Page 63 of All Mine

“I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I’m still a general studies major.”

“You’ll figure it out,” I said, yawning. It was time to lie down.

“People change what they want to be all the time,” Sloane said. She spoke from experience. The writing was her second career. Most locals around town were aware of who she was, but no one made a big deal about it and took her privacy seriously.

A wet figure burst through the back door. “I got bone to pick,” Camden slurred, the smell of an oak amber liquor wafting across the room.

“Why are you all wet?” Sloane asked.

He stopped in his tracks and stared at Lucy and Lacy. “Lauren?”

“No,” I called, trying to clear the fog from my skull. Why was he here?

“How many of that girl is there?” he spoke in a volume that only a drunk person believes a whisper.

“Just one,” the twins answered in unison, reviving their old Halloween prank. I was in too much of a haze to appreciate it.

“Shit.” Camden backed into the doorway, and Sloane moved forward, pushing him back onto the landing.

“Come on, Carter, you’re drunk. I’ll drive you back to the hotel,” Sloane said.

“I have to say, Lauren,” Camden said slowly. “I’m sorry… so sorry. I’ve been such an ass. You have to believe me.”

“You are an ass. But, I don’t want to hear,” the words pouring from my fog-addled mind like cold molasses. I’d followed them to the door, and the movement jostled my stomach. “I don’t need your shit. You’re not welcome here. This gathering is for the women and not the penis-possessing people. And you, Camden, are a peni—” The contents of my stomach emptied onto the landing and Camden’s shoes.

Twenty-Four

Camden

I steered with one hand and carefully ate the donut with the other. The coffee and donuts from the Gas-n-Go weren’t as good as what I could get from the bakery, but they also didn’t come with a hefty glare and a cold shoulder. I didn’t know how much longer I could stay away from Lauren, and the urge to beg her forgiveness was overwhelming.

It was a stupid move to go there. I could have lost my job. But I, too, was a few sheets to the wind and hadn’t considered the ramifications of my actions, and I had to toss those shoes. At least Sloane put me in her car and drove me back to the hotel.

That woman gave me the weirdest sense that I’d seen her somewhere before. But where?

Barnes Construction sat one block off the town square in an old one-story white clapboard house. I parked in the lot and adjusted the air vent to blow cool air on my face, taking several deep breaths. There was a chance that Jonah would tell me to go to hell. But, I hoped he was a man who could put a business deal ahead of personal matters. I slid from the car before I could talk myself out of it.

Inside the front the door, the old formal living room was converted into a waiting room, with a receptionist’s desk and a row of black folding chairs. Through the arched doorway sat a long conference table surrounded by chairs in what I assumed was the former home’s dining room. The white walls held several framed photographs of several buildings in various phases of construction. A lone man sat behind the desk, tapping away on a computer.

“May I help you?” he asked, not looking up.

“Is Jonah in?”

He glanced up from the computer and did a double-take. “I uh, will see…” He spun around in his chair and disappeared down the hallway in a flash.

A minute later, he was back. “Have a seat,” he said, “Jonah will be with you in a minute.”

I did as he asked. Was it possible he’d leave me waiting a long time as retribution? The guy at the desk recognized me. He continued his work, typing away, only occasionally to stop and scowl at me.

A few minutes later, Jonah appeared in the doorway wearing jeans and a Barnes Construction Polo shirt with several pens in the breast pocket. “Camden, sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, offering a hand.

“No worries,” I said, shaking his hand. “Thanks for seeing me without an appointment. I’ll be brief.”

“Come on back to my office,” he said.

I followed him down the short hallway to what was one of two bedrooms now converted.

On his neat desk sat a computer with dual monitors and a keyboard. The wall behind the desk held a giant framed set of blueprints. Otherwise, the office was bare bones with no frills or clutter.

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