I’d worked for more than twenty years in the construction management industry. With my focus being large commercial buildings, I designed, bid, and managed construction projects from concept to completion. Over the years, I’d established quite a reputation for developing cost-reduction options without sacrificing a building’s quality or performance.

The day I was released from prison, I had multiple job offers waiting. I accepted the most challenging one. Then, two years later, I walked away from the commercial construction industry entirely.

I felt I needed a change in my life, I simply didn’t know what that change was. After a few months of blindly searching for the answer, I agreed to accept a job doing the same thing – on a smaller scale – with Teddy.

He was a General Contractor by trade and owned his own business. He preferred projects that fell in the half-a-million-dollar range or less. I had spent two decades thumbing my nose at such jobs, preferring the complexity and reward that came with work priced in the tens of millions.

I quickly found that working on smaller projects produced less headaches. Less headaches allowed me to live with much less tension in my life. It appeared – at least on the surface – that I’d found the answer to my problem.

Working with Teddy and his indecisive nature, however, ground on my every nerve.

“What if we move that island to the center of the room and put the display case on the south wall?” he asked.

“What if we leave the son-of-a-bitch where it is and save two grand?” I growled.

He gazed blankly at the proposed location. “It will flow better in here if we move it.”

“It’ll flow fine if we leave it. Kids buying frozen yogurt won’t give two shits where that island is.”

He stroked his beard with the web of his hand. “I think I’d like it better if we moved it.”

“Did the owner complain about where it is?”

Without facing me, he shook his head lightly. “No.”

“Then were leaving it.”

“I was just thinking--”

“Look, dumbass. Every dollar we spend on this job is a dollar out of our pockets. Fifty cents out of mine, and fifty cents out of yours. It’ll cost two grand to move it, re-wire everything, and fix the floor. He isn’t going to sell any more yogurt if it’s over there. I’m not willing to pay a grand to satisfy your anal-retentive nature.”

He looked at me. “I’m not anal-retentive.”

“Maybe that’s a bad choice of words, but you’re weird, and you know it.”

He looked me up and down. “Not as weird as you.”

“There’s nothing weird about me, Brother,” I said dryly.

He chuckled a dry laugh. “You weigh yourself ten times a day. You exercise at two in the morning. You sleep two or three hours a night. You’re so full of pride that it gets you in trouble. You--”

I’d heard enough. I shot him a glare and interrupted him mid-sentence. “Hold on a fucking minute. So full of pride it gets me in trouble? I might have a boatload of self-esteem, but I don’t think I’m an excessively prideful person. I take exception to that comment.”

“They go hand-in-hand.”

I gave him a look. “What does?”

“Pride and self-esteem.”

“Excessive pride makes a man conceited. Are you saying I’m arrogant?”

“No. You’re not arrogant.”

“I’m confident. There’s a difference,” I explained. “My Pop and I talked about this. I don’t know if I told you or not, but at trial, the judge said I possessed a certain arrogance, and he suggested I find a way to lose it. When my Pop read the manuscript of the trial, he tossed it across the living room and started yelling when he reached that part. He said the judge needed to recognize the difference between arrogance and confidence.”

His eyes thinned. “What’s the difference?”

“Confidence is inwardly knowing your abilities. Arrogance is outwardly expressing your belief of the same.”

He stroked his beard for a moment and then gave a nod. “I’d agree with your Pops.”

“Checking my weight isn’t weird,” I added. “It’s maintenance.”

He barked out a laugh. “You weigh yourself in the morning. Then, again, before you eat breakfast. Then, after breakfast. And, before we go for a ride. As soon as we get back to the house. Before you exercise. After you exercise. Then, again, before you go to bed. I’d call that weird.”

“Fuck you,” I snapped back.

“I forgot something. If that chick from the donut shop is so hot, why aren’t you throwing her some dick? That’s weird, too.”

“Same reason you’re not screwing that little chick at the coffee shop who’s ga-ga over you. I don’t trust women. Now that you’ve mentioned it, she’s coming here for lunch.”

“Who?”

“Jess.”

His eyes went wide. “She’s coming here?”

“Yep.”

He glanced left, and then right. “Today?”

“That’s what I said.”

He didn’t have to tell me that her expected arrival made him feel uneasy. Teddy couldn’t accept outsiders into his life without going through a painstaking process of questioning their intentions. In fact, he trusted only two of the men in the MC enough to allow them into his home. Despite his claim of not being weird, he was the strangest man I’d ever met.

“You’ll be fine,” I said.

He glanced around the room. “We’ll need to get these tools put up. And, all those light fixtures will need to be hidden.”

“She’s not going to steal the tools,” I said with a laugh. “And, the light fixtures are fine right where they are.”

“They were a hundred bucks a piece. She could hock ‘em for fifty. We need to--”

“They’re fine right where they are. You can trust this chick.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know.”

“If any of this stuff comes up missing…”

“If it comes up missing it won’t have anything to do with her, I can assure you of that.”

Teddy had been remodeling his house for the past year. The interior of the home was stripped down to the bare studs and subfloor. Without sheetrock on the walls, one could peer from one end all the way to the other, seeing through each room, including the bathrooms.

As a result of the home’s condition, he often slept in my spare room, sometimes for three or four days before returning to his dilapidated house.

Six months prior, when he returned home after a two or three-day hiatus, he found out he’d been robbed. There wasn’t much stolen, because there wasn’t much to take. Everything of value, however, was gone.

The police told him they doubted they’d catch the guy. No fingerprints were left, there was no security footage, and the neighbors saw no one come or go. It was the work of a true professional, according to the police.

A few weeks later, by happenstance, they caught the guy. He was attempting to sell something he’d stolen from Teddy on eBay. The problem was that there was only one of these particular items on earth. The detective on the case had been checking eBay for the stolen item, hoping the criminal might use it as an avenue for ridding himself of the merchandise.

After the criminal’s arrest, Teddy learned who he was.

He was an unpatched member of our Motorcycle club. A hang-around. A friend. Someone who was with us day and night. He rode where we rode, ate where we ate, and attended club functions – less the meetings reserved for patched members only.

The arrest didn’t cause Teddy to develop his lack of trust toward mankind, it simply confirmed the suspicions he already harbored. It was a huge step in the wrong direction for someone that was slowly beginning to learn how to trust.

Teddy gasped. “Holy shit.”

I realized I’d lost my train of thought and looked up. “What?”

He gestured toward the storefront windows. “Is that her?”

Dressed in a pair of loose-fitting pants, heels, and a flowing top with a plunging neckline, Jess was walking toward the front door. Her hair was up, in a braided bun. A few delicate curls dangled along each side of her face.

I grinned at the sight of her. “That’d be her.”

“She’s uhhm.” He swallowed hard. “She’s a pretty fucker.”

I walked toward the door. “Don’t say anything stupid.”

He cleared his throat. “I’ll do my best.”

I pushed the door open. “Have any problems finding the place?”

“Nope. It was right where you said it would be.” She hugged me, and then peered over my shoulder. “You must be Teddy.”

Without hesitation, she strode toward him. The uneasy look he was wearing earlier promptly returned. In addition to not trusting people, Teddy was extremely nervous in the presence of women. So much so that he often did or said things that were extremely embarrassing.

She extended her hand. Teddy wiped his palm on the thigh of his jeans, and then looked at it before offering it to her. After wiping it a second time, he shook her hand.

“Is that your real hair color?” he asked.

“No.” She brushed one of the curls away from her face with a wave of her hand. “I’m a brunette. I’m a hairstylist, so the color is always changing.”

Teddy had a thing for blondes, and I knew the moment he met Jess that he’d like her for that reason alone.

“I like that color,” he said. “It looks good.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

“Should we all go to lunch?” I asked.

“I like the way you’ve got it fixed, too,” Teddy said. “Wedding hair always looks good. Especially when it’s blond.”

Jess gave him a look. “Wedding hair?”

“Isn’t that what it’s called? When it’s up like that?”

“It’s a chignon,” Jess said. “It’s a fancy name for a bun.”

“Well, I like it.”

“Should we all go to lunch?” I asked, raising the tone of my voice slightly.

Teddy took a step back. After looking her over from head to toe, he gave a nod of approval. “I like those pants.”

Her pants were white and covered in various geometric shapes. They fit her butt like a second skin yet hung loosely around her legs. She wore the style quite often, claiming they hid the size of her thighs, which she described as thick.

“Fun pants,” Jess said. “That’s what I call them.”

His brows knitted together. “Why’s that?”

She shrugged. “Because they’re fun.”

“Quit being weird, Teddy,” I said in a snide tone. I raised my brows. “Should we all go get lunch?”

Teddy scowled at me. “I’m not being weird. I was being nice.”

“You’re being weird.”

“Hitting guys in the head with rocks is weird,” he said. “This is normal.”

Jess spun around. “You hit a guy in the head with a rock?”

I glared at Teddy, and then shifted my gaze to Jess. “No.”

She looked at Teddy.

“He didn’t hit the guy with it, but he had it ready,” he said. “Just in case he didn’t apologize.”

She faced me. “Apologize for what?”

“Being a shithead,” I said.

She cocked her hip. “Seriously? You had a rock, and everything?”

I shrugged. “The guy flipped us off.”

Her glare sharpened. “So, you were going to hit him with a rock?”

Considering her composure, I figured I needed to downplay the use of the rock. Discussing it made the event sound much worse than it was. At the time it seemed like a practical choice.

Now, it seemed ridiculous.

“If it would have just been him,” I said. “I wouldn’t have had the rock. I would have just beat his ass. But, he had three friends with him. I needed an equalizer.”

Her brows raised. “You were going to fight four guys? With a rock?”

I turned my palms up and shrugged.

She looked at Teddy.

He nodded.

She turned to face me. “Four? With a rock. You would have gone right back to prison.”

“I couldn’t let him get away with flipping me off,” I snapped back. “Right is right, and wrong is wrong. He was wrong.”

“But you didn’t hit him with it?”

“Didn’t need to. He apologized.”

“Why’d he flip you off?” she asked.

“Does it matter?”

“I was just curious.”

“We were sitting outside at a bar under the covered patio. When we left, he said our motorcycles were too loud. They interrupted his football game.”

She scrunched her nose. “So, he flipped you guys off? That’s kinda dumb.”

“Precisely,” I said.

“Threatening him with a rock is dumber, though.”

“I didn’t threaten him with a rock,” I said. “I just threatened to beat the shit out of him. I had the rock in my pocket just in case.”

“That’s better, I guess.” She shook her head dismissively, and then looked at me. “I wonder about you sometimes.”

“You’re not the only one,” Teddy said.

I glanced at them both. The choices I made weren’t the same decisions others would make, but to me they made perfect sense. The last thing I needed was to have someone second-guessing my manner of handling my life’s problems.

I turned toward the door. “I’m going to lunch. If you two do-gooders want to go with me, that’s fine. If not, you can sit here and talk about how you would have hugged your way out of the situation.”

“Don’t get mad,” Jess said.

I turned toward the door. “I’m not mad.”

“Seems mad, doesn’t he?” Teddy asked.

“Kind of,” Jess agreed.

I wasn’t mad. Disappointed would be a more accurate statement. I liked Jess. I simply didn’t need someone telling me what was right or wrong with my way of doing things, or with my life.

I’d never let anyone tell me what to do, and I certainly wasn’t going to start with her.