By Lucy

I slept in later than I meant to.

I had half a thought of going to the Craft Revival, if I woke up with enough time to pack and go, but I didn’t. Just like the concerts I’ve missed, I feel too tired to go, and if I’m honest, I just want to get out of town.

I finished the last level of Powerwash Simulator 2. It was a little anticlimactic compared to the first one.

Pack up and get ready to go. Hit Subway. On the road.

The first hour of the drive is listening to Victoria complain about her marriage. I mostly tune it out, but I grab an opportunity at the end to ask her which of the boys she thinks are cute.

“Drew!”

Drew does have pretty eyes and a certain boyish innocent charm.

“Bart’s super hot.” She says.

I roll my eyes. Bart’s conventionally attractive, sure, but I don’t find him personally attractive. There’s something deeply wrong with him in a way that’s hard to explain. It’s like… last year, we had a co-worker who seemed normal. Happy family, strong marriage, successful kids. No addictions. Since it’s established that we’re all very broken people, the fact there’s nothing obviously wrong with him makes us all wonder what’s deeply wrong with him. I don’t trust Bart.

“Kyle would sleep with either of us if we asked.” She says dismissively. “But he definitely has a villain vibe.”

Villain? As opposed to ‘bad boy’? I think he is a nice guy, but it’s hard to argue with the inherent ‘badness’ of having an interlock device. And his devil-may-care attitude… I’ve definitely caught him [redacted].

We get to the AirBnB around 3:30. The door is wide open, some cleaning supplies inside… a cleaning lady is here. The boys are nowhere to be seen.

“I’m just going to get the sheets from the laundromat!” The cleaning lady tells us cheerily as she leaves.

Alrighty then.

We wander around the house. The front door opens into a dining room type area, with a piano, a coat rack, and a large dining table. There’s a small galley kitchen, decked out with everything. In the back is a living room with a random collection of chairs. The whole place is a mess, stuff everywhere.

Downstairs looks like a dungeon; bare floors, bare walls, and futons everywhere. Drew and Kyle sleep here?

Upstairs is a little better. The beds are bare, awaiting clean sheets, the floors freshly vacuumed. The bathroom is empty. Two bedrooms are empty, doors ajar, one is closed and the boys’ voices sound from within.

“Which bedroom do you want?” I ask Victoria.

“The one closest to the bathroom.”

I mean, the difference is inches, but sure.

We unpack our stuff from the car. As we’re done the last little bit, Kyle appears, visibly sloshed. “Need anything?”

“Yes.” I asked him a bunch of questions in a clipped, curt tone, and he answered them one after the other, seemingly confused. No David, no Mike. There’ll be a new guy named Frank.

“Is that all?”

“Yes, you’re dismissed.” I said, with a little giggle.

Off grocery shopping!

As soon as the door closed behind us, Victoria exclaimed, “Oh my God, Kyle was being sooo awkward!”

He was being pretty weird, yeah. Because he’s drunk? Or because he’s now very aware of the fact we’re sleeping in the same house?

First, to the liquor store. Victoria wanted a bottle of wine. She convinced me to come in, and I found my eyes lingering on the bottles of Baileys.

“Just buy one, you don’t have to drink it all.” She says.

Oh, you don’t know me at all. Since when does a scaffolder not finish a bottle?

We went to Walmart next. We could theoretically shop smarter, since we now had a proper kitchen, but turns out, this Walmart is rubbish. The produce section is a single row, and the only fruit they have is apples.

We go to the other grocery store. Not a lot better, but at least they have some fruit. I grab a pack of kiwis.

Back to the house, unpack the groceries, sit at the table to eat dinner. The boys have performed a ten second tidy, sweeping everything off the flat surfaces.

Kyle comes down to join us. He’s got his hood up and a baseball cap on the whole time. He brings over an open bottle of tequila and 3 shot glasses.

“What happened to the rest of the tequila?” Victoria asks.

“He was doing shots with the cleaning lady.” Bart says, drifting thru.

He… what? Why?

“Bart, do a shot with us.” Kyle says.

“I’ll do one if you do a bowl.”

“Deal.”

Victoria quickly downs a glass of wine, then another. We are going off the rails quickly, degenerates that we are.

I wander upstairs and pour a couple fingers of Baileys into my mug. Why not.

Victoria’s inhibitions quickly start slipping, and her and Kyle go into sexually charged topics. I mostly just giggle and toss out random pot-stirring comments. A few times, I wonder if I should abandon ship before this becomes an awkward day at work.

Eventually Bart comes down to join us, but his eyes aren’t glazed at all. He’s Alastor inside as well, hiding his wickedness behind a placid smile. A few times our eyes meet, a measure of understanding passing between us. He’s also here just to mess with people; he smelled the inhibitions slipping, ’cause I can bet he usually hides in his room.

Drew finally shows up. Turns out, he tried walking on the pool in the backyard… the pool with a thin layer of ice. He fell through and has been shivering himself to death in the basement all afternoon.

“I took my smokes out of my pocket, first!”

Facepalm. Ah, the important things.

The conversation winds on and on as Victoria gets stupid drunk. A few times I try to steer it back towards safer topics, but no one lets me.

“You’re a prude, aren’t you?” Bart asks me.

I snort. Of course, if I argue that I’m not, I’ll be asked to prove it.

At one point Bart, Victoria and Drew go outside for a smoke.

“Want another shot, Lucy?” Kyle asks.

“No, thanks.” A wicked thought crosses my mind. Once I say it, no taking it back. Decisions, decisions…”You don’t need to get me drunk to sleep with me, you know.”

“Oh?” He fully turns in his chair to look at me, the glaze slipping from his eyes.

“Yeah, I decided last week.” I smile. “Just come upstairs to my room.”

“Ok, then.”

The others comes in. I wait ten-ish minutes, then excuse myself for bed.

After another 15 minutes – an eternity – he comes upstairs and knocks on my door before letting himself in.

He walks in and takes a seat on my bed. I sit next to him, wondering. We chat a bit, but he doesn’t make a move. He seems lost.

“How long has it been?” I ask gently.

He stares off into the distance. “Oh, it’s been a minute.”

Is it possible I’m the first women he’s had since his wife left? I take his face gently in my hands and place a kiss on his lips.

And that was all she wrote.

---

I wake up around 3 needing to go to the bathroom. I notice Kyle forget his baseball cap on my nightstand. I tiptoe downstairs and place it on the kitchen table.

6 AM comes early when you’re hungover, have a 10 hour day before you and another 6 days to go.

The room is chilly. The blankets are nice and warm, but there’s definitely something wrong with the patio doors. There’s the feel of a draft, and I can hear the train louder than I could at the hotel, which was closer to the tracks.

I was a little nervous going downstairs, not gonna lie. Kyle is up early, like me, and there had been little conversation after he got to my room. Which usually suits me just fine, but I had no idea what he viewed last night as.

He said nothing, his eyes still a little glazed over.

Click. Was he so drunk he didn’t remember we’d slept together?

No one else commented either. Was everyone really that sloshed? It felt a little disorienting, like Groundhog day. I remembered all this stuff no one else did.

Everyone seemed pretty spry, despite theoretically being hungover.

Bart sent me and Kyle up to the roof first thing in the morning. A good team on and off working time… or just because Victoria is too anxious to get on the roof. We’re detaching the top of all the tarps. Can’t continue the dismantle with all the hoarding in place.

It will be brutal without the hoarding. Not that they are as sturdy or protective as walls, but better than nothing. One thing I left out of my last post about the build is just how the scaffold breathes, sings and shudders with the wind. At times, shaking to the point you’d be concerned it would fall over, except it’s been up for 3 months. The painters took off a lot of the tie-ins to paint under them.

We have to haul a couple long ropes and some rope grabs up to the top with us. There’s no handrail up there, so the rope is the only thing to keep us from falling.

Up 9 sets of ladders.

Kyle goes up first, to attach the ropes.

Oh good lord. The ladder goes right to the edge of the roof, but not above it, so I have to haul myself up onto the vapour-barrier covered roof with nothing to hang on to, and the abyss yawning away beneath me.

Eventually I arrive on the roof, sitting down, trying to disguise finding my courage as catching my breath.

Kyle grabs the back of my harness and attaches the rope grab. “Here’s your life-saving device. I gave you the good rope, too.”

I want to say, ‘I should hope so’, not because I’m a girl or we spent the night together, but because he has a death wish a mile wide and I don’t.

That’s one distinction I think is important to make. I don’t want to be treated as special by Kyle because I slept with him. I like him because he takes care of all of us, the team dad.

The job is fairly simple. The ‘strapping’ is just 2×4’s nailed to the plywood. Kyle tears them up and passes them to me, and then I walk over to the ladder and hand them down to Victoria. The roof is damp with dew, but the sun comes out and burns it away. It’s nice up here… if you can forget about the risk of death.

There’s an array up here. When I go over to move the ropes, I take a couple of snaps of the dishes and post them in Discord. I expect some jokey comments, but everyone immediately starts freaking out about how I shouldn’t be that close to them if they are on.

Gulp.

“You know about this stuff?” Kyle asks me.

“Yeah, my boyfriend works for IBEW.”

“Oh, yeah? I run my own company installing this stuff.”

“You do? Why are you here scaffolding, then?”

“I need the money.”

I see. Well, if I wanted some time alone with Kyle to ask him questions, we don’t get more alone than on the roof.

“So, what do you remember about last night?” I say, equal parts flirtatious and nervous.

He chuckles, in a despairing sort of way. “Bits and pieces are coming back to me.”

Ah. “Oh, it’s not as fun if you can’t remember.”

He smiles slightly at that, not looking at me. “We did do that, didn’t we.”

Alright, I’ll leave him alone.

Of course, in vino veritas and all that jazz. If he was so drunk he can barely remember, it’s telling about who he is at his core, with his inhibitions stripped away. And even then, he was still pretty reserved.

When we go down for break, it’s just me and Victoria in the breakroom.

“So, after you went to bed, I drunkenly realized I forgot to make a lunch, so I made a huge mess in the kitchen trying to cook something when I couldn’t see straight.” She laughs, “I just hope I didn’t keep the boys up, stomping around.”

“Boy.” I correct her, with a sly smile.

“What do you mean, Drew and Kyle sleep….” The lightbulb flicks on. “Wait, DID YOU F*CK KYLE?”

I can only cackle hysterically.

“I’m so proud of you!” She roars, “And here Bart was calling you a prude! See, we’re opposites! I’m all bark and no bite, you’re quiet but you go for it!”

“Yup.” I squeak, finally.

“The boys were all telling him to follow you upstairs, too, and he kept saying no! What was it like? How big is he? Tell me everything!”

Hmm, that’s interesting. Even blackout drunk, trying to preserve my modesty.

I tell her bits and pieces. I have no idea what Kyle would prefer I didn’t tell her, but I feel like I can get away with telling her some things.

After break, Bart warns us that the town is sending a drone around. Apparently they keep taking pictures of our progress because the repainting of the water tower is a 4 million dollar project, connected to reviving the town mascot “L’il Amik”, and it’s all anyone can talk about.

Since the boys pulled the tarps down, there’s nothing blocking my view of the 150 foot drop on the other side of the ladder. It takes even more courage to haul myself onto the roof.

I stay on my hands and knees for a moment, paralyzed. Eventually I squeak out, “There’s no place for dignity in scaffolding.”

Kyle laughs. “No, no there isn’t.” He attaches the rope grab to my harness again. “Good girl, here’s your leash.”

“Hah, don’t rub it in.”

Removed the rest of the strapping. I feel vaguely guilty, like I should be helping him, but I’m terrified of going near the edge.

Once all the strapping is down, we chain it down to the dance floor. Me and Kyle stop to chat on a platform, and Victoria’s hammer slips out of her belt as she climbs down the ladder and beans him on the back of his neck, right where his hard hat stops.

“Ouch!” He grabs the spot.

As Victoria alights on the platform, mortified, I quip, “Don’t break my toy, I need him intact.”

Bart asks us to go around and help Drew take down the rest of the tarps.

After break, Bart asks Victoria to stay on the ground with him while I help the boys with the tarps. We have to roughly roll them up to get them in the lift, then Victoria is going to fold them properly on the ground.

Halfway through the last bit of the day, Drew’s phone rings. He answers it, then listens for a minute. “Wait, what?” Laughter breaks out.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“Nothing, it’s a secret.” Drew says, wiping tears from his eyes.

“I hate secrets.” I reply. But he’s not budging, so I wander away for a bit to give him a moment to spill to Kyle. After a few minutes, Kyle find a reason to wander over to me.

Kyle leans in. “Victoria told Bart we hooked up, so he called Drew.”

I facepalm. “Is it really that interesting?” Then I laugh. “It’s not a secret! I thought everyone figured it out already.”

He shrugs. “Well, they know now.”

“Good. I hate secrets.” Nothing seems more gut-wrenching than the idea of trying to sneak around the small AirBnb.

After work, I convince Victoria to drive me to KFC. When we get back to the house, Kyle is desperately flipping through the channels, slouched in the comfy chair.

“Afraid of the silence?” I say, mostly jokingly.

“Yes, trying to drown out the voices.” He also says it jokingly, but I can see the truth behind it.

I sigh.

You always like the broken ones.

“Let’s put on Hazbin Hotel!” I suggest.

“Helluva Boss is better.” Victoria replies.

Kyle puts Hazbin Hotel on. I ramble about it as we watch, half-expecting him to be bored or change it or not listen as he idly scrolls on his phone, but he isn’t on his phone… and he’s listening, too. What the heck?

Victoria gets up and leaves the two of us alone in the half-lit living room.

“No alimony, no kids, you say your rent is cheap… what do you need all this money for?” I lean over the side of the couch and bat my eyelashes at him.

He looks up at me. “You ask a lot of questions. You actually want an answer to all that?”

“Yes.” I giggle.

“I’m working hard now to save for later.”

Liar. Sure, I can see some people being miserly enough to work 60-80 hour weeks now, and retire early. But the way he drinks and burns through money? Not a chance. Whatever, I’ll bug him more later.

We get through 6 episodes before I start eyeballing the time. I’m honestly surprised he isn’t pawing at me for sex. Because he gets it so easily I’m not a treat? I don’t buy that… this guy is too wrapped up in his own thoughts to see what’s in front of him.

“Disassociating your life away minutes at a time?” I tease him about his thousand-yard stare.

“Woah, woah, dial it back there. More like 30 seconds at a time.”

Alright, I give up. Away to bed, by myself.

We continue our habit from the hotel of having breakfast together, because Victoria has a breakfast of coffee and cigarettes. Bart doesn’t seem to eat food, subsisting on pot and 4 litres of milk a day. Drew rolls out of bed and into his coveralls.

“Supposed to snow around noon.” I note.

“Don’t do that.” Kyle groans.

“Do what? I’m not conjuring the snow.”

“Oh, I think you are.” He smiles.

It’s ungodly cold today. I bought some fleece leggings at Walmart to act as long johns, but I’m maxed out on layers and it’s only going to get colder.

To start, me and Victoria are rolling tarps up and throwing them in the lift. Victoria gets bit by a bug and starts being really fussy about how neat they are rolled up, which is frustrating when they’re just gonna get unrolled on the ground anyway. The wind keeps trying to steal them away from us, and we have to hop over and duck under the ledgers around the dance floor.

Kyle always makes all these little noises. Victoria has started copying him because it’s ‘fun’. I suppose it is… they don’t sound like Legend of Zelda, but they do remind me of the way Link is always making noises of exertion.

Around noon, it does start snowing, big fluffy flakes.

Unhoarded scaffolding is a chore in the winter. Snow has weight, obviously, so if it snows too much the apprentice will end up having to shovel it off.

After the tarps are down, Bart sends us up to the top to help hand down plywood. The boys have been ripping up sheets, and it needs to come down so it doesn’t get blown off.

Jeez, chaining 8×4 pieces of plywood in a snowstorm, 150 feet up.

I don’t want to be at the lift, and I’m more agile than Victoria, so I’m sent to receive them. Standing on two ply decks as Kyle hands them down between the I beams. Handing down is still easier than handing up; all I have to do is guide them while gravity does the work. Then I have to wrestle them across the platform to where Victoria is waiting.

“Ready, girl?” Kyle asks me.

‘Girl‘? Why does every guy I sleep with start calling me ‘girl‘?

It goes fine. The wind picks up and starts trying to steal the plywood from me, not to mention cutting through me like a knife. At one point I do slip and lose a sheet to the top of the water tower, but fortunately it doesn’t slide off the side or do any damage.

As we head down for lunch, Kyle says, “I told Bart we’re calling it early to go to the Outfitters to get coveralls, since they close at 5. You wanna go?”

“Victoria won’t want to.”

He shrugs. “You can always get a ride with me.”

I know that’s a normal thing to offer, but something about his tone seems… deeper. More genuine. “Sure.”

“How’s the plywood.”

“Fine. It’s a little difficult because my core is just scar tissue.”

He blinks at me. “It is?”

“Dude, you’ve seen me naked.”

“I was distracted by your boobs.” He says, with a little coy smile.

See, that’s one thing that always makes me laugh. Maybe it’s just my taste in men, but no one has ever tried to kick me out of bed for being scarred, and half of them don’t even notice the scars. The scars bother me the least out of everything.

More plywood. Bart comes up with us and he’s a menace about throwing the sheets down at me. It’s like he wants me to hurt myself.

It gets darker earlier now. The sun doesn’t come up ’til after 7:30 and sets around 4:30. We can usually tell when the shift is over because it’s now dark out.

Run down the scaffold, freezing my butt off, and hop in Kyle’s red truck. Watch him use the blower. His truck has the same dashboard as my car and his music comes on automatically.

His taste in music is Industrial metal/ 90’s grunge rock, to go with the industrial piercing he has in his ear. Billy Talent, Rise Against, Nine Inch Nails. Something about it reminds me of Vox.

The coveralls are nice. I’m annoyed to be spending 250$ on something for a job, but I suppose they’ll come in handy later. I grab some Hot Paws and a balaclava as well.

Rare moment alone with him again. As we drive back to the AirBnb, I say, “Coming up to my room tonight?”

He glances at me in surprise. “Do you want me too?”

“Yes.” I say, too emphatically.

He chuckles.

“I’m surprised the boys haven’t made any jokes about it.”

“They have, to me.”

I’d almost prefer they say it to my face. I like to know what people are saying about me. I also know it’s hard to close that can of worms once you open it. Maybe I should be glad no one is saying anything to me.

“Any rules?”

“Rules?”

“No cuddling… etc.”

“Nope, no rules. I don’t like rules.” He smiles wickedly.

“Cool.”

As we park in the driveway, he says, “I’m making burgers, did you want one?”

Yes. No. I suppose he’s just being considerate, but my heart throbs a bit. “No, I’m ok, thanks.”

I hop in the shower first. After the shower, I consider what I had planned for dinner; instant noodles. “Hey Kyle, is it too late to ask for a burger?”

“Nope. You want one or two?”

“Just one.”

Bart comes in from cooking his own burgers and complains the painters broke the grill. The painters broke everything, it seems; the door on the dryer, the window in the bathroom upstairs, the toilet in the half-bath downstairs…

While Kyle cooks, Bart runs around the house, cleaning and putting things away, in ‘dad mode’. He even goes outside to shovel the walkway. Some guy is supposed to show up to pick up the plywood, because it would cost more to ship it to southern Ontario than it would to just buy new plywood, so he’s trying to sell it and make a quick buck. The guy doesn’t show.

“There’s nothing on TV.” Kyle complains.

“We could always entertain ourselves.” I say, leaning over to kiss him.

“Oh, hello!”

Eventually I excuse myself to my room and start texting Kyle to come to my room. It takes him far too long… I’m falling asleep waiting.

After round one, he seems to remember the scar discussion from earlier, and asks me about them. He also asks me about a few of my tattoos. Then it’s time for round two.

The dawn comes too early.

“Love me some scaffolder.” I text Paul.

“Filling and salty, with a satisfactory crunch.”

Something like that. They’re always so strong… and Kyle just keeps going, on little sleep, nursing a permanent hangover. Some kind of perpetual motion machine.

Kyle sleeps in. I should be careful or Bart’ll be mad at me for breaking his best guy.

“I have tea for you.” I tell Victoria.

“I know, I could hear you two through the wall.”

“Oh, hah.” I blush. It makes me nervous that my bed is above the living room too, although my bed doesn’t squeak or walk across the floor, thank goodness.

Frank didn’t show, so we have a new new guy, Virgil. He looks and sounds like Duff, so if I squint I can pretend Duff is here with me. He’s got a case of the Dulcinea effect, trying to save me and Victoria from the heavy stuff. I want to complain, but I also don’t want to burn myself out. Virgil is somewhat local and knows Mike personally; he says he’s a raging alcoholic, which explains a lot of his screw-ups, if he was also nursing a constant hangover.

He also knows one of the other locals who did the erection, Chris, or his full nickname, Chris Windows; so named because he’s put his head through enough windows that it became a nickname. Apparently Kyle is still chatty with him, which checks out.

I struggle to walk up the stairs still. Actually, the longer I’m here, the harder climbing the stairs has become. I’m not getting better at it. I’m out of breath after two flights and Kyle tickles me as he scoots past.

“You’re, like, half my age, girl!”

“How old do you think I am!” I call after him. “30 is not half your age!” He’s 38.

Virgil’s never been this high up before. He talks a lot to cover his anxiety.

I love my new coveralls. I feel so much better in them, with the balaclava as well. Maybe I can do this.

We finish ripping the plywood down. I receive the plywood from Virgil and pass it to Victoria. At one point my pant leg gets stuck on a protruding nail and I slam a full sheet of plywood down on my calf. The bruise takes a full 24 hours to show up.

Then we move on to removing the I beams.

Victoria has bought a cheap little Bluetooth speaker from Walmart, so we listen to her music. Me and her dance, Virgil watches. Matt Mays gets everyone grooving; hometown boy. At one point I make a joke about Kyle forgetting his hat in my room and Virgil smiles.

“I knew there was something going on there. I’ve got eyes!” He exclaims, “I dunno how the two of you have energy for it, I’ll be wrecked by the end of today.”

I dunno how we do, either. Also, is it really that obvious? I didn’t… hm…

After work, I hop in the shower first. The boys are seated around the dinner table, doing shots, when I’m done. I sit at the table but decline shots. Somehow Kyle is already 4 shots and a beer deep already.

We argue about if Bart is a company man and he definitely is. You can be a foreman and not be a company man, but when you put the needs of the company over the needs of your crew, you are a company man. That’s just how it is. Also, he has the bosses’ credit card.

Victoria comes by and asks the boys to open a jar of pickles. The only one who can open it is Kyle.

Ooh la la.

Bart asks me something about my family and I reply, “Well, my mother is Mennonite…”

“Wait, what? I asked you that on the first day and you said you aren’t a Mennonite.”

He did? I don’t remember that. I do have a vague memory of him asking me if I was Amish, but I put that down to him calling me a prude and didn’t take him seriously. He recognized the Mennonite in me?

Well, it’s true, though. I’m not a Mennonite. My parents actually banned me from going to church.

“How did you escape? During Rumspringa?”

I laugh. “Amish and Mennonite are not the same. Mennonites don’t have Rumspringa.”

“Shots!” Kyle interrupts, offering us all one. When he offers me a shot, I decline, but Bart says, “Do one!” So I accept.

“Why do you do shots when Bart asks you, and not me?”

“Because you ask if I want to and I don’t want to. If you wanted me to, i would.” Within reason.

Bart has his usual beer stein filled with milk, between the shots of tequila.

As the clock ticks on 7, I realize I forgot about the time change and the gas plant meeting today. Crap. Not a good look. I debate emailing them to apologize and decide not to.

Bart leaves to go shower, leaving just me, Drew, and Kyle around the table. Kyle throws chicken fingers in the oven and someone mentions rehab.

“Yeah, rehab doesn’t work.” Kyle says.

“Wait, you were in rehab?” I say, genuinely surprised.

“AA too, I remember that.” Drew adds from the kitchen.

“Yeah, that first line about alcohol is accurate.”

What; We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives have become unmanageable, that one?

“How long were you in AA for?” I ask, injecting a measure of gentleness and empathy into my voice, knowing I risk being called soft for it.

“8, 9 months sober. You just…” He spins the shot glass in his hands. “We all do it, right? You get so used to unwinding with a drink after work, and one becomes two becomes three, and then you realize it’s not normal… Look, if you really want me to tell you the story -“

Just then, Bart comes back from his shower and demands to know if the chickens tenders are ready, which entirely derails the conversation.

That’s an interesting twist. He got clean… and relapsed? Badly. And he we are, mocking him day in and day out. Crap, now I feel terrible.

Now what, though? This isn’t really the time or the place for… whatever. Healing? Trying to bond?

Suddenly my whole opinion of Kyle has shifted. Most scaffolders don’t consider alcoholism a problem, never mind having tried rehab. No longer is he the party animal who can’t get his shit together. Now he’s… something else. I’ve been mocking someone who was trying to get better and has sunk into despair. My guts twist.

After I go to bed, I text him, “I’m very sorry for mocking you about your drinking.” Does that sound sincere? I should say it in person, but I’m always worried about being overheard.

He replies, “I appreciate you saying that. You mean well and that’s all that matters.”

I feel better about Kyle than I did about John, but I can’t explain why. John I was on the fence about and regretted almost instantly, and I still can’t explain why I don’t trust him, but I’ve decided I’m not waiting around to find out. I also don’t trust Kyle, but in a certain way that bothers me less. It seems familiar; the usual self-destruction.

I will say, it’s interesting what you miss when it’s gone. Kyle is considerate, kind and curious about me in some ways, but in other ways he is curiously incurious. There has been 0 discussion about what is happening, which appears to have caused both of us to default to “casual sex”, but it still feels weird not have formally agreed to it. I admit, I hate it when guys ask me ‘why’, but the fact that me bluntly offering him sex basically caused him to strip and jump into my bed with no further questions is kinda odd and weirding me out.

I’m not even sure what kind of reaction I am having. I find him occupying my thoughts a lot. I don’t ‘like’ him, in the sense that I missed Garry but didn’t necessarily want to have a long term relationship, but just the level of disengaged that he is…

Oh… oh, no.

You always like the broken ones.

Thursday morning, we’re unrolling and folding the tarps properly. Bart complains about how late the sun comes up now. Can’t really climb the scaffold in the dark.

Then beams beams and more beams. Bart threatens to come help us tear down if we don’t move fast enough. It’s sad that that’s a threat. Honestly, it would move faster if we could spare him up here. We need two more guys, one to be on the ground with the lift, and one to chain, and we could probably move at a pretty good clip. I’m unsure if they want more guys and can’t find them, or if the boss said that’s it. Duff would be out here tomorrow if they agreed to it.

We finish the beams and move to tearing down the ledgers and standards. The next problem is… everything. The ring of decks around the scaffold are only 2 wide in places, littered with planks, and covered in snow. There’s ledgers and braces across every node, so we’re ducking and stepping over them constantly. Walking across the top of the tank would be more direct, but obviously the freshly painted and sloped top of a water tank is slick in the cold and the snow.

“I could have Bart bring up decks, if that would make it easier.” Kyle offers.

I dunno, would it? You are the superior here, you make that call.

We bring up a couple of decks. We should probably do some kind of pattern – so we can minimize the amount of moving the decks – but Kyle is an agent of chaos, like usual, just all over the place. It’s all we can do to try and stay organized, except I’m also managing Tweedledee and Tweedledumb. Virgil is too laissez-faire about where we place the gear that can’t go in the lift right away, and Victoria is too rigid about keeping everything tidy. I have to manage both of them while also making sure enough gear goes in the lift to keep Bart busy on the ground.

Virgil also keeps trying to slide gear across the ledgers that are about shoulder height. I know it makes sense – sliding gear means you’re not taking the weight – but neither me nor Victoria have the core strength to lift gear from that height, so it doesn’t help us.

At one point, Kyle gets a phone call and pauses, glancing over the side of the scaffold. “MOL is here.”

I blink. “The ministry? Why?”

[Redacted], He says, rotating his wrist as he puts his glove back on, “Ah!” He makes an actual noise of pain and grabs his wrist.

“Are you hurt?”

“Just my soul.” He shakes his head, massaging his wrist. “I’m fine, it’ll go away in a minute. Lunchtime, anyway.”

When it’s just me and Victoria alone in the breakroom, she says, “Let’s go shopping today.” In a way that isn’t a question or a request. “You keep going with Kyle.”

Alrighty, then. “I’m keeping his morale up.”

“Uh huh.” She winks at me.

“I had an idea; we go to M&M’s and stock up on freezer meals.”

“Oh, good idea!”

Everything hurts. Chaining ten foot gear is hard enough, plus the unsure footing and the sliding on the slippery roof, and you have all kinds of resistance training going on here.

Virgil asks Kyle for one of his nicotine pouches. “Are you sure? They’re 15 mgs.” He replies.

“Holy cow, gut rot.” Virgil says, as Kyle pops his headphones back in.

Fueled by nicotine and early 90’s rock. Stims and depressants, all day every day.

Kyle’s convinced Draper to come visit us this weekend for a night of debauchery. When we get back from break, Victoria sits on a ledger and bounces excitedly at the thought of getting white girl wasted with him. “I’m getting excited.”

“Don’t get too excited, or you’ll stick to the ledger.” I observe. She dies laughing.

“I’m going to play firetruck with Bart this weekend.”

“What’s firetruck?”

I’ll spare you the details, needless to say it’s a sexy game.

“You have fun with that.” I’m not even sure you could pay me to have sex with Bart.

After work, away to the store.

The kindly old lady at the store is happy to see us. Since we’re local celebrities, I regale her with all kinds of tales about tearing down the scaffold, and she’s more than happy to listen. This is kinda fun.

Victoria wants to go to the liquor store again. After a moment, I give in and go with her. If Kyle’s going to cajole everyone in shots almost every night, I’m picking my own poison. I buy a small bottle of Crown.

What a glutton for punishment I am. I was doing pretty good on being sober, and to be honest I have no real desire to drink, except to keep Kyle company. Which is probably some kind of red flag, but I can’t find it in myself to say no. What do I always say… if I ever got picked up by a real villain, I’d probably happily become his sidekick, and we’re getting dangerously close to that territory.

Victoria buys some chocolate Crown that I doubt will taste good.

When we get home, the only car in the driveway is Drew’s. We’re unsure if he’s actually home or out with one of the others. Victoria yells, “Sweet baby boy!” Which is our pet name for him between us. He comes upstairs immediately. “Oh, good, you come when you’re called.”

I can’t help snorting with laughter. This is gonna be the only jobsite where the girls are sent home for sexually harassing the boys.

Wait, why did Drew know that meant him?

“Where’s the others?” I ask.

“Kyle is at Safeway.”

Half an hour later it occurs to me I need more Gatorade. I text Kyle, “Are you still at Safeway?”

“Just leaving, why?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He calls me immediately. “What do you need?”

Why… what… Oh, fine. “Gatorade and crackers, please.”

I throw something in the oven and go shower. When he notices we went to M&M’s, he comments that he loves their French onion soup.

Kyle’s turn to shower. He comes back downstairs in a shirt with the sleeves ripped off and I immediately lose my train of thought as I’m distracted checking out his bare arms. Marissa is right, they are a good look…

My new headphones finally showed up, so I’m playing around with them as I eat dinner. I can’t figure out how to pair them, but I’m not really trying either. They come with a cable, who cares.

“Aren’t those wireless headphones?” Kyle points to the cable.

“Yes, but I can’t get the wireless thing to work.” I say, frustrated.

“May I?”

“Sure.”

Within 30 seconds, he’s got my laptop paired to my new headphones. “There you go, easy.”

“I should be able to do it myself.” I grumble.

“Why’d you get a new headset, anyway?”

“My old one broke on the last turn around, and I wanted a new one.”

“Can I see the old one?”

“Sure.” I run upstairs and grab it. He pops the earpiece back on easily. “Well… f*ck. I should have been able to do that.” So much for the independent, capable young woman.

“I used to work for Geek Squad.” He says, as if that answers anything because I have no faith in Geek Squad. He gets up, taking my empty plate from in front of me and going to the kitchen with it, loading it in to the dishwasher.

“I could grab that… stop being helpful!” I yell across the room at him. He laughs.

What kind of shrew would leave him? He cooks, he cleans, he’s good in bed…

Bart and Drew join us in the living room. Victoria’s a little into the wine. We all do a shot of the Crown chocolate and it is nasty. Kyle makes everyone do another shot, and then Victoria and Bart convince Drew to jump in the pool again. It’s proper frozen, so he doesn’t end up swimming this time and they owe him money.

I call it a night early. I’m having a hard time sleeping again; I keep waking up in pain around 3 or 4. I start setting an alarm for 1 or 2 AM to give me time to wake up and take some Tylenol before it’s too painful.

Slow start to the morning. We’re all feeling the week and even Bart doesn’t want to haul himself out of bed. Despite him complaining about the darkness the other day, he sends us up the scaffold anyway.

When we have the lift mostly loaded, Kyle turns around and groans. “Well, it’s an odd day when I’m not in trouble for something.”

I glance behind us. “What’s up?”

“I decided to tear down ledgers and I didn’t tell Bart to put a rack on the hoist.”

“Oops.”

He’s short with us all morning… short for Kyle, anyway. I’ve never seen his mood approaching anything that could be described as annoyed, never mind anger, but you can see it when he’s disappointed.

On break, I text him, “Are you annoyed with us?”

“Just hungry. Don’t worry, you’re stuck with me.”

“I’d appreciate more motivation to stick around.” Winky face.

“Oh, is that so? I’m sure we can work something out.”

Around one, a large plane flies over the border and right over our heads. Military? There’s also an eagle that likes to hang out around the scaffold. I was surprised there were no nests at the top of the scaffold, especially eagles, since they prefer eyries.

Not much happens beyond the usual. As we head out for the day, Bart glances meaningfully between me and Kyle and comments, “If I were a first year, I’d ask you if you have a big cock or something.”

Oh, finally, a comment. I was dying waiting for one. I’m 99% sure Bart is burning with curiosity about what’s going on between us, and Kyle is refusing to tell him anything. I am enjoying having something I can hold over Bart’s head. I just smirk at him, not wasting my breath.

I’ve been staying at the trailer for first break, and going back to the AirBnb for lunch, because the microwave at the trailer doesn’t work, and the portapotty is still unheated and unwrapped. I’m really glad I chose to stock up from M&M’s. Out of the freezer, into the microwave, and it’s sort of healthy… sort of.

I flake out on the couch and put on Nightcrawler. Something brainless to pass the time.

“Where are the boys?” Victoria asks.

“Downstairs.”

“Probably jerking each other off.” She says, sarcastically and with a huge grin.

“Probably.” I say, although it wouldn’t surprise me, either. There’s usual work wife stuff, and then there’s these two. And now that I know what Kyle is like in bed, I can see the way he subtly manipulates everyone around him. He has a subtle, self-depreciating charm about him that’s very persuasive, but he’s not half as dopey and innocent as he seems. I almost feel like I have to rescue Drew from him. He’s teaching him a lot of bad habits.

I manage to club Kyle over the head and drag him up to my room again. Afterwards, as he’s yawning and complaining about how cold the basement is, I say, “You know, you could sleep here.”

Wait, why did I say that?

“I could… I shouldn’t.” He leans over to kiss me, before getting up and getting dressed.

Shouldn’t… why ‘shouldn’t’?

I lay awake in bed staring at the ceiling for a while. One of Garry’s selling points was the second bed. I didn’t even like sharing a bed with James. Where did that come from?

The next day is more of the same. Chaining gear, slipping and sliding on the roof. The cold burns through the gloves. Every day in the shower, I peel blistered skin off my hands, and I’m applying twice daily layers of lotion to the damaged skin. I’ve even moisturized my face, to head off windburn.

“Kyle’s in a good mood today, how much tequila did you guys do last night?” Virgil asks jokingly.

“He only had one beer last night. I’m the reason he’s in a good mood.” I say, smiling angelically.

He laughs.

At lunch, Bart complains he needs some lip chap from the windburn. Victoria offers him, and when he asks her what flavour it is, she puckers up and says, “Come try it.”

He declines, but he does laugh along with the joke.

“They’re gonna kick us out for sexually harassing the boys.” I gasp, between laughing fits.

“What! You don’t scare me, I have 5 sisters and they’re all tradies.” Bart retorts.

Virgil puts his hands on Victoria’s shoulders. She immediately goes stiff and yells, “Don’t touch me!”

“What, like this?” He grabs her shoulders again.

“Stop it before she punches you.” I warn him. Actually, I’ll punch him myself if he keeps it up.

“Just make sure you’re tied off before you start a fistfight at the top of the tower.” Bart says disinterestedly.

After work! Draper is here, all set up in the basement. Rush to shower. Me and Victoria drive to Boston Pizza. The boys walk.

“So, why’d you leave the Mennonites?” Bart asks again.

“I’m not telling you.” I say. The idea that I’m some wayward Mennonite is kinda fun. I’m debating origin stories.

He starts asking me about my tattoos next. When I explain the “As above, so below” tattoo, he says, “What kind of spell did you cast on Kyle?”

I smile. “Sweetheart, it’s called tequila.”

It does make me pause, though I don’t let it show. Does Bart know something I don’t? It’s just casual drunk sex, what’s mysterious about it?

Because Bart lost his bet with Drew, he has to order not one, not two, but 4 shots of Patron, which ain’t cheap. They all agree it is smoother than Kyle’s tequila.

The party continues back at the house. At least, with Draper to torment, Kyle’s not so on me to keep up with everyone else’s drinking. I put a little Baileys in my cup and sip it as everyone gets stupid. I put Jackbox on and we have a lot of fun.

I’m drunk, nonetheless. I keep calling Kyle ‘Kevin’, to the point that Bart asks, “Who’s Kevin?”

Uh oh.

Oh, shit.

Nonononono…

At one point, I missed how it started, but Victoria started chirping the few details I told her about Kyle. I immediately resolve not to tell her anything else going forward.

“I know all about what’s going on between the two of you!” She announces.

Umm… no, you don’t. And please stop.

“Wait, did it happen again?” Bart asks. “I asked Kyle if he was in your room the other night and he said no.”

I snort. “Yeah, it happened other nights.” I shrug.

Kyle puts his hands up in a mea culpa.

After everyone goes outside for a smoke, leaving me and Kyle alone in the living room, he turns to me.

“What is this?” He asks, almost demanding.

“It’s just sex, don’t make it complicated.” I reply.

“Is that what this is?”

“Well, yeah! What do you want it to be? We never talked about it!”

“No, no we didn’t. This is fine.”

Then they start coming back in from their smoke and the conversation fades.

We stay up drinking ’til 1 or 2 in the morning. I’m not interested in being up much later, so I grab Kyle’s hand and drag him back to my room again.

He pins me to the bed.

“Come out for lunch tomorrow.”

“Ok.” I smile, confused, thinking back to him asking me what we are.

“We can do our laundry and go shopping. And talk.”

“That sounds like a date.”

“Maybe.” He kisses me. “Promise?”

My stomach twists and turns, my hands trapped in his, my heart burning a hole in my chest, burning with new feelings.

“I promise.” I whisper.

The day drags through, though storms keep out the sun,

And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly, lives on.

• Lord Byron