Page 6 of Mechanic

“Hello?” I answer, not looking at the caller ID.

“Hey, Sunshine,” an all-too-chipper voice says through the background noise.

Mentally rolling my eyes at the voice of my best friend, I try and rub the fatigue away.

“What is going on, Aymond?” My voice sounds tired to my own ears. “What’s happening in your part of the world?”

“I am working on organizing some staff to come help out for the soft opening of the casino. The headhunters have the dealers in training. Uniforms have been ordered. Suppliers are ready to go,” Aymond rattles off in rapid succession, his voice trailing off, awaiting a response.

“Wow,” I finally say. “Can you-ah send me a list of all that in an email? You rattled it off so fast my head is spinning. I’m sitting here staring at blueprints and swatches.” The asshole starts laughing his ass off at me.

“So glad that my pain is your entertainment,” I say in a droll tone, making A laugh even harder.

“Dude, you forget…I’ve been there,” he says between chuckles. “All of this shit you have been going through…I did all of that shit.”

“Yeah, yeah…cry me a fucking river,” I gripe at him, humor in my voice.

His good-natured ribbing snaps me out of the zombie-like trance I was in prior to his call.

The sounds of a tap-tap-tap fills the background just before my email pings, announcing a new message.

Opening the email Aymond just sent, I laugh at the meme in the email body of a guy flipping me the bird.

“You prick,” I mutter. The bastard laughs at me, making it obvious that he heard me.

“Well, some of us haverealwork to do,” Aymond jests.

“Oh, hey!” I call out, making sure he doesn’t hang up yet.

“What?”

“You aren’t going to believe this…” my words trail off, baiting him and making sure I have his undivided attention.

“Are you going to tell me what has your dick hard or make me guess?”

“Just wanted to make sure you were paying attention,” I pause again, just to piss him off.

When he literally growls, a smile stretches across my face.Serves him right.

“Do you remember the structure about five miles down the road from the casino?”

Silence fills the line as Aymond thinks. “The one that had no markings but was easily ten times, if not more, the size of the casino?” Aymond asks.

“Yeah.”

“What about it?” he queries.

“During my last meeting with the sheriff, I found out it’s for a Major League Baseball team, the Padston Predators.” I pull the phone away from my ear slightly, preparing for the reaction I am sure my best friend will have.

Aymond doesn’t disappoint. “Holy fuck!”

Aymond hoots and hollers for several minutes. It’s so out of character for his usually serious personality. A smile stretches across my face that is so large it hurts my cheeks.

It takes him a while to get under control. When he does, we move the conversation to be about the hotel. Between the casino and baseball team, we aren’t going to have enough rooms in the hotel’s current floor plan.

“I will call the architect in the morning. We might need to buy more property,” Aymond says.

It’s something that I have already been looking into but have not mentioned.

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