Page 127 of Rules to Love By

“Thanks.”

Eli kissed his temple and stood back. “Always.”

The full accounting of the damage was pretty ghastly.

A broken walk-in had warmed with food inside. Not a lot, but enough Ozzy wouldn’t even let him look.

“We’re not opening that door again until we’ve had a professional cleaning crew in here to clear it out and sanitize the shit out of every surface.”

“I can’t afford—”

“All part of the service.” Ozzy turned him by the shoulders and marched him away from the cooler.

“What service?”

For the barest of moments, Ozzy’s fingers tightened on his shoulders, and then he let go. “I… um.”

“You what?” Marcus stopped and turned to face him. “You what?”

Shuffling his feet and rubbing a hand over the top of his head, Ozzy glanced past him. “Nothing. I assumed… sorry.” He slipped past, headed for the door.

The locksmith, kneeling by the back door, furrowed his brows but said nothing.

“Assumed what?” Marcus had never seen Ozzy, big and confident, look so dejected. “Ozzy, what?” He followed in a hurry. “Ozzy!”

Tris appeared in front of him. “He—we—thought you’d hire him.” He waved around the space. “To do this.”

“Hire him with what? Tris, seriously. I have a few hundred dollars to my name from the work I’m doing for Eli’s dad. What would I pay him with?”

“You don’t have to—”

“Pay him? Don’t be dumb. Of course I do. And even if I could, I can’t afford materials. I’d have to start with the front windows. Do you know what that much plate glass costs? Never mind the missing plumbing, light fixtures—”

“Hey.” Tris took him by both arms. “Breathe.”

“It’s too much, Tris. I—”

Tris put a hand over his mouth. “Stop.”

Marcus blinked at him.

“Ozzy isn’t a charity, you’re right,” Tris said. “But he’s a friend. People hire him to do this stuff because he’s good at it. And because old houses and buildings… like him. He listens to them.”

Marcus took a step back, releasing himself from Tris’s hand over his mouth. He glanced up at the uneven plaster ceiling, the empty light connections, then around them at the pots and pans strewn across the floor, their dented bottoms and broken handles like so many wounds in his own flesh.

“I can’t—” He snarled softly. “I need to go upstairs.”

The clatter of Tris’s boots as he tried to keep up didn’t slow Marcus in the least. When he got to the door at the back of the kitchen that opened onto the stairwell leading to the upper floors, he finally paused.

From out of nowhere, Eli was by his side.

“What if it looks like this up there?” Marcus asked.

“So what if it does?” Tris countered.

Eli put a hand on the small of his back. “We’ve got you,” he promised.

“Excuse me, but I haven’t got to changing that lock yet, son,” the locksmith said, appearing next to him. He squinted down at the mechanism, one hand scratching at his stubble. “Odd.”

---