Bent Arrow (2 page)

A message dinged on his phone, so he did the Pavlovian thing and immediately clicked on it. His mother.

You need to come up to Nana’s house this weekend. Jedd, my insurance man, will meet you there on Saturday at 11. That should be enough driving time.

How about you ask me before you schedule appts for me? I work on Sat.

You’ll have to take it off. I need you here.

Luther couldn’t take it off without risking losing more hours, but he might be able to trade a shift with someone.

What for?
he sent back, feeling out how necessary his presence was.

There’s a leak. The basement has some standing water.

I’ll see what I can do, but you might need to deal with Jedd
, he stabbed into his phone.

Luther spent the next twenty minutes texting and calling various people while he paced from one end of his trailer to the other, telling them about a watery basement back home, eventually pulling out the sob story that the standing water was in his grandma’s house, and finally striking gold with Rick. “You’ll do it?”

“Yeah, man, but just so you get it, I’m coming out better off in the end.”

“Whatever. Take the extra hours. I need my shift covered.” He’d be giving up hours and overtime pay, but he’d be able to satisfy his mom.

“Shift starts at seven tonight,” Rick said.

“You’re on at five a.m. for at least a twelve hour shift on Saturday. Thanks for this.”

“And I don’t owe you.”

“Fine, Rick. You don’t owe me shit.”

Luther disconnected the call and let out a long-suffering sigh as he tried to figure out what to say to his mom without letting her think she could control him like this. He didn’t have the type of job that allowed him to be able to drive home with one text, at least if he wanted to keep said job.

Be there
was all he managed. No point in getting into a text argument that would end up in a phone argument. Erik wouldn’t want to listen in on that.

“Sorry,” Luther said to Erik because he’d been privy to all the details. “I’m sure you didn’t want to hear all that bitching and pleading.”

Erik pulled his head out from the utility closet, stood, and wiped his hands on a red rag before tucking it into his back pocket. His pretty mouth spread wide to reveal beautiful teeth. “That’s minor. You’d be amazed at how tame you were compared to what I’m used to. I’ve heard marriages ended over cell phones. Plus, I used to work out on the pipeline, so…. Mind if I…?” he asked, gesturing behind him.

“Make yourself at home.” Luther watched as Erik leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms, relaxed and confident, a stark contrast from the man he’d been nearly thirty minutes ago. He was taller and much more built than Luther’s trim body. Erik’s pecs bulged beneath his wash-worn company T-shirt, framed by meaty biceps. Yet despite the muscles, he looked… tamer, more refined than all the guys Luther worked with. Maybe it was the dark hair that fell in careless waves around his face or his green eyes that didn’t exactly
go
with the rest of his coloring. They made him look sweet rather than dangerous. He was beautiful, especially when he smiled like that.

“Working out on the pipeline, I heard a hell of a lot of disturbing things, especially when the guys were so proud of getting away with cheating. And worse.” Erik shook his head and scowled for a moment before smiling again. “Anyway, I’m not there anymore. I moved here for residential work in the man camps, which I prefer. But people live out their lives while I work like I’m a piece of furniture rather than the guy fixing their toilet. So I hear a lot.”

“Sounds like it,” Luther said, hoping Erik would keep on talking if it meant he could shamelessly stare at his face like this.

“Especially if it’s a longer job. Though most are short like this one.”

“Oh? Did you find out what was wrong?”

Erik nodded and said, “I think so,” as he bent down—revealing the arrow again—and pulled a wad of dripping something from the bottom of his bucket. “Your supply line was clogged with….”

“With? What is it?”

“I can’t be sure, but I got it out.”

“Good.”

“Let’s see if it works.” Erik seemed unaffected by the juddering noise as he turned on the kitchen faucet to first purge air, but then cloudy sludge was followed by a stream of glorious crystal-clear water pouring from the utilitarian faucet.

“I’m gonna check the bathroom.” Luther turned on the shower, the faucet, and even flushed the toilet, which refilled in record time despite the gallons of water currently being taken away by the drains.

Luther cheered, laughing with relief, even if he’d played off the frustration of having barely any water since he’d moved into the trailer earlier in the week. His smile was plastered in place as he shut everything down and rejoined Erik, who was washing his hands with the new bar of soap Luther had just put out that morning. He sniffed it and Luther said, “Oatmeal and coffee.”

“It’s nice.”

“Figured it should go in the kitchen since it smelled like food.”

Erik smiled, hands clean but dripping, so Luther pulled out a new roll of paper towels and handed him a few. “Uh… thanks. I usually wait to clean up at the motel.”

“That’s okay. If there was something stopping up the pipe this long, is it okay? Is the water safe to drink?”

“It should be. It’s coming from the aquifer, which I tested myself a month or so ago. If you want to allow the water to run for a few seconds before drinking it, you could. If you smell anything strange, call back, but I cleaned the pipe with a wire brush. I think you’re okay.”

“Thank you.”

Erik gathered his bucket and tools, neatly this time, methodically, and then headed toward the front door, hiking his pants up as he walked. He was going to step into the oblivion of the thousands of men working in these parts.

Luther took a steadying breath and said, “In case I was spot-on about that tattoo’s implications, I’m up for that.”

Erik stopped at the bottom of the stairs, boots crunching on gravel as he turned and allowed a soft smile to flitter across his face before he caught sight of Luther’s neighbor getting out of his truck. Erik’s expression turned stony until the guy waved and disappeared into his own trailer.

“I’ll keep your secrets,” Luther whispered, reading Erik’s apprehension.

Erik scowled as he rubbed a work-worn thumb across the wooden handrail. “Just so you know, those words aren’t quite the way I’d want things to go down between us.”

“Oh?”

Before he could ask for more details, Erik said, “But if you’re open to other… dalliances, I’m game.”

Luther took a few steps closer and sat on the top step as he smiled up at Erik. In a low voice he hoped came off as seductive rather than an ex-smoker’s hack, he said, “I’m up for anything, Hockey Boy. Make all my locker-room fantasies finally come true.”

Erik gave Luther a crooked smile as he passed him his phone. “Text yourself. And nothing like putting me under major pressure.”

“Oh?” Luther asked as he texted
Luther & Erik
to himself. “Had a few fantasies of your own, I see.”

Erik nodded as he took his phone back and pocketed it. “See you sometime soon, when you get back from your grandma’s house.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

TWO

F
LOOD

A
STEADY STREAM
of water trickled down the wall. It had been collecting in a low corner of his grandma’s basement for who knows how long. It was where no one had bothered to look, because they’d assumed all the water was in the unfinished part of the basement, until Luther stepped in sopping carpet and discovered that wasn’t the full extent of the damage. The old beige-and-orange shag was out on the lawn now, waiting for the trash company to haul it away.

His mom insisted it would dry in the sun and be usable again, but there was no way in hell Luther was ever going to allow that back in the house.
His
house, apparently. He was far too allergic to mold to even consider living with a carpet that had been soaked for who knows how long.

But he
wasn’t
going to move there. Right now his home was two hours away in a trailer where he was free to live however he wanted because no one truly knew him. By December he could be working four hours away with more new people who didn’t know him.

Luther threw on a raincoat and cinched up the hood, heading out the door of the walkout basement and into the steady rain. It was a beautiful property that overlooked the lake below. The slope of the land down to the water could be easily navigated when the land was dry, but right now it was slippery as hell, which was why his grandpa had built a set of wooden stairs down to the beach, the dock, and the boathouse.

Luther walked up the steep side yard to the front of the house, studying the foundation to see if he could pinpoint where the water was coming in. He’d already cleaned out the gutters, so he knew water was being carried away from the house. There had to be a hole somewhere, which wouldn’t be surprising, considering the foundation was made up of stone and mortar, not the uniformity of a poured foundation or even a cinderblock one.

There it was. The roof jutted out over the front porch, and now that it was raining a little harder, the water forcefully poured off the valley the roofline created, completely bypassing the gutter.

“How much work will this be?” he said, though no one was outside to listen.

He got closer and saw the erosion that had occurred, recalling how he used to help his grandpa fill in this section of the front garden with extra soil each spring to “make sure it slopes away from the house.” Even though his grandpa had been gone for five years, Luther could still hear his voice, deepened and rumbly from years of smoking.

“I can do this. I know how to fix this.”

He hopped in the car without telling his mom where he was headed. She insisted on hanging around upstairs, cooking and puttering while he worked, but she didn’t need to know his every move, even if she gobbled up any information he’d share.

At the hardware store, he gathered everything he could imagine to patch the foundation and adjust the angle of the earth. He knew it wasn’t a permanent solution, obviously, as his grandpa had been dealing with this since Luther was a boy. There had to be a better way to fix it, so he asked the owner of the store, Harold. He’d been there forever, so he’d most likely helped his grandpa with this same problem way back when.

“Not much you can do unless you dig around the foundation and put in drainage tiles. That was my advice years ago.”

“Mmm,” Luther said with a nod. “That’s a lot of work.”

“Not cheap, either. And we don’t have a decent plumbing-and-drainage guy in town anymore.”

“Any other ideas that don’t cost a fortune?”

“Rain barrel?”

“Got that here?”

“Nah. Look at garden catalogs online. There’s some fancy ones out there.”

“Okay. A big fan to help dry things out?”

“Sure. Got that.”

Harold helped load everything into the truck and shook Luther’s hand, smiling for the first time as he said, “Glad to see you again, Luther. Your grandparents’ place has been empty for too long.”

Luther didn’t know what to say. His grandma had moved to the nursing home just a few months after his grandpa had died, but her mind had been going for years before his grandpa’s heart attack. Everyone in town knew everyone’s business, so Harold had the whole story already. He also knew Luther rarely returned home. Luther forced himself to smile, though all he could manage was a closed-mouth one. “Thanks for this.”

“Anytime. Welcome home.”

Luther gave a sturdy wave before driving the twenty miles back to the lake, which was just shy of the Canadian border. He left most of the supplies in the covered truck bed, only pulling out what he needed to fix the slope of the soil around the house and patch the foundation. He worked the rest of the morning.

When he got back in the house, water no longer appeared to be coming inside, so he used the submersible utility pump to get the standing water out of the basement, directing the hose out the door and the flow of water down the hill toward the lake. Anything else, he mopped up, then wrung the slop out in the yard before he brought the industrial fan in to further dry out the space.

“Luther, I made some soup and sandwiches,” his mother called down the stairwell.

“Okay. Be right up.” He’d reached a good stopping point for now. Maybe for the day. He slipped out of his wet boots and left them in the basement with great faith they wouldn’t float away now.

“How’s it going?” his mom asked as Luther washed his hands at the kitchen sink before joining her at the table.

“Okay. Found where the water’s been coming in.”

“You don’t think it was a one-time thing?”

He scoffed. “No, Ma. That sort of a leak is far from a one-time thing. Grandpa fixed it for years.”

“Mmm,” she said as she turned and looked out the window.

Luther looked too. Rain was coming down in sheets, obscuring the view to the large lake he’d spent every summer on during his childhood. He practically lived at his grandpa and grandma’s for the warm months, not to mention most of his Christmas breaks too, playing hockey on the lake and ice fishing.

“When are you going to bring a nice girl home?” his mom asked as she looked at Luther with weary eyes. “Make this house a home again.”

“I’m not sure it’s worth it.”

“Grandma thought it was.”

“It’s all she had.”

His mom pressed her lips together in an exaggerated moue and nodded. “It was. And she wanted you to have it. Now you’re ready to do the bare minimum in repairs and sell to the highest bidder?”

Luther studied the lines carved into the wooden table that had been there forever, something he probably did with a Hot Wheels car or a Transformer. He traced them, feeling the indentations against his skin.

“Ma—”

“Stop. No excuses. This is your place, and you need to fix it up. It’s time you settled down. Stop running all over the place, sleeping in God knows what kind of facilities those employers of yours call ‘fit.’”