Hotbox (37 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Lou easily gave me the next Saturday off
since I hardly ever took days off,
and I was excited to go camping with Jayden and her friends. The Thursday before, however, was a very trying day.

I had a full day scheduled in the shop
,
and I dove right in to get everything done before the weekend. Marcus and I were in the middle of dropping in an
entirely rebuilt
396
into a ‘67
El Camino
SS
when Lou hollered that I had a phone call. He saw that I was busy and told me never mind, but he came back a minute later and said that it was urgent.

I told Marcus I’d be right back and hurried to answer the phone. “This is Ty.”

“Ty, sorry to bother you,
”
Dean
said
without any
true
feeling of remorse.

I groaned. “I’m in the middle of something. Call back later.”
             
“Yeah, I see that. That’s a nice looking engine you got there. What is it, a 350?”

I looked out the window until I saw Dean sitting in a car across the street.

“What do you want?”

“T
he boss wants you to meet him
.”

“
Now? Come on,
I
gotta huge day
. Can’t you pick a different
time
?”

I
rubbed my forehead in frustration
while Marcus (and now Mike) waited impatiently for me to return. Lou
entered
the office from the bathroom and sat down behind the counter.

“
I suggest you do it, Ty. I guess I’ll have to report you’re being uncooperative.”

He hung up, and I released a silent sigh.
Lou didn’t ask questions because he’d been told Dean was my “cousin,” always complaining to me about “family issues.”

I mostly worked on the El Camino for the rest of the day with Marcus, and Mike
and
Doyle
worked on anything else that came in. By the end of the day I was pretty tired. Not exactly from physical
labor
, but from the stress of
the
job
I was expected to
do
later that night.
I didn’t know how much of this I could take.

As I pulled out of the parki
ng lot I received a call from The M
an himself.

“Tyler,
I n
eed to speak with you about tonight’s
job
.
It’s been changed to
Saturday.”

Of course…
Why couldn’t it be on any other day?

“I’m not
going to be here
this weekend
,” I replied
.

“Tyler,” he warned in his kindest
, most threatening
tone
.
“I said I n
eed to speak with you about
the
job
. Meet me at
Perdita’s
.”

He hung up.

I sighed a very frustrated sigh, but made my way to 14
th
Avenue. Along the way I thought through as many excuses that I could to tell Jayden why I wouldn’t be going with her this weekend.
None of them seemed good enough;
not even the
real
reason why.

I made my way into the back entry of
Perdita’s
.
Cue
was standing in the hallway, but he said nothing as
I
turned into the private dining room that “the boss” often ate in. Without a word I sat down across from him and waited for my fate to be sealed. He was reading the newspaper and didn’t even look up.
With a chuckle
he slid it over to me and said, “The police believe
a part of
our business has moved out of town.”

I glanced down at the paper in front of
me and read the title
“
Have T
he Drugs Moved On?
”

“W
ow, you’ve sure fooled them
.
”

He only smiled
at my sarcasm
and took a bite of his food. After a few seconds of silence he looked at me and said, “Do I have a disgruntled employee?” He shook his head a
nd
clicked his tongue. “I do apologize, Tyler, for overlooking your unhappiness. What can I do to make it up to you?”

“Cut me loose.”

He laughed. “I
could
do that,” he replied, pretending to think about it, “but
you are
my favorite. No one likes to give up the best part of their job.”

“What can I do to become the exception?”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’ve given this some thought?” He studied me carefully and didn’t say anything for a
while
. Finally he slowly smiled and said, “You want to marry her, don’t you?”

I sat without moving and he continued to eye me.

“You want a nice, normal li
fe, with the perfect wife and an armful
of little babies. Am I
right
?”

I p
aused before answering,
“
Yes
.”

He stared at me for another moment before turning his attention back to his food. After he took another bite, he put the fork down and folded his arms across his chest.

“Tell me what’s going on this weekend
.”

I
let out a quiet sigh before saying,
“We were going camping with a bunch of her friends. It’s very important to her.”

“
Hmm, sounds fabulous
. Is it for the entire weekend?”

“Yes.”

He thought for a
second
. “Very well, Tyler. I won’t interfere. You go ahead and go. Have fun. I’ll take on the consequences myself.”

I knew he wanted my gratitude, but I tried to remain neutral. The sickest part was that I
was
grateful. That was his power. He held so much over you, that any
bit of leeway he gave was treasured.

“So what’s the price I’m going to pay for your
generosity
?” I asked.

He smiled. “Nothing, Tyler. Like I said, you are my favorite. Despite what you think, I do want you to be happy. I’m very pleased that you’ve fallen in
love with a girl. Especially Miss
Adams.” He lightly laughed. “I can’t get over how beautiful she is. And from what I’ve learned, she is a very sweet young lady. I’m very proud of you, son.”

             
“Gee,
d
ad
, I’m so pleased you approve.”

             
He clasped his hands together and laughed. “Oh, I do love to hear that word! Tyler, you really make my life worth living. I’ll let you get back to your future wife. Maybe you can go home and make some beautiful babies that can call me grandpa.”

             
Just the thought of
my kids calling him grandpa
made me want to throw up.

             
“Hey, Ty, it’s Matt!
Can you hear me okay?” he said
over the phone Friday evening.

             
“Uh, yeah, barely. What’s up?”

             
“Oh, I just couldn’t get a hold of Jayden for some reason. You guys heading up still?”

             
“Yeah, we’re just loading up the last few things.”

             
“Okay. We got
all the
tents set up already
, but ask Jay if she can grab an extra one for Josh and Silvia
for
tomorrow
.”

             
“
Sure.
”

“All right,
I’ll see you up here.”

             
I hung up just as Jayden was throwing a backpack into the cab of my truck.

             
“
You ready?” she asked.

             
“
Yeah, y
ou got everything?”

             
“Yep.”

             
“Is that all you’re bringing for clothes
?” I asked, peering at her backpack.

             
“It’s all I need. Why?”

             
I shrugged. “You pack light.”

             
“Wait until you see Cali’s suitcase,” she smiled. “If there’s anything
I need I’ll have a whole closet-
full to choose from.”

             
“I can only imagine,” I replied, backing out of her driveway. “Does she bring her entire beauty shop with her?”

             
Jayden shook her head. “You think you’re joking, but it’s really the truth.”

             
“Oh, I’m
not even joking.
I’m pretty sure I can picture it.” We were driving for a
few seconds
before I asked, “So am I
supposed
to notice your hair, or is it something I shouldn’t be able to notice?”

             
She smiled
and shrugged her shoulders
. “That depends. What do you think of it?”

             
We pulled up to a stoplight so I took a moment to run my hand through it and examine the change. “I think it looks good. It is pretty subtle though, just like she promised.
It doesn’t really look that different.
To me i
t’s still…gold
.
What do
you
think of it?”

             
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess
it’s
just hair. She’s already talking about ‘next time.
’
”

             
“Then you have to come up with a really outrageous trade. What’s something you’ve always wanted her to do?”

             
With a laugh she said, “I’m sure there are lots of things. I’ll have to think about it.”

             
We drove east for about forty
minutes, and it was
six-thirty
when we turned onto the privat
e road that took us to our destination
. I parked where the other vehicles were near the cabin and looked around at the surroundings. It was a really cool
spot
.
The lake spanned right in front of us
where we stood, and the tents were pitched sporadically above the bank to our right. The boat launch was
straight out from
the cabin and I could see
that
Chris’s boat trailer was already empty.

             
“Hey, you guys!” someone called from the direction of the tents. I think it was Stacie.

             
We made our way over and
Stacie and Cali
were sitting at a picnic table. Cali was doing Stacie’s nails
, and they were both happy to see us
.

             
“Everyone else is on the boat,”
Cali
told us. She looked at her watch and said, “They’ll be heading in right now, but if you want to go out, I know Chris won’t care.”

             
“I can wait until tomorrow,” Jayden said glancing at me, and I agreed.

             
“Good, I’ll do your nails next,” Cali smiled at
her
.

             
We heard the boat pull up just then and Jayden stood on the bank and waved.

             
“You gonna come out?” Chris hollered.

             
“No, maybe tomorrow!
” she
yelled
back.

             
They pulled the boat up to the dock and Matt hopped off to secure it. “Hey
,
Ty! Come check this out!”
he
called.

Jayden smiled at me and sat down
at the table
to talk to the girls, so I made my way to the dock.