Big City Little Rebel

“Small blonde with the big attitude.” He eyed the refrigerator and motioned for Kyle to grab him a bottle of water, too.

“What about her?” He tossed the water bottle across the room and then sat in front of the desk.

Two turns and the lid twisted free. “We made the news, and of course, the reporters keyed in because I kissed her.” He closed his eyes, sipped the water, and remembered how the almost kiss moved him.

Not deep enough.

Not long enough.

It was simply not enough.

“You kissed her, and she left. Seems like a solid plan. Who knew your kisses would send them running for the hills?” Kyle put his feet on the desk and rocked on the chair’s back legs.

Watching his uncle totter on two legs was too perfect an opportunity to pass up. “Screw you,” Beau said and toed at the chair to send him crashing to the ground. The thud of his head hitting the hard floor was loud. “That’s why you should always wear your safety hat. It’s designed to protect your hard head, idiot.”

When Kyle rose from the floor, he rubbed his head and laughed. There was a dent in the old industrial flooring and a piece came loose. “Shit, son, I dented your floor.” He tapped the top of his head. “Industrial strength here too.” He grabbed his hard hat from the corner and walked out.

The dent meant the floor beneath was rotting as well. It would be another shoring-up adventure to attack. He wondered once again whether the building’s address was a bad omen.

He pulled the corner of the tile loose and inspected it. It was the old glue-downs they used during the ’60s. If he didn’t have a report showing differently, he would have bet the tiles contained asbestos.

He tossed a vinyl scrap on his desk and went out to make the rounds. The smell of sawdust and sweat filled the air. Which meant workers were doing their jobs, and progress was being made. Hopefully, by the end of the day, the new beams and floor joists would be well on their way.

* * *

Bobbie

By the time she woke at three, she had just enough time to shower and check her email before going to work. She’d never let her boss down. Midge was like a second mother to her, and why shouldn’t she be? She’d been her mother’s best friend and helped raise her. Working at Spurs brought her closer to Midge, which made her mother seem not so far away.

Every time she thought of her mother’s death, she boiled inside. She couldn’t let it go, and despite Beau seeming to be a nice guy, she had to press on.

With a few minutes to spare before she needed to leave, she brought up the site for the Endangered Species Protection Program. She’d contacted them several times to report a sighting of a burrowing owl at 911 Larimer. It wasn’t hard to find an endangered bird on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife site, and when she’d snuck into the building one night to see what Aspen Construction planned to do, she heard strange sounds and could have sworn it was the hoot of an owl. Of course, she knew it wasn’t, but they didn’t.

She explained she wasn’t an ornithologist but a weekend birdwatcher and a concerned citizen. So far, they hadn’t responded to her email, but she had set other things in motion. There was the permits department, a planned call to the utility department to report the gas smell, and several more personal appearances at the site. Her visits weren’t as awful as she imagined them, but that probably had something to do with the way Beau made her insides swirl.

She rushed to her closet to dress for work. Typically, she’d have pulled on torn jeans and a Spurs T-shirt, but maybe Beau would come in. She dolled herself up on the off chance that would happen. She wore low-rise jeans and a deep, V-neck T-shirt. It wasn’t much of an upgrade, but concessions had to come in tiny increments. She finger-combed her hair and rummaged through her drawer to find the perfect lip gloss—cherry—just for him.