This morning I was standing in the driveway talking to Lochlan, who is still restoring project campers when time permits so a day off sees him working more. He doesn't actually stop, never has. I don't know if the profit matches the hours. I know it surpasses the materials he buys but by how much he won't tell me. I know he's saving for the future but I wish I knew the cost of that too. He was telling me something about Boxing day when his expression grew more and more pained and finally his eyes flickered up over my head and I turned my head to look just as Caleb's car touched the backs of my knees.
Lochlan climbed down off the roof and charged so fast I only saw a blur of flames and then sparks rising up in the morning fog. Caleb opened the door and got out instead of locking it. He left the car resting against me. I don't think I moved for so many precious seconds it as like the world drifted to a crawl just for me.
The shove sent Caleb against the window glass. Not hard enough to break but he dropped his coffee, not his laptop bag.
Priorities. A one-handed shove back and Lochlan staggers back three steps before I say his name.
He won't listen so I text PJ but there he is coming out the side door in his bare feet, hair sticking up all over. He was looking out the window when he saw the car get too close. He was going to do some shoving of his own.
My own personal bouncer.
But Loch won't let him get a crack at Caleb because Loch would prefer there to be nothing left when he's through.
Caleb laughs. I wasn't going to run her over. I was reminding her of what happens when she won't wear her hearing aids.
You let her worry about that and fuck off with the stupid stunts. You could have killed her!
I could do that any minute of any d-
Whoops, there's another shove.
And now, a crowd. Finally he holds his hands up in surrender and turns to me, telling me he's sorry. That he didn't mean to scare me or anyone else, he was illustrating the dangers of running around without all my senses functioning but he used poor judgement and it was a bad idea.
He asks for a minute of privacy. Pointing out that I am safe. That he's sorry. Everything is okay. Stand down, motherfuckers.
He waits until they all leave, Lochlan so begrudgingly you can see the daggers from a hundred yards and then he asks if he can make it up to me with a nice early dinner for two. The kids are off at a birthday party and a hockey game respectively and Saturday nights see everyone left to their own devices for meals so I say yes before I realize he tricked me into it. That the whole thing wasn't a safety bulletin but a well-executed ploy and I fell right into it, eyes wide open.
