He shook his head for some reason and announced, “Fire pit’s done. You wanna see how it works?”
“Hell yes!” I exclaimed, jumping up, putting my laptop down on the seat I vacated and rushing past him. I then dashed across the pine-needle-ly grass, dodging the standing pines left close when they’d built the house (which were the obvious source of the pine needles in the grass), to race up the steps to the main deck.
I stood next to the fire pit that now had a beautiful rim of flagstone and did this with hands clasped in front of me.
Deke came slower, eyes to my hands at my chest, before they rose to my face.
“You regress to a six-year-old?” he asked.
“Do I have a new toy?” I asked back.
His lips curled up slightly. “Reckon you do.”
“Then yes,” I answered.
He got close, bent deep in a squat and said, “See this key?”
I looked down to the key sticking out of the side of the fire pit that he was pointing to with a long finger.
“Yes.”
“Turn it, you’ll hear the gas come on. Light it, do that carefully, holding your body away. Adjust it however you want. When you turn it off, it’ll take a minute for the gas to burn off and the flames to die down.”
He then pulled a lighter out of his jeans pocket and demonstrated this.
As I watched and saw the flames dance happily, I fought against girlie-clapping at my chest.
“See those handles?” he asked.
I nodded. I saw a handle inside the pit, one on each side.
“Lift that out, lifts out the lava rock. There’s a grate to burn wood to switch out to in your garage. Use it one way or the other, not both. Only switch out when it’s not recently been used. And do not use the gas if you’re burning wood. Yeah?”
I nodded again.
“Be good with cleaning out everything, ash and all, when you switch back to the rock.”
I nodded gain.
“You want me to leave this on?” he asked.
I kept nodding seeing as I so totally was hanging at my fire pit that night.
He shook his head.
Then he kept questioning, “How bad you want a utility room?”
“Really bad,” I answered. “Like, I might bring you a prime rib sandwich, bad.”
He kept shaking his head. “I’ll work tomorrow, get it started. Not Sunday. Be back Monday but at least I’ll have a start on it.”
“That’d be great, Deke.”
This time, he nodded. “Right, done for the day, Jus. See you tomorrow. Seven.”
“Right, Deke.”
He started moving away.
I waited until he was just about around the corner before I yelled, “Fire pit says prime rib sandwich too!”
In return, not surprisingly, I got nothing.
* * * * *
Deke
That night, Deke took a bite of the fried bologna, American cheese, yellow mustard on toast sandwich.
It was a fuckuva lot better than cold.
But not as good as prime rib.
* * * * *
Justice
I grabbed the white bag, jumped from my truck, and strolled into the house.
I went directly to the laundry room.
It had three walls and a ceiling, the sheetrock not taped, but totally fitted, and Deke was starting on wall four.
He looked to me, the bag, then back to me.
“Plans say tile floor in here,” he declared. “You rejected that tile. I’d recommend concrete. Easy to clean. Grout won’t get fucked up. And you glaze it, shit looks awesome.”
“Can you do that?” I asked.
“Yep,” he answered.
“Concrete it is,” I told him.
“You’ll need to pick it, Jus.”
“I don’t think I got concrete brochures from Mindy, Deke.”
“Best get on that, gypsy,” he stated, moving from his wall, coming to me, bending low and snagging his bag.
But in sucking in breath at his proximity, I got a whiff of him.
He smelled clean, like soap.
It was amazing.
How could he smell good drywalling?
Gah!
He lifted the bag, tipped his head down, opened it and looked inside.
“What’s today?” he asked.
“Warmed honey-roasted ham, melted provolone, Dijon-mayo on an onion bun with Fritos. I’m sorry to say, the deli doesn’t do prime rib sandwiches. This means I’m on a mission. Someone in this county has to make them or I’m taking over someone’s kitchen and doing it myself. That’s the bad news. The good news is Shambles was in a marshmallow mood. I have absolutely no clue what that marshmallow thing is but I do know it has chocolate and cashews and I ate two and they fuckin’ rock.”
He lifted his head. “You buy me two?”
“I have a fire pit, Deke. I bought you four. You don’t have a stomach big enough to consume them all for lunch, you can take them home.”
“Future reference, Jus, Fritos, affirmative. Chips, sour cream and chive. Barbeque. Cheddar cheese. Anything. Just not plain,” he shared.
Why did I feel like I cracked the Da Vinci Code?
“Monday, I’ll get saucy,” I promised.
He shook his head and I was realizing he did that when he thought I was being an idiot.
I just hoped he thought I was being a cute, amusing idiot.
“You gonna get out of the door so I can plant my ass somewhere and eat?” he asked.
I vacated the door.
He shifted out of it, down the hall and I went to the garage to grab a bottle of water before I went in search of him, finding him sitting on the stack of drywall in the living room.