Page 73 of Unlucky You

“You too.”

I spentmost of the day assembling and installing the custom cabinets our current customer was paying for. Walt was teaching me more and more with each job. He had been doing carpentry and woodwork for the past twenty-six years, so there wasn’t much he couldn’t do. However age had slowed him down over the years, which meant the money had slowed down. Having me back on his team was a solution to the problem. As much as I fought against it, he pushed to make sure I learned as much as possible. I stopped fighting the process and could pretty much do just as much as he could now.

“You’re moving slow, old man.” I grinned over my shoulder while sliding the shelving into the overhead cabinets I’d just finished installing to be sure they fit. Walt hand cut everything so I wasn’t necessarily worried but he had someone coming to professionally stain them in the next couple days.

“Quality work takes time,” he muttered and I grinned, knowing his pacing didn’t have shit to do with quality and was more about the muscle ache he complained about for the pastcouple days. He pulled something but was too damn stubborn to take it easy or see a doctor.

“You trying to say I’m not doing quality work?” I turned and yanked the work gloves from my hands and shoved them into the pockets of my jeans. Today was woodwork installation and cleaning so I bypassed the coveralls.

Walt finished aligning and installing the last row of screws then turned to me with a cocky grin. “You’re as good as I taught you to be.”

I threw my head back and laughed. “And since you don’t want me outshining you, I’m gonna guess I’m a few levels behind you.”

“Your words not mine.” He glanced at the wall of cabinets I’d spent the day installing. “If you’re about done, we can clean up in here and head back to the office. I want to go over the jobs for next week.”

“Yeah I’m done. I just want to double check to make sure they’re secure and then I’ll get this stuff cleaned up.”

He finished what he was doing and I lugged the dolly we used to bring the wood in along with the toolboxes to the van and got everything loaded. I followed him back to the office he kept in a small business park in town which wasn’t far from my mother’s house.

We spent half an hour going over the upcoming jobs which would require a lot more independence on my part to get them completed on time. Walt had been hinting around to it over the past couple weeks, saying that me taking lead on some of the smaller jobs would help him bring in more business. I had no objections because more business meant steady income. Since I’d gotten approved to move into a two-bedroom as soon as one became available, steady income was a must.

“I have one last thing I want to discuss with you.” Walt opened his desk drawer and removed a stack of papers which he placed on the surface and pushed across to me.

“What’s this?”

“Take a look.”

I lifted the papers, scanned the first one and thumbed through the rest, frowning hard when I realized what I was looking at. “I can’t afford ownership in your company, Walt.”

He grunted and leaned back, rocking slowly in his computer chair. “Then it’s a good thing I’m not selling. I’m giving it to you. All you have to do is sign.”

“Nah, I’m good. I work, you pay me. That’s our deal and that’s good enough. I don’t want you giving me shit.”

I tossed the papers on the desk and lifted from the chair. “We done here?”

“Grand Alton Sinclair. Sit down.”

Alton…

I almost fucking laughed at the use of my full name. That was all my mother’s doing. Walt paid me in cash and the only paperwork I filled out with him had Grand Sinclair.

“I don’t want a fucking handout.”

“It’s not a handout. It’s an investment.”

“For who?”

“For both of us. You’re investing in your time helping me continue to burn the business. I’m investing my money in assuring that the business I’ve worked my ass off building over the past twenty-six years doesn’t end with me.”

“You have family; give it to one of them.”

I didn’t really know if he had family. He mentioned once he didn’t have kids but I wasn’t sure about nieces or nephews. He never discussed personal shit, well outside of mine.

“None that I trust enough to leave this to. I’m sixty-eight years old ,son. I’ve only got a few more years doing this beforeI’m not physically able, or hell, before I decide I don’t want to do this shit anymore. And before you tell me to sell it, that’s the goal. That forty percent is just what I said it is. An investment. The other sixty I’ll sell to you when I’m ready to walk away. Then it will be all yours. We can negotiate a reasonable price you can afford.”

I just stared at him for a minute and he stood, digging a ten out of his pocket. “You have change for this? While you’re thinking of all the ways to tell me no, I’m going to grab something out the vending machine.”

I removed cash from my pocket, counting out five ones and a five which I extended to him. He yanked one of the singles, folded it with the ten, and shoved it back in his pocket before pointing to the papers.

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