It only made me annoyed.
I didn’t buy into that English idea of class and royalty. I couldn’t care less about the queen and her little brats. They were reality TV stars, as far as I was concerned, since they had no bearing on my life, and hardly any bearing on the lives of the British people. All that pomp and circumstance, their jewels and their money, it was tacky, old-fashioned, and silly.
Lady Fluke bought into that idea of class, but I rejected it completely. I built factories and helped folks that would never be accepted into high society. I hung around with guys like Nicky, and thousands of men and women were employed all over the world in factories I helped rebuild. People like Fluke and the queen would see those people lose their livelihoods before giving up an ounce of their privilege.
Nicky grunted and started walking, jabbing his pen in the air at nothing. Jude gave me a look and I smiled at her, holding up a hand in a just wait gesture. She rolled her eyes as Nicky talked to himself quietly, gesturing wildly, before abruptly stopping and turning back to face us.
“Three months,” he said. “We can get started in a couple weeks. I think the whole project would take three months. Two to flip the place and get it up to code, and one to get the machines in place. Then you can start making cookies again and make this whole fucking place smell better.”
I laughed and looked at Jude, who tugged at a strand of her hair, head tilted to one side. “What do you think?” I asked her.
She nodded once. “Three months would work,” she said. “Faster is better. But three months isn’t bad.”
“Better than I thought,” I said.
Nicky grunted. “That’s because I’m gonna bring in my best team and make sure you get taken care of,” he said, rapidly bouncing his pen off his thigh. “You’re a good guy, Bret, you bring me a lot of work, so least I can do is help you out, you know?”
“I appreciate it,” I said, and couldn’t help but notice Jude rolling her eyes ever so slightly. She thought my whole blue-collar thing was a joke, but it wasn’t funny to me, and wasn’t bullshit, either—I got into the factory building and rehabbing industry for a reason. The world’s been changing for a long time, and folks are getting left behind. But if some jobs can stick around, jobs that pay decent enough wages, then maybe guys like Nicky and his family, maybe they have a shot at having a decent life, at taking a little piece of the privilege and the money that people like Lady Fluke take for granted.
“I’m gonna go look at the tower,” Nicky said, wandering off in that direction. “I’ve got a feeling that’s gonna be a real problem. Old as shit insulation, and all that wiring, my god, and it’s so fucking tall, gonna need a fucking crane in here to reach the top and…” He kept talking to himself as he walked off, shaking his head the whole time.
“I like him,” Jude said once he’d pushed through the doors at the far side of the room. “I don’t like that it’s going to take three months, but I can see why you’re hiring him.”
“Trust me,” I said, nodding my chin in Nicky’s direction. “He’s the best. He’s a little weird, I’ll admit that, but the guy knows what he’s doing.”
“You’re the expert,” she said with a dismissive shrug, then turned to look back toward the loading bay doors, then paused and frowned, eyebrows knitting inward. “Who’s this guy?”
I followed her gaze and went still. A man stood in the doorway at the far end of the room looking around like he’d never seen a warehouse in his life. He had dark hair slicked back and wore a black suit with gray pinstripes and shiny black shoes. His eyes were dark and his skin was a deep khaki tan, and he nodded once to himself when he spotted us and began to walk over. His arms swung in big arcs with each wide step and his lips pulled back in a grin, his teeth almost impossibly white. Rings glittered on all of his fingers.
“Hey there,” he said, and raised a hand in greeting. “I might be a little lost. Are you folks the owners here?”
I stepped forward, instinctively putting myself between him and Jude. I got a very strange feeling about this man—something about him set me on edge. Maybe the rings, or the greasy slicked-back hair, or the smarmy smile, or the dead look in his eyes, or just the fact that he’d walked in here like he was about to tear this place to pieces.
“Can I help you with something?” I asked, and his grin only got wider as he stopped a few feet away, hands spread to the sides of him like he wanted to show that he wasn’t holding a gun. There was nothing overtly hostile and yet I couldn’t help but feel like he was about to do something very, very bad.