Marie turned away to ring up Marla Martinson and Charlie inquired after Marla’s sister.
“He doesn’t know what he’s doing at all,” Charlie continued when she’d left. “He’s just buying wood and nails and trying to prop the thing up like plastering more icing on a crumbling gingerbread house.”
He got horrified all over again just saying it. Marie’s smile said, Mmm, gingerbread.
“And I think...”
Charlie would never share these suspicions with just anyone—despite Marie’s wry eyebrow, he wasn’t a gossip—but Marie was a paragon of discretion. Most people didn’t know a thing about her. Even Charlie, after ten years working beside her every day and eight or so of being friends, knew less about some aspects of her life than he did about some regular customers’.
“I assumed he was staying in a hotel or with family while he worked on the house, but I think he’s sleeping there.”
Marie’s eyebrows said, Poor kid.
“Right? He’s liable to get himself killed, sleeping there—the damn roof could collapse! So I need to help him work on the place. I just have to figure out how to convince him of that.”
Marie’s eyebrows went into overdrive: You don’t need to help him; you want to. You’re not responsible for him. And if he doesn’t want your help then it’s not up to you to convince him.
“Your eyebrows are certainly talkative today,” Charlie grumbled.
Marie smiled sweetly at him, “Yeah, they tend to seem that way when the person looking at them already knows exactly what I’m gonna say.”
Chapter Five
Rye
“I’ve built houses,” Rye mimicked broadly at Marmot. “You don’t know what you’re doing. I own a hardware store and I’m an asshole who goes around telling people they’re bad at everything.”
Marmot hissed. Rye agreed.
“Fuck that guy. Fuck him and his...his fucking shoulders and his hands and his power tools. He’s a fucking tool. Asshole.”
Rye started to punch the wall but stopped at the last second, worried the whole house might fall down as a result. That just made him madder because for once he was in the position to punch a wall he owned and he still couldn’t.
“Fuck!” he yelled, and stomped furiously.
The wood gave way with an ominous thrunk and Rye’s leg burst through. For a sickening moment Rye thought he’d broken his ankle, then he realized the sharp pain was just jagged ends of wood digging into his skin from the edges of the hole.
“Hulk smash,” he said softly, and slumped down where he was, leg still stuck in the hole. Marmot sat down next to him as if to guard her stupid human with his leg in a hole. “Fuck, Marm.”
Marmot commenced cleaning herself, unconcerned, and Rye felt something move against the skin of his ankle.
“Gah, fuck!” He jerked his leg out of the hole, imagining all the revolting things that could be creeping around down there. And he’d basically given them a portal to climb up and into the place where he slept. Wonderful.
Marmot sniffed at the hole, sneezed, and walked away.
Rye tugged up his pant leg warily. Scratches and smears of dirt mostly, but one long cut over his shin where the skin was the thinnest. Rye wiped at the blood, hoping it’d just reveal a scrape, but apparently the wood wasn’t as soft as his ability to stomp through it had implied. Blood welled out of the cut and Rye swore.
He’d gotten a gallon of water at the gas station for drinking and brushing his teeth, and he soaked his bandana to clean the cut, swiping at the bits of wood and dirt in it. Finally he just poured a slug of water over his leg hoping it’d wash out anything bad and tied a clean bandanna around it before pulling his pant leg down.
The second he didn’t have the cut to focus on anymore he realized he was trembling. Anger, frustration, fear; take your pick. He fisted his hands, trying to resist the urge to scream. Then he remembered there was fuck-all within hearing distance in this clearing in the middle of a state with like seven people in it and roared.
“You think you can fucking defeat me, you piece of shit?” he yelled at the house. “Your rotten wood and fucking falling down walls and stupid no electricity? Fuck you!”
He felt a tiny bit better.
* * *
He awoke to screams. He’d’ve thought he was still dreaming except that Marmot clearly heard them too, as she was scrambling up his chest to escape the sleeping bag. She darted away into the dark, her movements silent.
“Shit,” Rye muttered. That damn cat was too brave for her own good. He fumbled with the flashlight he kept next to the sleeping bag and stepped into his shoes. He forgot about the cut on his leg and hissed in pain when he bumped it with the flashlight.
It was freezing outside the polar warmth of the sleeping bag and he briefly considered climbing right back in, but although Marmot acted like a tiger, she was so small.