No time like the present, as his grandpa always said. As soon as his shift ended, Jesse drove downtown and parked in front of Mann Cakes, the new savory bakery that had taken Beach Pointe by storm. In front of the adjacent store, a woman on a stepladder stretched on tiptoe to add a dot to the i in Sisters, as in Two Sisters Cupcakes, owned by Paige and Morgan Baxter. They’d decided to relocate their store and be neighbors to Mann Cakes after the craziness that went down a few weeks prior.
The Baxter sisters had once been bitter rivals of the Mann brothers, until the sisters fell for the brothers. Or maybe it was the other way around. Not that it mattered. Jesse still thought he and Morgan Baxter could have been a great couple, but she thought otherwise. She had latched onto Garrett Mann now, and he couldn’t really blame her. What Jesse lacked in brains, Garrett had in spades. And he had to admit, begrudgingly, that Garrett had turned out to be a good fella after all.
But damn, Morgan in short shorts and a hot pink tank top that kept showing off the peachy skin of her back and waist every time she reached up to apply another brush stroke… It made him wish he’d tried a little harder to win her over. Then again, she’d made her choice, and her choice was the reason he was there. Garrett Mann was the first name on his list.
Jesse drew in a deep breath through his nose and let it out slowly from puckered lips like the therapist had suggested when he felt stress coming on. Leigh Meriwether certainly didn’t seem like a native Beach Pointe redneck. She reminded him of an exotic flower stuck in a patch of ragweed. Her dark, curly hair had coppery highlights that complemented her golden-brown skin. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup and didn’t need to, with those wide-set, intense eyes and plump, pink lips. She had a curvy figure with hips that swayed in a tick-tock rhythm when she walked from her desk to sit beside him. Her all-business simple black slacks, jacket, and pumps didn’t do her justice. One thing he knew for sure—she was way too good to be interested in the likes of him. He just hoped her advice panned out.
Morgan came down the stepladder and noticed his police car. She looked startled, but then smiled and offered a tentative wave. One last deep breath, and he got out of the car.
“Hey, Jesse, what’s up? Anything wrong?” Morgan asked, holding her paintbrush in one hand and a can of pink paint in another. Paint splatters dotted her cheeks and arms.
“No, not at all. I just came straight from work. Should have changed first. Sorry.” He patted his uniform shirt and shrugged. “Is Garrett here?”
“Yeah, he’s inside cutting some trim.” The loud whirr of a power saw came from inside the store. Then it went quiet.
“Thanks.” Jesse took off his hat and headed through the propped-open glass door. Sawdust floated through the air, carrying the scent of pine, paint thinner, and lithium grease.
Garrett stood at a table saw, holding the end of a long piece of ceiling trim. This had once been a hardware store, all pegboard and plain concrete floor. He leaned over, as though getting ready to cut another piece, but then stopped and looked over his shoulder. His frown and narrowed eyes were exactly what Jesse had expected.
“Am I breaking a noise ordinance law?” Garrett’s barbed question scratched at Jesse’s already-sore sense of guilt.
“No.” Jesse concentrated on not squishing his hat in his nervous grip. He swallowed hard, suppressing that stubborn streak that had got him into this mess in the first place. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”
Garrett dusted the sawdust off his hands as he turned to face him and then crossed his arms. A sarcastic smile spread across his face. “Did I hear you right? Did you just say you’re sorry? I think the saw must have damaged my ears.”
“No, you heard right. I wanted to apologize for the way I treated you in high school.”
It wasn’t as hard to say it as he’d feared, but Garrett just stared at him, head tilted to one side and mouth ajar as though Jesse was speaking in tongues. “Are you okay? I mean, did you get hit on the head today or something?”
“No, I’m here on the advice of my…doctor.” He would have said therapist, but he didn’t want to come across as crazy.
Garrett’s eyes widened. “Are you dying?”
“What? No!” Shoulders slumped, Jesse scrubbed a hand over his face. “I know I hurt a lot of folks when I was younger, and…”
“Your conscience is nagging you to make amends, right? Don’t bother. As you can see, I’m quite happy.”
Morgan came inside and walked past Jesse as if to illustrate the point. She tiptoed and pecked Garrett on the cheek before going to a table with various cans of paint and solvents. “What’s up?”
“The deputy was just leaving.”
“I was trying to apologize,” Jesse said.
“For what?” Morgan asked while swishing her paintbrush around in a jar of turpentine.
“For all the stuff I did to him in high school.” He’d honestly lost count of all the shit he’d done to Garrett and wracked his brain to figure out where to start.
“Let’s be more specific. Should I count?” Garrett beat him to it and ticked items off his fingers as he listed them. “For flushing my homework, stuffing me in a hamper with dirty jock straps—head first, mind you—calling me ‘Garrett the Maggot’ at the top of your voice, putting dog poop in my backpack, stealing my yearbook so you could draw penises and big hairy balls in permanent marker on all my pictures. Not to mention the countless wedgies, wet willies, goosings, trips, and a real pretty black eye from slamming my head into a locker. Oh, and that broke my glasses too.”
Hard as it was to not interrupt, Jesse let Garrett get all those transgressions out in the open. At one time, it would have made him laugh to hear all that. Now, it just made him wince, especially seeing Morgan’s expression, hovering somewhere between mortified and pissed off.
“Yes,” he said, his voice shaking. “I’m sorry for all of it. And if I can help you out here with your remodeling or anything else, I’d be honored to do it.”
Morgan’s face went from disgusted to a puppy-dog frown, followed with an, “Aw, that’s so sweet of you, Jesse.”
If Garrett had been swayed, it didn’t show. “So we’re in agreement that you were a total bastard?”
“Yes, I was a total bastard.”
Garrett turned to Morgan. “Well, I guess that’s settled, but if you could…” He shrugged and gestured to the piles of wood lying against the walls. “I’ve got plenty of trim here if you want to help me cut and hang it. The long pieces are kind of hard to handle alone, and Morgan needs to finish painting the sign before it gets dark.”
“Sure. I can do that.” He looked around to find a suitable place to hang his hat and decided on a knob to a new glass door that adjoined this store with Mann Cakes. Garrett’s brother, Tanner, was over there, wiping down tables while Morgan’s sister, Paige, came up behind him and slapped his butt. He spun around, hugged her up, and kissed her. Jesse turned away quickly, but not before he felt a twang of envy. They all had someone. Unless he left this town, he probably never would. His misdeeds hung over him like his own personal rain cloud.
“Grab that piece of trim there,” Garrett directed as he pulled two stepladders over to one wall. “Then you can help me hold it in place while I nail it down.”
Jesse went to where Garrett pointed and picked up the freshly cut white trim, which was probably about ten feet in length, and carried it over to where Garrett stood on the middle rung of the stepladder. He handed Garrett one end, glanced at the other ladder, then simply reached his arm up and held the other end in place at the far corner. Being tall did come in handy at times. He’d have tried out for basketball if he hadn’t been a total screw-up. Garrett started attaching the trim to the wall with an air nailer. Tha-bump. Tha-bump. Tha-bump.
“Wow, I never realized you were so tall!” Morgan said while she headed back outside with a new paint color and clean brush.
Jesse smiled and honed in on the jiggle of her butt as she walked away. Garrett glared at him. Jesse focused on the trim with all the seriousness of a funeral. Garrett moved the stepladder and climbed back up to nail the middle of the trim down. The air nailer fired faster. Thabump, thabump, thabump, thabump. Jesse was pretty sure Garrett had put way too many nails in that two-foot section, but he wasn’t about to say anything.
In fact, his eyes wandered again toward the front window, where Morgan was back up on her stepladder, stretching overhead. Her tank top had risen, showing off her flat stomach and belly button. Good lord in heaven, Garrett sure was one lucky son of a…
“Hey, eyes up here, man!” Garrett said.
“Sorry.” Jesse applied his funeral frown again and held tight to the end of the trim as Garrett moved the ladder to finish nailing on the last section. “So when are you two getting married?”
“We’re not ready for that yet, but we’ll get there.” He climbed back up and started firing the air nailer. Thabumpthabump, thabumpthabumpthabumpthabump.
Jesse moved away now that Garrett only had a couple feet of trim left to secure. He didn’t want to get his hand nailed down with the rapid fire of the nail gun. He had to keep his eyes on less tempting things. Like the paint-splattered drop cloths and the trim, and the toolbox under the window and…holy shit, Morgan was bent over on the other side of the glass. Hot pink panties peeked out from those sinfully short shorts.
He averted his gaze, pretending to study the sole of his shoe as though he’d stepped in a dog pile.
Garrett, thankfully, didn’t seem to notice. He moved the ladders over to another wall and pointed to another pile of trim. “Grab one of those twelve-footers, please.”
“Got it.” Jesse rushed over, picked up another, longer length of trim on the opposite side of the room and turned around quickly.
The trim wobbled and spun like an off-kilter helicopter propeller as he fought to keep his eyes on the work and off Garrett’s girlfriend. He didn’t want to piss off Garrett now that they’d sort of cleared the air between them. The other end of the twelve-foot piece of trim, however, didn’t cooperate. He misjudged the distance and sent it careening into Morgan’s table of paint and turpentine. Cans and jars toppled, rolled, and crashed to the floor, leaving muddied puddles, streaks, and splatters in their wake, like some of that modern art stuff gone wrong.
Morgan ran back in, eyes growing wide as she surveyed the disaster. She covered her mouth with both hands. Garrett just stood there with the air nailer in one hand while the other slapped his forehead.
“Oh, um, I’m really sorry,” Jesse said. “I’ll clean it up.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Morgan said. She came over and took the piece of trim from him. “I was almost finished out there anyway. Why don’t you go home and get some rest? You can come back later and help with flooring.”
“Are you sure? At least let me pay for new supplies.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Garrett said. “It’s the thought that counts, right?”
“All right. I’ll stop back in later.” There wasn’t much else he could say at that point. At least the paint had only spilled on some stained plywood and a dirty drop cloth. He headed back to his car and unlocked the door.
“Hey, Jesse,” Garrett called from the sidewalk.
“Yeah?”
Garrett’s jaw tightened, then he exhaled and seemed to relax a bit. “Thanks for the apology. It really meant a lot.”
“Really?”
“Yeah... Oh, and don't forget your hat.” Garrett went inside the shop and emerged a second later with said object, then tossed it to Jesse.
Jesse caught it, plopped it on his head, and gave Garrett a nod. He got in the car and waited until Garrett went back inside before picking up the clipboard and his freshly printed list. He added a check beside Garrett’s name and then a note beneath: Get a Home Depot gift card $100.
The rest of the list looked daunting now that he looked at it again. By the time this was done, he’d probably be out a thousand bucks and a lot of time. He certainly didn’t look forward to the crow he’d have to eat for the nine others on this list. Then again, Garrett had accepted his apology and even thanked him for it. Maybe that therapist had a good head on her shoulders. He’d never thought much of shrinks until now, figuring they were only good for weak-minded rich folks. But now…well, he kind of looked forward to seeing Leigh again for their next session. Maybe this whole thing would be worth it in the end.