“Morning, Duncan,” I said.
“Morning,” he said.
“Not doing the box of gas station coffee anymore?” I asked, indicating the cup holder.
“Ah, well, Derek makes this fancy stuff now. Has a big old pot for me waiting whenever I want it. It’s real damn good. But I can’t not have my morning routine, so I cut down on what I got,” he said.
“Not the donuts though,” I said.
“Lord, no,” he said. “I said cut down, not cut out.”
He laughed, and I joined him, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Here, let me get those,” I said, grabbing the coffee. “I’d like to get through today and get on back early if possible.”
“I don’t know about early,” Duncan said, “but I’ve got things running pretty smooth. Should be an easy day at the office.”
Feeling pretty good about the day ahead of me, I went inside, sipping on the coffee Duncan grabbed for me.
All the feelings of the day being easy were gone a few hours in. I got an alert letting me know the pizza was delivered and then a picture from Ally, showing the pizza box open on the coffee table with the television on in the background. Aside from that, the day was as slow as molasses. Time seemed to plod along at a miserable pace, and I kept looking at the clock, willing hours to have passed, hoping I had developed in the last few hours some Jedi mind trick that would allow me to bend time.
Unfortunately, the Force didn’t bother with me, and instead I just did my job and tried to ride it out. Duncan seemed to be having fun though. Whistling with the eighties music he was playing on his Bluetooth speaker, he only ever stopped to grab a donut or tease me about moving so slowly.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go get you a coffee?” he asked as I got up from where I had been kneeling on the ground.
“Not unless you can put it in an IV for me,” I said. Duncan laughed.
“Take a few days off and it’s like your body forgets how to function, doesn’t it?” he teased. “I sure hope other things aren’t so hard to get back in the swing of.”
I turned to look at him, my mouth pursed in a grimace and my eyebrows drawn down over my eyes.
“I’ll get back in the swing of things.”
“I sure hope so,” Duncan said. “Because right now, I am pretty sure my eighty-five-year-old mother could put hammer to nails faster than you.”
“Alright, that’s enough,” I said.
I just wanted to get done and get home. It had been a long time since I had felt like that, I almost forgot the feeling.
It wasn’t just Duncan teasing me either. Every time one of my brothers happened by, they all had something to say about how they were seeing a ghost, or that I looked like I hadn’t slept much. I brushed them off and tried to ignore their teasing, but it was starting to get on my nerves.
At least Derek wasn’t giving me any shit. Granted, Derek wasn’t talking to me at all, outside of what he absolutely had to say. I deserved him being cold to me though, so I didn’t make a fuss about it. As far as I was concerned, it was one less person to give me crap on the day.
I struggled through the rest of the day, checking the clock every so often, and finally, around five-thirty, I started cleaning up. The day was done, and I was toast. Duncan grinned as he walked over to me, taking off his hat to wipe his brow.
“Well, I suppose you can get on down the road,” he said. “I can handle the cleanup.”
“Thanks, but I’ll stick around to shut it all down,” I said. “It’s not fair to stick you with that just because I don’t feel like being here.”
“Nonsense, you go on. You’re the boss. Perks of the job. Boss man gets to cut out earlier than the rest of the schmucks.”
“You know that’s not how I do things,” I said. “I’ll help clean up and then I’m out. Not before.”
“Suit yourself,” Duncan said. “I’d be the hell out of here if I were in your spot.”
He laughed, and I grinned a little.
“That’s why I’m the boss,” I said.
“Ooh,” he said, suddenly clutching his heart, “cuts deep.”
I helped the rest of the crew get everything cleaned up and put away. By the time I was done and everyone was heading out, it was six on the dot. My crew was like clockwork. It made me proud that they had done so well while I took time off, but it made me even prouder that I came back, and they didn’t skip a beat. They just got faster because there were extra hands.