Best Laid Plans (Garnet Run 2)

“I get it,” Rye said. “That’s why I stopped.”

Charlie nodded and his eyes scanned the horizon. Sometimes you could see elk around this time of year.

“Why didn’t you come into the store?” he asked finally. “I—” Waited for you. Wanted to see you. Needed to make sure you were okay.

Rye’s eyes darted to Charlie’s mouth.

“Because I was fucking embarrassed. Obviously.”

His voice was acid but his eyes were pained and his cheeks flushed.

“About the kiss.”

“Yeah, about the kiss. Of course about the kiss,” he snapped.

Charlie didn’t know what to say. He was embarrassed too, just for different reasons. Ones he had no intention of discussing with Rye at this time.

After a few moments, Rye sighed. “Okay, can we do this?” He gestured to his leg and Charlie nodded and followed him back to the porch.

“You have demo dirt all over you,” Charlie muttered, rolling up the leg of his sweatpants.

“And you have a really irritating way of making every sentence sound like an insult. Did you know that?”

Charlie looked up into gray eyes narrowed with anger. Jack had told him that before. Okay, Dad, Jack would say in his late teens whenever he thought Charlie was being overbearing. A silly choice, since their own father hadn’t been overbearing himself. Whenever Jack would say it, though, Charlie was hit with a complicated wave of anger and shame and satisfaction that usually made him walk out of the room and squeeze his eyes shut until the wave broke over him and he stopped shaking.

“Yeah. I guess I did,” Charlie said. “Sorry.”

He unpeeled the dressing and Rye hissed as the gauze stuck to the wound. That wouldn’t have happened if Rye had just let him take care of it the day after like he’d said—but he stopped himself from verbalizing that, since it would sound very, very disapproving.

Charlie had thought they’d be doing this in the store, so he’d assumed they’d have running water. But he was pretty sure if he asked Rye to come back to his house he’d get a door slammed in his face.

“Hang on a sec,” he said, and jogged to grab a bottle of water from the truck.

Despite Rye’s neglect, the wound looked no worse for wear. It wasn’t inflamed or weeping, and Charlie’s heart stopped pounding. He applied more antibacterial ointment and put on fresh gauze. He carefully rolled the sweats down over Rye’s leg and stood, offering him a hand up.

“Thanks,” Rye said softly, gesturing to his leg and to the bag of his clean clothes Charlie’d brought.

Clearly, this was the way it was with Rye. He would never seek help out; he would only accept help that came to him.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Charlie said. “I’ll help you.”

Rye blinked at him.

“Help me.”

“With the house. Obviously, with the house,” he teased.

Rye quirked a small smile.

“I’ll help you demo. I can get some friends to help. We’ll tear it down and get a sense of what would need to be done to rebuild. Then we’ll make a plan. But this is not a joke or a game. If we do this, you have to listen to me when I tell you shit’s not safe.”

“Why?” Rye asked.

“Because that shit will get you killed! I already told—”

“Why are you helping me? After what I did,” Rye clarified.

Rye’s lips, soft on his for just one moment.

Charlie windshield-wipered the thought away.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Is that supposed to be an answer?”

Charlie couldn’t tell Rye the real reasons. I couldn’t stand to see anything bad happen to you. I don’t really wanna let you out of my sight in case something bad does happen. You make me happy for some reason I haven’t quite figured out yet. You’re the most interesting thing to happen to me in years. I don’t want you to go back to Seattle because you can’t make this work.

“I like demo,” Charlie said simply. “I like projects. You’ve got a project. Besides, you’re clearly helpless without me,” he added just to watch Rye’s nostrils flare wide enough to swallow his nose. “It’ll be fun.”

“Yeah, fun, great,” Rye murmured. “I can’t pay you. I have, like, a thousand bucks to my name. I don’t suppose that would cover building a house?”

Obviously Rye knew it wouldn’t, but Charlie was pretty sure he had no clue the magnitude—in time, work, or money—of a project like building a house.

“No,” Charlie said. “But there are loans and ways to get cheap materials. We’ll talk to the bank and see what your options are. As for demo, though, I can get Jack and Simon to help, and a few buddies who’ll help us do the work if we buy pizza and let them listen to terrible honky-tonk while they work.”

“Why?” Rye asked again.

“I guess they just really like a banjo.”

“No, I mean—”

“I know what you meant. Because sometimes people like to help and it has nothing to do with who they’re helping. Because there’s not that much to do around here on the weekends. Because these folks grew up building things themselves and this is what they do. Because they like me and want to help me out. Take your pick.”