Royce(20)

The check had been for nearly thirty grand. Ten years of bonuses and back wages. She’d taken the money and paid her mother’s hospital bills and doctor bills and put the rest of it in her mom’s account. She smiled when she thought of her mom’s anger when she’d told her what she’d done with the eight thousand left over.

“You’ll do no such thing. You take that money and spend it on something extravagant for yourself. You’ve worked far too hard to put that money to no good use in a bank.”

“I’m going to get a job that I can work during the day and come home at night. I’m going to work one job, just one, and at the end of the day, be finished with it. When my vacation comes around, I’ll take one, go somewhere fun, and not worry about the other three jobs I have. But best of all, I’ll know that you’ll be taken care of. That you’ll be secure, safe, and have money to fall back on when you don’t feel like going to work.” Kasey held her mom’s hand. “Please let me do this for you. Please. I need to know that you won’t be treated as a subhuman without insurance the next time you get sick. Let me do this for you.” She nodded. Kasey knew she didn’t like it, but she would do it. For her, for them.

The apartment where she’d been living until just over six weeks ago was rented again. Calling it an apartment was like calling Kennedy National Airport a small stopover, but it had been hers. She was grateful to her uncle for getting her things packed up for her and putting them in the garage. She’d been looking for something suitable for several days now and thought she’d found someplace. The work she’d been doing for the college was helping make that dream a reality.

Kasey had been doing some typing when she’d had time before she’d gotten hurt. At three bucks a page to correct term papers and redo them, it had been an easy source of income. Now it took her a little longer, but the typing was helping to exercise her fingers after being broken and she had been able to put some money aside. She had almost enough to put a deposit on the place and pay some of the utilities. Her uncle was lending her the rest.

The apartment was on the ground floor of an older house. She had a bedroom, small kitchen that spilled out into the dining area, and living room. The bath was large by most standards, but it was clean. There was plenty of hot water, Mr. Rhodes told her, and she’d have a parking place right out front. He reminded her of her uncle and after a few minutes of walking around the place, she decided to take it. It would be her first real place since she’d come back home.

Three days later, she was moving in. Her uncle had asked a bunch of the guards from work to help him set her up and she had more help than she needed. But it was great seeing the gang and she sprung for pizzas and beers when everything was set up and things were put away. Her mom brought her an old kitchen table and chairs and her uncle gave her the couch from his basement. She was smiling happily when they all left. But as soon as the door closed, her face crumbled.

Nights where the hardest. She was lonely even when she’d been staying with her uncle and he would sit and talk to her after he’d come home. He never mentioned work other than to talk about one of the guys and she never asked about the one person she wanted to. Royce and his hurtful words still haunted her.

Two weeks. It had seemed forever ago when he’d told her they’d been stupid. She supposed they had been, but that didn’t make it any less hurtful. She wondered if there would ever be a time when she didn’t feel the ripping pain when she thought of what had been said. Crawling into her bed, she let the tears fall. She had no reason to hide them now, no reason to bury her face in the pillow to hide the hurt. But she did anyway. As she had been doing every night since that night, she cried herself to sleep.

~~~

“If you snap at me one more time I’m going to knock the shit out of you. I’m fucking sick to death of having you bite my head off every time I open my mouth.”

Royce looked at Curtis and counted to ten. He knew he’d been snappy, but if one more person asked him what his problem was he was going to scream. He was fine, damn it. Fucking wonderful. “I’m not snapping at you,” he said between clenched teeth. “I’m trying to make a point. If we don’t get this contract signed then the rest of the projects in that area will fall apart. It’s because of this one building that we can’t move on the others.”

“I know that. But short of going into Klingner’s office and demanding that he sign off on it, there isn’t a hell of a lot I can do. The man is giving up his entire business, one his father’s father started. He can’t just let it go without some thought.”