Page 75 of Love You
TJ continued to chomp on Win’s cereal and appeared in no hurry to leave. Win found clean clothes, put them on, and joined his brother at the breakfast counter.
TJ scanned the apartment. “You cleaned.”
“Yep.” Win stole a handful of granola.
“You ready to go?”
“You’re serious? I’m not asking Reggie to let me in again. He hasn’t even given me a price yet. For all I know he’s having second thoughts. He built the place with his late wife. There’s gotta be a lot of memories in it for him.”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t do a drive-by, check out the neighborhood.”
It was hardly a neighborhood. But if TJ wanted to see the cabin Win was game.
“All right.”
“I’ll drive.” TJ fished his keys out of his pocket and Win put on his shoes.
It took less than fifteen minutes to get there. The sun was setting but there was still plenty of light.
“I don’t think we should pull through the driveway,” Win said. “If he’s home he’ll see us and it’ll be weird, don’t you think?”
“You’ll look overanxious, that’s for sure. But I can’t see dick from here.” TJ had pulled to the side where the two private roads forked. “Let’s hike in, incognito.”
Win rolled his eyes. “Should we wear camo and paint our faces?”
“You have a better suggestion?”
“Yeah, let’s go to Old Glory and have a beer.”
“I want to see the place.” TJ shut off the engine and hopped out of his Range Rover.
Win threw up his hands and joined him. “I guess we’re doing this. Reggie has a dog, be prepared.”
Instead of walking down the driveway like normal people, they went through a copse of pines, using the trees as cover, and wove their way through dense thickets on the property. Win kept waiting for Oscar to bark or an alarm to sound. In backcountry people were prickly about trespassers. Mostly everyone had a shotgun for hunting or to shoo away varmints. Reggie seemed a little too chill to pull a gun on someone and Oscar too old and fat to catch them if they ran. But sneaking around like this would take some explanation if Reggie caught them. It seemed like a bad way to start a business relationship.
“This is stupid,” he whispered to TJ.
“Isn’t stupid your middle name?”
“Usually, but this was your idea.”
TJ broke into a huge grin. It reminded Win of when they used to be kids. Back when TJ was fun and not a sanctimonious workaholic.
“Whatever Deb put in your Metamucil, I like it.”
They came up on the back of the house and walked along the river’s edge to circle around. If Reggie had been looking out of one of the cabin’s huge windows he would’ve seen them sure as shit. But it didn’t appear that he was home or if he was, he was hibernating somewhere.
“This place is awesome,” TJ said, looking up at the big wraparound porch.
“Right? It needs a good amount of work, though. And Reggie’s a packrat.”
“I want to peek in the window.”
Win grabbed his arm. “Are you crazy? Don’t press your luck.”
But TJ was already headed for the porch. Win hit his forehead with the heel of his hand and muttered an expletive. TJ jumped over the railing where the corner of the porch was windowless and crouched along the edge. Win watched from the river’s edge as his brother made it to a living room window, shielded his eyes, and peered inside. He crept around the entire porch and popped up where he started.
“The coast is clear.” He beckoned Win over.
