“Wrench,” Travis said.

Panther shifter Warren “Wrench” Martin looked at him blankly for just a moment before he realized that the lynx shifter handyman was asking for the tool, not initiating a conversation. He dug into the toolbox between them and handed Travis the requested tool with a grunt.

He watched as Travis opened the problematic trap, and dumped the sludge out of it into a waiting five gallon bucket.

“Ahah!” Travis said triumphantly, fishing a scrap of cloth out of the drain above. “I don’t know what possesses people to put these things down drains, but I’ve found some odd stuff down here.”

The handyman reattached the trap. “Did you see how that worked? The most important thing is not to yank on it too hard. With a wrench and shifter strength, you can deform the pipe before you unscrew it if you aren’t careful.”

Wrench grunted an affirmative as Travis emerged from beneath the sink, wiping his hands.

“Let’s give it a test drive,” he said, and Wrench flipped the tap open.

Water poured cleanly down the drain without so much as a gurgle of protest.

Wrench wondered if the job always felt so rewarding; he had worked a long time in the shadowy persuasion business, and as well as it paid, it had never felt as victorious as any single repair he’d done with Travis.

“That did it!” Travis said with clear satisfaction.

As messy as it could be, this was clean work, and Wrench felt more fulfilled than he had in a lifetime of building a reputation for retribution and destruction.

“That’s our last job for the day,” Travis said putting the last of the tools back in their place. “You’ve got a few hours of daylight left if you want to hit the beach for a swim or something.”

Wrench raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. “I ain’t a swimmer,” he said, picking up the toolbox before Travis could. He had done little enough of this job as it was. “But I was thinking…”

He paused, hesitant to continue, and Travis closed up the under sink cabinet and then looked at him curiously. “Spit it out, man!”

“There’s a lot of broken roof tiles from the storm we’re just going to piss away.”

“Not much you can do with them,” Travis shrugged. “You can’t really repair them.”

“You could… break em more.” That wasn’t too bad, Wrench thought. He was good at breaking things.

“And then?” Travis prompted as they closed up the cottage behind them and started hiking up to the mechanical room where Travis kept his tools.

“They’d make a nice… art piece. Like those things with tiny tiles that make a picture.”

Travis blinked. “A mosaic?”

“Sure,” Wrench shrugged. “It’s just an idea.”

“Well, yeah,” Travis agreed thoughtfully. “You could just press it into wet thinset over stucco if the pieces were small enough. You got a picture in mind?”

“I dunno,” Wrench growled, embarrassed. “Like a flower or a butterfly or something. They’re kinda orange.”

Travis did an admirable but insufficient job of hiding his amusement. “Yeah, we could do that,” he agreed.

“It’s something I could do,” Wrench said offhandedly. “Wouldn’t take more of your time.”

“You ever done anything like that before?” Travis asked candidly.

“Nah,” Wrench admitted, scowling. He was regretting voicing the idea.

“Let’s do a little piece of the courtyard behind the spa, see how it goes, before we do it anywhere lots of people will see it. Pretty much only Lydia uses that space.”

Wrench grunted, happier with Travis’ agreement than he wanted to admit. “I could do that now,” he suggested. “I ain’t got anything else going on.”

Travis’s thoughts were clearly off somewhere else. Wrench looked up along the resort above them and saw one of the twins waving from the deck above. That would be Travis’s mate Jenny, by his distracted grin and return wave. “Sure,” Travis said. “Knock yourself out. The ratio of water for the thinset is on the bag. Use one of the gray buckets.”

“Got it, boss,” Wrench said automatically.

“Not your boss, Wrench,” Travis reminded him as Jenny disappeared above them. “I’m just showing you the ropes.”

“Well, I’m real grateful for your helping me get this work,” Wrench said gruffly. “Especially after that, er, professional misunderstanding.”

He had been hired to bring Jenny’s twin sister Laura back to the cartel in Los Angeles, but had mistakenly taken Jenny instead. He still wasn’t entirely sure how he’d been convinced to turn on his employers for a plea bargain, but he felt like for the first time in a long time, his life had some sort of real potential.

The biggest problem he had working here at this tropical resort was the island time they seemed to be on, with long periods of leisure that didn’t fit with his need to be constantly busy. He didn’t want the time to think about the pending sting or court date, and he had no interest in the luxury beach entertainment the resort offered.

Travis punched him in the shoulder and Wrench had to hold himself back from turning and pounding him into the ground in return. “You’ve been a great help,” the lynx shifter said merrily. “And you say probably twice as much as Graham does.”

Wrench grunted.

“There’s that chatty nature,” Travis teased.

Jenny skipped down the stairs towards them. “Scarlet is thinking about having an impromptu beach bonfire tonight, if you think the storm downed wood has dried out in the sun long enough.”

“Will you dance around it nude?” Travis asked with a grin.

“Keep dreaming,” Jenny told him, but she was smirking in return.

Knowing that they were aware only of each other now, Wrench left them without further comment.