Best Laid Plans (Garnet Run 2)

Rye winced.

“I don’t think so. My credit is... Well, I don’t have much. And what I do have is bad.”

Charlie frowned. “I wonder if you could get a mortgage against the property itself.”

He did some quick calculations in his head. If Rye could get the mortgage and then refinance...

“I don’t know what that means, but if it happens through a bank then probably the same issues apply.”

“I don’t suppose you happen to have very rich parents?”

Rye glared at him.

“Friends?”

“Yeah I was crashing on a couch in a tiny apartment with five other people, a dog, and a baby cuz my friends are rolling in it.”

Charlie took a moment to imagine prickly Rye living with a baby.

“Well, I don’t think you have many other choices, then,” Charlie said. “Let’s go talk to someone at the bank. You won’t know if you don’t ask.”

“Dude, I told you.”

Charlie took in the defeated slump of Rye’s shoulders, the slouch of his head. He looked utterly hopeless and Charlie wanted to take it all away. He wanted nothing more than to have the perfect solution, gift wrap it, and place it in Rye’s wringing hands.

“We’ll go to the GRCFCU. Talk it all through.” At Rye’s blank look, he added, “The credit union.”

The blank look didn’t go away. “Charlie. No one in their right mind will give me a loan. Or a mortgage. Or a whatever. I’ve got no...anything.”

“Let’s just go get all the information. Then we can make a plan.”

This had been one of Charlie’s first and deepest lessons all those years ago, after his parents died: gather all the information first. You might think you know, but you don’t know, and there’s no sense having a reaction until you do.

Rye shook his head and slouched back onto his chair. He opened his mouth and before he could doom-monger anymore, Charlie put a hand on his arm.

“A community credit union doesn’t have the same requirements as other banks. There might be more wiggle room than you think. Worst case scenario, they’ll say no, and you’re in the same position you’re in now. Right?”

Rye sighed and it seemed to come from his very depths.

“Okay,” he said.

“Let’s go.”

Charlie rose.

“Oh, now? Okay.”

Rye shoved his phone and wallet in his pocket and looked at Charlie expectantly.

“Do you want to change?” Charlie suggested.

Rye was wearing tight black jeans blown out at the knees and a black long-sleeved T-shirt with some kind of undersea monster holding a wrecked ship in its tentacles and the name of a band Charlie had never heard of arced across the chest in letters dripping blood into the ocean of blood that held the ship and the sea monster. His hair was loose and the smeared remains of yesterday’s kohl darkened his eyes.

“Oh, no, I’m okay,” Rye said, pulling on a boot.

“Er, I meant that you should probably change. Bank, you know? Helps to look professional. Make a good first impression.”

Rye blinked at him. “Changing my clothes doesn’t change my credit, Charlie.”

He stomped into his other boot.

“No, it’s just...how things are done.”

Rye cocked his head and Charlie wondered if he was being contrary or if he sincerely believed that things like first impressions and professionalism didn’t matter.

“I don’t have any of the kind of clothes you’re talking about,” Rye said. “Nothing with buttons or a pocket protector.”

“Do you have a shirt that isn’t a horror movie poster?”

Rye looked scandalized.

“It’s a Carapace shirt.”

Charlie gave him a look.

“Fine, look for yourself.”

Rye stomped into his room and dumped the contents of his duffel bag onto the bed for Charlie’s perusal.

It was all black band shirts except for a few worn white undershirts and a peach T-shirt with a cartoon vagina on it that said GET OUT OF MY CUNT, CUNTS. Charlie laid it aside with the rest.

There was no way that his own clothes would fit Rye so he returned to the black shirts. One of them just had a large red triangle on the back and was blank on the front. He held it out to Rye.

“What’s funny is that Horseshoe Crab Mafia has the filthiest lyrics out of any of these bands,” Rye said.

“May be, but since they aren’t printed on the shirt I think it’s your best bet. Do any of your jeans not have holes?”

Rye pointed to the only pair of pants that were in the bag. They were...leather?

“These are your only other pants.”

Rye nodded, a glint in his eye.

Charlie sighed.

“Okay, well, at least change the shirt.”

He turned to leave the room and give Rye privacy while he changed and heard a little snort of laughter.

When Rye came back out of the bedroom Charlie considered him.

“Maybe tie your hair back?”

Rye flipped his head over and gathered his hair up in a messy knot on top of his head.

“Um, no. What about, like...a braid?”

A smirk hovered at the corner of Rye’s mouth as he took his hair down. Looking directly at Charlie, he braided it, securing the braid with an elastic band he took from around his wrist.