But something transformed inside me whenever I kissed her. She softened me, reminded me that she was just a little girl while her daddy was destroying his work force. She made me want to forget our silly revenge plans.
But I wasn’t going to let her get the best of me again.
There would be no more touching and no more kissing. No more flirting, as badly as I felt my body pulled toward hers.
Because we had to go through with the plan.
After I dropped Natalie off the next morning at her place, I left for today’s job site located a few miles to the south. We were rehabbing the interior of an old lakefront summer home, ripping out the drywall and installing some new electric. Jared and Bob were already there when I arrived.
“What’s up, fellas,” I said to them as I went inside and slapped hands.
“Shit,” Jared said. “Just working on this rich motherfucking mansion. I wish I could afford something like this. Know what I mean?”
I gazed upward. In the winter, it was barely usable because the insulation was horrid, but we’d fired up a space heater to deal with the cold, and kept our hoodies on. Summer lakefront homes around here could go for as much as a one to three million dollars. This one was probably somewhere in the middle.
“Rich fucking bitches coming in with their city money, ya know?” Bob said. “Who knows the shady shit people who owned this place did to make their fortune? I bet you they had a part in the great mortgage fraud of 2008. Really fucked over our generation with their bullshit, yet they reap the benefits.”
“Fucking capitalism,” Jared snorted, agreeing with Bob.
I could smell the alcohol on the two of them. This didn’t surprise me, because the more hungover they were, the more bitter their monologues against anyone who had money were.
I hoped to God that was all they’d been up to last night at the bar. A couple of nights they’d called me to pick them up at the town meth house where shit was getting out of hand.
“Fellas, anyone start the electric upstairs yet?” I asked, trying to redirect the conversation to something productive.
“Nah man,” Jared said. “Shit, you shoulda came out with us last night. What were you up to?”
“Nothing,” I shrugged.
I walked up the stairs, and there was a giant A-frame window gazing outward at the small lake in front of us. For most people, it wouldn’t be paradise until the summer came and the sun came out and you could go swim in the lake.
Personally, I had always been more of a winter guy. That was probably the Canadian in me. Everything was so calm and still and dead in the winter, and the stillness was soothing to me.
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass for a moment. Maybe it was the angle, but I suddenly felt I looked much older than the last time I’d seen myself. And having not shaved in a few days, my stubble seemed extra thick. Was it growing in faster?
Focusing my gaze on the stillness of the frozen-over lake, I thought about the warm feeling that had come across me for a fleeting moment last night when I was talking to Natalie.
I hadn’t brought up my late father to anyone besides my mom in years. It had felt good to talk about him.
It had felt even better to hug her.
And press my lips into hers.
Standing on the ledge of this million-dollar house, I had to wonder, what if my life took a different path? The scout’s words rang in my ear.
You’d be able to help a lot more people if you had some actual money.
My thoughts were interrupted when I felt a slap on the back.
“Rich bitches, right?” Bob said in his gruff, smoker’s voice. “I can’t believe they’ve got the money to just overhaul this entire place.”
“Hey, at least we’re getting paid,” I said. “Right?”
“Hey, North!” Jared yelled up. “You want to get in a smoke before the boss gets here?”
“You know I don’t smoke,” I yelled back. “But I’ll join you and stand outside for some fresh air, sure.”
Outside, I stared at a beautiful layer of snow that had settled on top of the dead-looking trees.
“So man,” Jared started. “You got my text last night, right? She’s back in town.”
My nostrils flared. At this point, I felt more defensive of Natalie than anything else.
“I know,” I said.
“So why didn’t you get back to me? We’ve got to finish off the plan.” Bob added, taking a deep inhale of smoke. “She’s gotta pay for her father’s sins.”
“That was high school shit, Bob. We’re not doing that. It was cloud talk.”
“Cloud talk?” Jared scoffed. “We were talking about that just a year ago. Remember last winter when you dropped out?”
I scrubbed a hand across my stubble and said nothing. Fuck. I had mouthed off and said some stupid shit just last year, one night when I was drunk and it was the anniversary of Louisa’s untimely death.
Another reason I was laying off the drinking these days.
“Since when have you gotten so goddamn soft, North?” Bob added. “College turn you into a little puff ball?”
He poked me in the side.
“It turned me into a sensible fucking person. We’re going to...what, exactly? Rob her of her father’s inheritance, somehow?”
“Yeah,” Bob said. “It was your idea, remember? You’re the mastermind behind the whole thing.”
“You always have had the brains,” Jared added.
I looked at both of them. They’d been my friends ever since I could remember having friends.
Moreover, when our fathers were three of the seventeen miners killed in the Toft mine accident, it solidified our bond beyond anything we’d all been able to put into words, a special band of brothers.
In the years that followed, we’d vowed revenge on Mr. Toft, that evil bastard. Bob was right that it had been my idea to start, one drunken night in the wake of the tragedy. I had been the angriest of us all.
But knowing who Natalie was now—I wanted to be sensible. I wasn’t about to go overboard on some silly revenge plot that could get us thrown in jail.
As I looked into Jared and Bob’s sunken faces, I realized something. They didn’t have anything much to lose anymore.
Come to think of it, did I?
My mind flashed back to the contract the scout had left me to look over to play for Chicago. I couldn’t go, though. What about my mom?
She was doing a little better now, but what if she had a relapse?
“North! Cut the crap. Are you in? Or out?”
I looked at their faces. I remembered the cold, bitter nights I felt after my father passed away, how my mother wept, and how it drove my sister and I to drugs and alcohol. I had Jared and Bob, but she didn’t have anyone close. And it was what eventually led to Louisa’s demise.
If I told them I was out, they’d do whatever they had in mind anyhow. But if I played along, I could keep tabs on whatever plan they had, and I could protect Natalie.
“Fuck the inheritance,” I said. “But let’s give her a little scare.”
“Just a little scare,” Jared chuckled. “Or we scare the daylights out of her, turn a few of those pretty Florida blond hairs grey. When should we do it?”