Page 280 of As The Shifter World Turns

I’d worked a late shift today so I’d taken Toby to school but Neil picked him up. And Daire looked after Charlie while Neil was busy at the office. I was glad to be home but when I got out of the car, Ivor waylaid me. Even under the yellow street light I could see he’d been crying. Ryder was undergoing chemo and the stress wasn’t confined to him. The whole family suffered and I understood some of what Ivor was going through.

I gave him a hug and he wiped away the tears. “Martin, I need a favor and if you can’t do it, it’s fine.”

“Try me.”

“You turned me down once which was right for you at the time.”

Was he talking about the app business? But Archer was running that and from what I’d seen, he was doing well. “Ivor, I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. If Archer?—”

He cut me off. “No sorry. I didn’t explain properly. It’s Ryder’s own company. The one he started years ago. I’m heading it up. But I’m not doing a very good job right now.”

“Oh.”

“I can’t offer you a permanent place. And it’s only part time as I need work to distract me from what’s going on in our lives. Sorry again. It’d be for three months.”

“I’d need to discuss it with Neil and hopefully I can fit it around my schedule at the coffee shop.”

He needed an answer in the next twenty-four hours otherwise he’d have to look elsewhere. I gave him another hug and he hung on tight.

Daire was coming down the stairs as I walked up and when I got into our apartment, Neil was putting his laptop away. Co-parenting and sharing an apartment was going okay. I wanted more but Neil said he needed to go slowly. And he’d been right about so many things. Therapy being one of them.

“I have some news.”

“Good news, I hope.”

I hated that I was responsible for him thinking that whenever I made an announcement, it was bad. “Yeah.” I motioned for him to sit and told him about Ivor’s offer.

“On the one hand, I want to do everything to help my friend. But I don’t want to find us in the same position as before with you being so busy you don’t have time for me or the family.”

“This is way different. For starters, I clock in at the coffee shop and clock out. There’s nothing beyond that unless I have to cover for someone. And with Ryder’s business, there’s no travel, no late nights. And I can bring work home if I have to rather than staying in the office.”

We both agreed the extra money would be useful and once I’d squared it away with my boss at the coffee shop, we’d need to write up a detailed monthly schedule so we could both see who was picking up Toby from school and Charlie from daycare.

Neil wasn’t having any hardcopy schedule so he downloaded an app and I did too.

“So, we’ve agreed?” He nodded. “In that case, I’ll call Ivor.”

128

AND PLAN BEER IT WAS

Nate

We spent days trying to think of a good plan to catch Brax in whatever scheme he was involved in. Daire even had his parents over to lunch to see if he could get information from them about what had gone down years ago regarding the man we supposed was Brax’s father. It was messy with a long drawn out court case but it involved extortion. And while they were furious the son had returned to wreak vengeance, they didn’t have anything to offer in terms of how to expose his lies.

When Friday night arrived and it was time for everyone to gather on the roof, we didn’t have much of a plan. This week was a grown-ups only week. We had hired a couple of babysitters to watch all of the kids together for a night of cartoons and fun. It had been in the works for a while, a sort of test run for when we might all want to go out together. But the timing worked out perfectly.

We didn’t need the kids to be there as we tried to figure out what Brax was up to. He was a pretty loose cannon and we didn’t want him shouting with little ones close by.

“Are we ordering in or grilling?” I asked Neil as we were getting ready to head up. If we were grilling I would have to grab some chips or something to go with it. We always had an “emergency” stash of things we could bring that required no cooking or prep. The first time we used them I felt bad, but they were completely devoured in minutes unlike the veggie tray I spent an hour on. Chips and jarred salsa for the win.

“Micah said something about subs and beer.”

I went to the cupboard to get the chips anyway. “Because subs.” I explained when he gave me theWhat is that for?look.

“We really should have a plan other than saying we are having an impromptu meeting about a new series idea as bait.” He wasn’t wrong, but it was the best that he, Daire, and I could come up with so it would have to do.

“If it fails, it fails. It will be fun.” We had all kinds of messed up ideas we planned to “discuss” over some beers. That was our trap!

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