Page 19 of The Last Thing
“Hey, Deck.”
I spin around with my hands out in front of me. I never know when one of my idiot crewmembers might decide to chuck a tool my direction without so much as a “heads!”
But it’s just my carpenter strolling toward me, thumb over his shoulder.
“Bossman and little bossman are here.”
I suppress a chuckle and shake my head, adjusting my hard hat.
“Don’t let Ardito hear you call him little bossman. He’ll give you the shittiest job he can find.”
I smack his arm and jog up the small hill to where the driveway of the house we’re working on is situated.
Leo Barone and Nick Ardito are looking things over while slowly walking in my direction.
I’m a project manager for AB Construction, which Leo started with his best friend Noah—Nick’s dad—in their early twenties. They’ve grown to be one of the biggest in the area, and they’re certainly the most well-respected.
I’ve worked a lot of construction jobs, and a lot of them are toxic as fuck. It’s unfortunate, but the trades can be that way.They’re either great or filled with assholes, and the people you work with and for make it that way. Leo and Noah expect the best from their employees, and over the last few years, I rose from associate carpenter to project manager.
This is a whole house reno, and the biggest project I’ve been in charge of so far.
“Leo. Nick.”
I give them an up nod, and Leo walks over to shake my hand.
Nick is still in school, learning the business side of things, but he’ll be working as the general manager eventually, so he spends a good chunk of his time shadowing Leo. Even though he grew up on sites and already knows his shit. His brother, Vince, just finished his bachelor’s degree in architectural design, and he’s been working on a lot of our building plans over the last couple of years.
“Deck, how’s it going?” Leo asks. “It’s looking good on the outside.”
“It’s coming along. I’ll take you inside in a minute. We’ve caught up pretty well after we found that natural spring in the yard and had to adjust the drainage. The new windows are all in and, as you can see, we’re working on siding now.”
He nods, looking at what a couple of the workers are doing with siding.
“Any concerns from the homeowners?” Nick asks.
“They ask about the timeline for completion regularly, but that’s typical. We’re on track to be within a few days of our original projection. If that spring hadn’t set us back, we might’ve finished early.”
“Good, let’s see inside.”
I lead them up the back deck, which was finished a week-and-a-half ago, and inside the house.
“Electric was run on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The electrical inspector will be here bright and early Monday to sign off on it.”
“Any major issues?” Leo asks, coming to a stop in the middle of the gutted and reframed living room.
“Might need you to step in with the door company. They sent us two warped ones and one of the replacements was also warped.”
He blows out a breath. “Yeah. We might need to switch suppliers. That’s not isolated to you.”
“I’ll look over all the info we’ve got,” Nick says.
“Anything else?” Leo asks.
I look around to make sure no one is close by. “That new kid we hired isn’t a good fit. He’s missed two days in his first two weeks, and from what I’m hearing around the site, they weren’t legitimate call-offs. He went to a casino out of town with his buddies one of the days. It’s on his social media.” Nick snorts at that. “He also didn’t have a reliable work ethic when he was here.”
Leo grinds his teeth. I know how much he hates when they mishire someone.
“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll deal with it on Monday.”
