He leaned against the side of the truck, tucked his phone in his jacket pocket, crossed his arms, and yawned.
“Rick’s used to me being late,” he said. “But, man, the guy’s a tyrant. Remind me again why we haven’t quit.”
Because he saved both our lives, I thought. I knew Caleb was thinking the same thing.
The night I flew to Esther Falls City in Manitoba, the night when my dad picked me up from the airport, was the same night I met Rick for the first time.
I’d lived there before, until I was eight years old, and then my parents divorced and Raven had moved us to Toronto. Then one day, she sent me to Esther Falls for good. I hated it. I found out later that the court gave my dad full custody of me. He didn’t want me, but it was a way to hurt her. Even when I lived in his house, I rarely saw him. We never spent time together.
I was the new kid in town. A teenager who hated everything and everyone. An angry kid looking for trouble
wherever he could find it. And when I didn’t find it, I created it.
Instead of having dinner with my dad, I escaped into town and looked for trouble. Trouble came in the form of a newly constructed building. It was ten stories high and so pristine that the windows gleamed.
I broke in and found it empty. Some of the walls still needed paint. I found unopened cans of paint, brushes, and tools. I opened the cans, abandoned the brushes, and threw the liquid on walls and ceilings instead. I picked up tools and used them to break thousands of dollars’ worth of windows and doors.
That was when Rick found me. He was the contractor, and he came to check the building that night. He was so angry I thought he was going to kill me. But I was confident that I could beat him up if he tried to hurt me.
I ran away, but he caught me easily, shocking me with his strength. He told me I could pay for the damages by working for him for free. I told him to fuck off. He said he’d call the police on me if I didn’t. The next day was the first day I started working for Rick.
I didn’t know what compelled him not to report me to the police. Didn’t know what made him take me under his wing, train and teach me the ins and outs of the business. But he changed my life.
When he thought I was ready, he introduced me to one of his big-shot clients who bought a cabin and wanted it renovated. That became my first freelance gig and earned me a big, fat check. Word spread around, and I got so many projects that I had to quit school for three years and keep working, building my rep. Now I had more than enough saved up to choose which projects I wanted to work on or if I wanted to take a break from my own projects—like I was doing now—and help out Rick now and then. As much as he wanted me to be on my own, I knew he missed me and it made him happy when I worked with him.
I’d paid for those damages with my labor a long time ago, and now he was the one paying me. I’d have worked for him for free if he’d let me.
Caleb and I first met at one of Rick’s reno projects. We were troubled teens, angry at the world and blaming ourselves and everyone else around us for the mess that was our lives. We were uncontrollable, didn’t give a damn about anything, and on our way to throwing our future to whatever trouble we could find.
I was already doing demos for Rick for a couple of months before Caleb started. The crew knew to stay away from me. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, didn’t give a rat’s ass about eating lunch with them or going for drinks after work. I wanted to be alone and destroy as much as I could. I hated everything.
Especially myself.
And then Caleb Lockhart showed up. His brother, Ben, was friends with Rick and had asked him a favor to let Caleb work doing demolitions. I heard Ben quit a semester into college to focus on his troubled brother. Just for that, he had my respect.
The Lockhart brothers were what the crew called “pretty boys.” They came from a wealthy family and clearly didn’t need the work. They had a gleam of sophistication even when they were covered in dirt and doing grunt work, and both seemed to enjoy it.
After Caleb started working for Rick, my peace and quiet went out the window. Alone seemed to be a foreign concept to Caleb.
He annoyed the hell out of me, picked on me until I gave him what he wanted. What he wanted was someone he could fight with and who could fight back and didn’t hold back. He found it in me.
It didn’t take much to rile me back then, and we beat each other up almost every time we saw each other.
Eventually, Rick sat us down, and we figured it would be less painful and would save us money on medical bills if we focused our anger on demolitions instead. And then one day, we became friends.
It happened in the middle of summer when we were doing a demo for a twenty-story apartment building. It was scorching hot, the air heavy with humidity. It was the kind of day where breathing alone made me sweat. The windows were open, but there was no wind coming in. I glugged water like a camel and seemed to sweat it out instantly.
I was irritable, hungry, and desperately needed a shower, but I kept pounding the brick fireplace with the sledgehammer. I found satisfaction in destroying it.
“Hey, asshole.”
I turned around. It was Caleb and he had two monster sandwiches in his hands. He placed one on top of my backpack.
“Want a sandwich? Made two. You can have this one. My dog didn’t want it.”
I ignored him and went back to work. A couple of hours later, the foreman called for a lunch break. I kicked the sandwich to the ground before grabbing my backpack and walking toward the elevators.
“Hey!”