Page 78 of John Wilder Gets Schooled
He reached for a beer and closed the refrigerator door. “Why don’t we have a chart for us?”
“What?”
“I want a sticker when I clean the bathroom.”
“When the heck have you ever cleaned the bathroom?”
He cracked open his beer. “Well, maybe I would clean it if there were stickers involved!”
He stalked out of the kitchen, heading for the dining room and the sound of conversation and laughter.
I couldn’t tell if he was bullshitting or not, but I was definitely going to test him on it.
The kitchen smelled of garlic bread and Bolognese sauce. We weren’t having a spaghetti night next week because Avery would be in Richmond with his family for Thanksgiving. The guys would miss spaghetti night. I would too, but I’d miss Avery more, even though it was only for a few days.
Avery bustled into the kitchen, looking flushed with laughter. He inspected the pots on the stovetop. “It looks ready. Grab me some bowls?”
I got him the bowls, then took the garlic bread out of the oven, my mouth watering at the scent. Avery transferred the spaghetti to a serving bowl and we carried it through to the dining room, and Cash practically dived for the garlic bread as soon as it hit the table. I didn’t blame him—Avery’s garlic bread was pretty great.
So was Avery.
Spaghetti dinner was as loud and chaotic as always. Avery told a story about one of his kids putting a crayon up their nose, Danny let it drop that he’d finally saved enough to enroll in community college, and Chase complained loudly about being put on permanent night shift by Bobby.
“Is this because you called some lady’s kid a little fu—effhead?” Danny asked.
“No, that was last week,” Chase said. “And he knocked over a whole display stand! This is because I punched some guy in the face.”
Miller winced.
“What?” Chase asked. “He was so drunk he won’t remember! Anyhow, Bobby says I need to work on my customer service skills, but how am I supposed to do that when hardly anyone comes in on night shift?” He wrinkled his nose. “Just that one guy I hate.”
“The guy you punched?” Miller asked.
“Nah, some other guy.”
“Chase hates a lot of people,” Danny said, and Chase nodded in agreement.
“How’s the new job going, Wilder?” Miller asked me in an obvious attempt to redirect the conversation away from Chase’s workweek, probably before he was asked for free legal advice about the difference between misdemeanors and felonies.
“It’s good,” I said. And then, because I knew they all loved gossip, I added casually, “I’m working on Bobby’s latest project. He’s stripping out the old bookstore and adding an industrial kitchen.”
“The fu-lip does Bobby want with a kitchen?” Chase asked suspiciously.
Cash leaned over and whispered something to him.
Chase brightened. “Yeah, I hope it’s gonna be a pizza place too!”
“I thought Bobby’s projects were mostly pie in the sky stuff,” Miller said. “Danny, didn’t you say he’d bought up half of Main Street but never got much further than that?”
“Oh, yeah,” Danny said. “Usually Bobby’s projects hardly go anywhere because he gets distracted by some other new idea and forgets all his old ones.”
“Excuse you,” Avery said, “I won’t hear slander against the owner of the Adventurama, Goose Run’s foremost tourist attraction! It has one and a half stars on Trip Advisor!”
“They have kittens!” Gracie added, giving me a significant look.
“And I’m sure the kittens are very happy living there at the Adventurama,” I said, pretending not to know exactly what she was angling for. “We can go visit them anytime you’d like.”
She drew a breath, and I knew what was coming.
