or something,” Bonnie, the other bookkeeper, said. Bonnie was a gum chewer and snapped her gum constantly. She had a lot of personality andwas fun, but she didn’t come out with us much because of her son Sam.?

I hopped into my truck and headed home. “Wren?” I hollered through the house. When no one answered, I headed upstairs and into my room, stripping from my work clothes and jumping in the shower.

Once I was out, I realized I didn’t have a towel in here.

“Fuck.” I wicked as much water off as I could before I stepped out and headed into the hall to my room. No towel was in there, so I walked across the hall and pushed open Wren’s door, hoping she might have some unfolded laundry in her room. “Ah hah!” Hanging off of her desk chair was a towel. I pulled it up, and something fell and clattered on the floor. “Dammit.” I wrapped the towel around my waist and bent down, feeling under her desk.

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