Sandbridge Box Set

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Andy couldn’t quite get over how short all the buildings were—only a few of them topped three stories. It was like being in the suburbs without having a city to attach to. And parking seemed almost absurdly abundant, though that didn’t do Andy any good.

Worse, public transportation was…not robust. And Andy had to make what was left of his money count. He’d left the Greyhound station and headed east, toward the beach, but he’d been walking down this road for what seemed like hours. He wasn’t sure if he’d actually come far enough south for the weather to be this much hotter, or if it was just that he wasn’t usually outside for this long at a stretch. Andy finally stopped when his vision filled with sparkles. He hadn’t eaten or drunk more than bus-stop coffee for most of a day.

He was standing in front of a tiny little mom-and-pop hardware store; mulch and sawdust scented the air. Worth a try, he thought. He was familiar with tools, enough to use them, certainly enough to sell them. He waited until his head had stopped swimming, then walked into the little store.

There was an honest-to-God set of physical chimes hanging on the inside of the door. Andy would have smirked at it, but the burst of air conditioning and sudden shift in temperature made him feel dizzy again. He paused to blink away the spots in front of his eyes, leaning casually on a display of gardening tools.

There was only one register at the front, manned by a middle-aged man with a round, red face and thin, graying hair. “Afternoon,” the man said. “Help you find anything?”

“Uh,” Andy said. He’d come in here for something, and he was going to remember it as soon as—Oh, right. “You got anything to drink? Soda or juice or something?”

“Sure, there’s a cooler just there.” The guy gestured laconically toward the wall. “Hot out there today, ain’t it?”

Why was he still talking? Andy managed a half-smile and trudged over to the cooler. Oh, juice, thank God. He pulled out a bottle, not even caring what flavor it was. He cracked it and started chugging it without even closing the cooler door.

“Hey, Harry-Rex,” a man said, “you got any of that spray roach killer—” He stopped dead just before he slammed into Andy, all but windmilling his arms like a cartoon character. “Whoa, sorry! Didn’t know there was anyone else in here. Where the hell’d you come from?” He had a basket in one hand and was carrying two cans of paint balanced precariously in the other.

“New York,” Andy answered without thinking, still half-dumb from thirst and the heat. The guy was good-looking, with messy dark hair and pale eyes that sparkled under his ball cap, and the kind of broad shoulders that suggested he did some lifting, or maybe a lot of manual labor. There was the barest suggestion of a cleft in his slightly scruffy chin, and when he grinned at Andy’s answer—it had come out a little snarky, Andy supposed—it seemed nice. Friendly, not like Nick’s smile, which always seemed at least halfway to mocking. “No harm done.”

The man gawked at Andy then, and his eyes widened. “Woah, Big City, where’d you pick up that shiner? You shoulda had ice on that hours ago.” He put his paint cans down on the counter and without waiting for permission, tipped Andy’s head up to inspect the injury.

Andy flinched at the touch, but the guy didn’t prod at the bruise, just gently turned Andy’s face toward the light.

“Bar fight, I bet,” chuckled the cashier—Harry-Rex, apparently. “Cops were out in force last night. College students on the beach again. Eh, what can ya do, right, Scooter? Lemme see, I might have a cold pack in the kit. An’ I’ll get that pesticide for ya. Just keep an eye on the door?”

Beyond a doubt, this was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to Andy. “It’s fine,” he said belatedly. “I don’t need the ice, I can’t—” He huffed a breath and made himself step back away from—Scooter, really?—Scooter’s grip. “It’ll be fine,” he said.

“Sure,” Scooter said, easy. “But it’ll be fine faster with an ice pack and some aspirins. That’s gotta hurt. Besides, Harry-Rex’ll just fuss if you don’t. He used to patch me and Jase up all the time when we were kids.” Scooter leaned his hip against the counter and started unloading his supplies: paint, brush, some wire, and a couple of hinges. “Damn door blew off in the last windstorm, now I gotta fix it. Which’ll be fun; I ain’t exactly handy with tools. You here on vacation?”

Christ, people around here talked a lot. Who just struck up random conversations with strangers? “Not really,” Andy said. “More like relocating, I guess.” He considered the hinges. “Hanging a door isn’t that hard,” he offered. “I’ve done a couple. You can probably find some good tutorials on YouTube.”

Harry-Rex came back, crushing an ice pack in one massive hand. He dropped two packets of generic ibuprofen on the counter and kicked a plastic container of pesticide toward Scooter. With nothing like what Andy would consider efficiency, he started scanning in Scooter’s purchases, talking about his garden, which was looking good for zucchini, apparently.

Andy tuned out the chatter and instead ripped open one of the packets and washed the pills down with the last of the juice. God, that was good. Too bad he couldn’t afford more. Couldn’t really afford that one, if he had to be honest. He eyed Harry-Rex sidelong. “Don’t suppose you’re hiring?” he asked.

Harry-Rex shook his head. “Nah, we don’t get enough custom for’t.”

Scooter spoke up. “If you’re looking for work—Hey, get this, Harry-Rex, guess who showed up day before yesterday? Debbie flippin’ Clark!”

“Aw, so you’re short-handed again, I guess. Jeff never did have sense where that woman was concerned.”

“Would serve him right if I replaced his sorry ass,” Scooter said. He turned back to Andy. “I need a dishwasher, busboy, broom-pusher, basically, you know. It’s not much, but it is full-time. Two meals a day. I own Dockside, down in Sandbridge. Fried fish and burger joint.”

Andy had never worked in a restaurant—he’d mostly worked as a mechanic since he’d left home—but washing dishes and pushing a broom wasn’t exactly rocket science. And it came with meals, which the ache in his stomach found damned appealing. If nothing else, it was something he could do while he figured out what to do with his new life. Not like he could give job references or a resume. “That sounds pretty good,” he told Scooter. “Though I, ah, kind of lost my ID, so…”

Scooter raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t ask. “That works out for everyone, then. I can pay you under the table an’ nobody’s gotta worry about forms and taxes. What’s your name, Big City?”

“Andy,” he said without thinking, and barely stopped himself from grimacing at the stupidity. If Nick reported him missing…Well, at least Andy was a common enough name. He didn’t dare give his real last name, though. “Andy Trevor.” There, his middle name would serve, and was close enough to the truth that he wouldn’t startle if someone used it.

“I’m Scooter Stahl, owner/operator. Nice to meet you. This is great,” he said, sounding like he meant it. And the way Scooter was grinning was inviting. “Just follow Atlantic Avenue down to Sandbridge, ‘bout ten miles. You can’t miss it. Dockside is the big building, next to the dock, obviously.”

Ten miles? s**t. Andy set his empty juice bottle on the counter for Harry-Rex to scan. “What’s the nearest bus stop?”

Scooter snorted. “You’re at it, pal. Sandbridge is way down the beaten path. Where you stayin’? My waitress and cook live up here in town, you can probably carpool. Of course, you risk having to listen to Jason sing along with the radio, which is a fate worse than death, I assure you.”

Andy grinned uneasily. “I just got into town, really, a couple of hours ago. Haven’t had time to make arrangements yet.”

Harry-Rex gave Scooter a raised eyebrow. “Did Jeff take the dog?”

“No, no he did not,” Scooter sighed. He held up one hand, as if requesting a bit of patience. “Jeff left me in a bind in more ways’n one. He’d been renting the apartment over my garage, too. Left his dog with me. If you don’t mind sharin’ a space with the garbage dog you can stay there, at least ‘til you make other arrangements. It’d be doin’ me a favor, to have someone help look after Trick until Jeff staggers back into town in…I give ‘em ‘til September before the money runs out.”

Harry-Rex hummed “Dueling Banjos” under his breath, then gave Scooter a gap-toothed smile. “Do you hear that?”

“God, shut up, Harry-Rex,” Scooter said. He rolled his eyes. “I ain’t like that. You’re gonna give Big City a heart attack.”

Andy laughed, though it was all awfully convenient. There had to be a catch somewhere. There was no such thing as a free lunch. Maybe Scooter’s restaurant was a smuggling front. Though smuggling from where, he didn’t know, when the local bus station was small enough to spit from one side to the other and the nearest foreign border was several hundred miles away.

Either way, until he found out, at least he’d have room and board and a little money coming in. “Think I can manage to hold my own, if it comes to it,” he said. “I’m in. One question, though. Why ‘garbage dog’?”

“Trick doesn’t eat dog food, he eats table-scraps. Pizza, fish sandwiches, pretty much anything on your plate. He’s somethin’ of a mobile trash can, and he doesn’t have much respect for personal space,” Scooter said. He counted off bills and handed them over to Harry-Rex, and tucked his change into his pocket without looking at it. “Come on, help me with this, would ya? My truck’s out front. Why don’t you drop by in a few days, Harry-Rex? Bring June. I’ll make up a fish-fry special and we’ll have us some talk, yeah?”

Christ, more talking? Suppressing a sigh, Andy put the ice pack down, picked up an armful of Scooter’s purchases, and followed him back out of the store.

Scooter loaded the bags into the bed of a rather beat-up Dodge Ram. “Harry-Rex’ll feel better, if he sees you’re doin’ okay in a few days. An’ I might as well get this out of the way: I am gay an’ pretty much all the locals know it. If that’s gonna be a problem for you, best we part ways now, no hard feelings.” There was something hesitantly belligerent in Scooter’s stance, like the Deliverance joke Harry-Rex had made earlier had rubbed him a little raw.

Andy held up his hands in surrender. “I’m bisexual myself,” he offered. “So unless you’re going to jump down my throat for not being gold-star gay, we’re good.”

Scooter studied him for a moment, those piercing gray-blue eyes seeming to see right through him. “A’ight, then. I don’t f**k customers and I don’t f**k employees. Those’re rules I don’t break—learned ‘em the hard way. So long as we’re clear, hop in and I’ll show you what passes for home for this neck of the woods.”