Stars & Stripes (Cut & Run 6)

Mara sat down on the end of the couch near Earl and placed her basket on the floor, then gestured for Earl to give her his hand.

“Why don’t you let one of the boys do that?” Earl suggested as he held his hand away from her.

“You think I can’t doctor you after thirty-seven years of marriage?”

“You’re the one that cut it off in the first place!”

They were all still chuckling as they headed for the kitchen to eat the late dinner Mara had promised, leaving Mara and Earl to discuss things without an audience.

The building they were here to repair had served as storage for as long as Ty could remember. It had been built into a rocky outcropping on the property, using the side of the mountain as one of its walls. Because of that, it stayed cool almost year-round, but it also had a tendency toward being dark, damp, and full of creepy-crawlies. Ty mostly stayed away from it.

The other three walls were made of two-by-fours and sheet metal, with some scrap siding and cinder blocks to give it that tetanus feeling that kept strangers away from it and its contents.

Ty licked his lips as he examined the failing roof from the front of the building. The tin was rusted through in places, jagged and reddened and full of holes where rain and runoff from the hill had eaten through it. It was possible they could replace a few sheets of the corrugated tin, but more likely they’d need to do the whole thing. The earthen portion of the building had insinuated itself into the structure over the years, and it would be a real bitch to get the tin of the roof out of the soil. It appeared they would have to dig into it.

Of course, if they were going to do it right, that’s what they’d have to do. Mara and Earl had other ideas.

“I think if we just spread this tarp over it, it’ll last a few more years,” Mara said as she dropped the bundle of blue tarp she’d hauled out of the back of her old SUV.

“Tarp?” Deuce said with a frown.

“It’s not like we live in it,” Mara told him. “It’ll keep it dry.”

“Yeah, until the first snow,” Ty said. “Then you’ll be calling me and Deuce, all, ‘Honey, your daddy’s buried under ten feet of snow, can you bring your shovel?’”

“Yeah, I didn’t drive from Philly to help you lay out a tarp.”

“Oh hush, both of you,” Mara said with a wave of her hand.

Earl and Chester both chuckled.

“Really, Ma, you’ve got all the stuff, you’ve got us all here to help, why not just rebuild it now?” Deuce said.

“All right, all right. Earl and Zane stay on the ground. Ty and Deacon can handle the stuff up top.”

“Why does Zane get to stay on the ground?” Ty asked with an accusatory point at his able-bodied partner.

“Because he’s a guest, and we don’t ask guests to risk life and limb.” She thrust a hammer and a plastic container full of nails into Earl’s arms. Then she clapped her hands. “Get to it, boys. We’re burning daylight! And when we take a break later, I’ve got some furniture needs moving.”

Ty and Deuce both groaned as they headed for the rocky slope acting as one of the building’s walls. They’d used the hill to access the roof many times in their youth, when they weren’t supposed to be playing up there but had done so anyway. As Ty scrambled up the incline, it didn’t seem as high as he remembered from when he was ten, but the roof looked much more foreboding.

“Ah, for the fearlessness of youth,” Deuce muttered from the other side of the building. Ty snorted. They sat on the hill above the roof, fighting gravity and erosion as they tried to keep their weight off the perilous-looking tin.

“Just keep to the two-by-fours and you shouldn’t fall through,” Mara called up to them.

Ty and Deuce shared a look.

“Ma, we can’t see where the two-by-fours are from up here,” Ty shouted as he looked over the roof. They could see spots that were rusted through, and others where it looked as if a leaf landing on the metal would cause it to give in.

“They should be where the nails are,” Earl called back. “Just step on the nails.”

“They’ve got to be kidding,” Deuce said under his breath.

Ty slid down the hill closer to the edge of the roof, dampness from the ground seeping into the seat of his jeans. He tapped the toe of his work boot on the nearest line of nails, testing it. “Look at it this way,” he told his brother. “It’s only like an eight foot drop. And any of Dad’s tools that are sharp enough to impale you are in the other shed.”

“You’re a ray of sunshine and optimism, you know that?”

Deuce mimicked Ty’s actions, testing the roof with one foot. They made their way out onto the tin, taking great care to stay on the line of nails that indicated the supporting beams below. “Speaking of optimism, how are things going with you and Zane?”

“Too good to be true,” Ty said as he edged along the narrow line of safety.

“Did you bring him with you for a reason?”

“Stop psychoanalyzing me,” Ty said, sing-song, as he glanced up and then back down at the roof.

“That’s a yes,” Deuce replied in the same tone.

“Maybe it is, but as soon as I stepped through the door, I changed my mind.” Ty continued toward the edge of the building, being less careful than he should have been. “Dad was right, I’m a coward.”

“Bullshit, Ty. You’ll get there.”

Ty glanced at his brother and nodded.

When he reached the edge, he knelt down and smiled crookedly at Zane, giving him a quick wink. Zane returned his smile. Ty almost got lost in it, but he was distracted by his father giving them orders.

“We’re gonna tear the whole thing up and replace anything that’s rotted,” Earl said as he handed Ty a crowbar.

Ty and Deuce both groaned, but they followed with a matching, “Yes, sir.” And then they got to work, yanking up the old tin roof and tossing the pieces down to the ground.

The faster they finished this disaster waiting to happen, the faster Ty could get down there to Zane and work himself up into confessing the truth to his family.

It wasn’t until they were washing up for dinner that Zane was able to get Ty alone, cornering him in the tiny bathroom upstairs. The first thing Zane did was pull Ty to him and kiss him, long and hard, letting Ty’s scent and the feel of him wipe away all the tension he’d built up in the past few days. He pulled Ty close, appreciating every ounce of him, letting himself be turned on by the smell of sweat and damp earth clinging to Ty’s body.