Page 29 of Love It or List It
A little light came into Joe’s eyes.“You hate leaving the house after five o’clock.”
Austin laughed.“Rude.And true, but no.”
Joe tapped a finger against his lips.“Porn addiction?”
“Oh, he’s got jokes.Here I am ready to bare my soul—”
Joe raised his hands in surrender.“Hey, hey, you’re the one who wanted me to guess.”
“Dick.”Austin flicked his bottle cap at him.“I mean, the truth is not, like, less shitty than your season-ending injury.It’s mostly the trauma.The non-refrigerator variety.”
He wasn’t usually that forthcoming about it, but, well, he co-owned a house with the guy.Plus, tit for tat or whatever.Joe knew enough about Austin’s childhood to guess anyway.
“General or specific non-refrigerator trauma?Or can I ask?”
Austin drummed his fingers on the table.“Most of it’s pretty old.I mean, I don’t remember my mom dying.She, uh, she got postpartum pretty bad, so it was me and my dad until I was six or seven.”When the drinking caught up with him.Austin didn’t say that part out loud.“Then he died and I stayed with my great-aunt for a few years, but she got sick and couldn’t look after me, so….”Group homes, foster homes.He shrugged.Joe knew that part too, or as much of it as Austin cared to tell anyone about.“I learned to be independent maybe too well, but I never got really good at relying on anybody else.”
Not that he’d tried particularly hard.
In his weaker moments, Austin would’ve admitted that he wished things were different.It wasn’t like he wanted to be alone forever.But everybody died eventually—his mother, his dad, his great-aunt, even DeeDee.And as Joe had just demonstrated, people could leave you in lots of other painful ways too.
Austin might not have everything he ever wanted, but he had a good life now.He had a business that earned him a decent living and kept a roof over his head—and now he had an extra roof, even.He liked his work, which even five minutes of idle conversation with someone could tell him was a blessing most people didn’t get.And when he got an itch, it wasn’t hard to go out to a bar and find someone to scratch it.Hell, as Joe had pointed out, the worst part was having to leave his house after 5:00 p.m.
“Not much of a team player?”Joe said after a moment.
Austin snorted.“Well, it’s not my strong suit.”He’d spent more time with Joe in the past few weeks than he had with any other person since he was twelve years old.“Call it a work in progress.”
“Guess you got thrown in the deep end with this house thing and my seventeen kids.”Joe grinned.“Good thing I’m such a good swim teacher.”
Austin was debating whether to throw something else at him, but the only thing at hand was the beer bottle, and that seemed extreme and also wasteful.He made a face instead, even if he appreciated the levity.He was about to ask if Joe wanted another drink when a soul-piercing yowl split the night.
Without a word, they shot to their feet.Austin had two flashlights plugged in on the bulkhead now, and they each grabbed one as they stumbled out of the trailer.
This late in the year, the sun set around five, so it was fully dark except in the little halo around the trailer.
“Where do you think—”
Another sound, this time a snarl, yelping, the scrabble of claws in gravel and dirt.
“Behind the garage,” Austin said, but they were already moving.His heart beat in his throat.That was the dog, he was sure of it.But what washappeningto it?
The flashlight beams crisscrossed the yard as they jogged.Joe slowed by the side of the garage long enough to pick up a length of two-by-four, which was a frankly insane thing to do, but probably so was running toward noises that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck like this.
It didn’t take long to find the source of the commotion.
In the muddy light of their torches was a tangle of snarling limbs and blood and fur.
It had to be the dog, Austin thought.The dog and one of the coyotes Linda had warned him about.
The dog had gotten the worst of it.She was on her back now, yelping in terror as the coyote latched on to her hind leg.Any second it would let go and lunge for the poor thing’s throat, and all Austin could do was stand there and gape, frozen in horror.
But not Joe.His flashlight hit the dirt as he stepped forward.Half a second later there was a solidcrackas he swung the two-by-four hard into the coyote’s flank.“Get out of here!”he shouted.“Go on—get—”
For a moment the commotion stopped and the coyote froze, head down as it considered this unexpected threat.
Then it squealed, bared its bloody teeth, and fled into the field behind the pole barn.
“Shit.”Joe dropped the wood and fell to his knees beside the dog.Austin was still staring at him, thinkingWhat the hell?Who did that?Who went and fought a wild animal with a piece of scrap lumber?This wasn’t even his dog.
