Page 122 of Wright Together

“Thanks.”

I left Jensen to mourn the decision he’d had to make with his son. I was sure it wasn’t going to be easy to have a sulky teenager in the house with his two young kids. But I had a feeling it was going to be the best thing that ever happened to Colton. Whether or not either of them knew it yet.

I headed inside to find that the living room and kitchen had been cleaned of trash. It still needed a thorough scrubbing, sweep, and mop, but it was a start.

“Hey,” I said, finding Colton on his phone at the open window that led to the back deck.

He stuffed his phone back into his pocket. “Hey, boss. I wasn’t on my phone.”

“I didn’t see anything.”

He breathed out. “Bet.”

“Heard you’re going to be here this year.”

Colton’s face went dark with rage. “Sure am.”

“Look on the bright side.”

“What fucking bright side?” he snarled.

“You get to keep playing on the Tacos.”

Colton shrugged. “I guess.”

“And you can continue to be my intern. I bet we can even pay you.”

He huffed and said nothing.

“Well, either way, you have two options. I can either help you put some of this away or make fun of you while I watch you do it.”

“Dick,” he muttered under his breath. But a ghost of a smile came to his lips.

“Make fun of you it is,” I said, pulling myself up onto the kitchen island and gesturing to some food on the floor. “You missed a spot.”

Colton shook his head at me. “Come on, boss. Help a bro out.”

So, I slid back off of the island and helped him. With the two of us working together, we made much faster headway on the disaster that was the gorgeous lake house. Halfway through the day, Jensen brought us pizza, and a window company came out to look at what needed to be done. We ate pizza on the deck and watched them work.

“Not much left,” I said, finishing off a third slice.

Colton had seemingly devoured an entire pizza in a matter of seconds. Lord help Jensen with the bottomless stomach of a teenage boy. “Just upstairs.”

“That’s all you. I’m not touching whatever is growing in that toilet.”

Colton wrinkled his nose. “Yeah. Fuck people.”

I laughed. “You threw the party.”

He rolled his eyes and returned to work. I stood to follow him but stopped when my phone started ringing.

My eyes nearly bugged out of my skull when I saw Eve’s number pop up. “Eve, hey.”

“Hey,” she said.

“Did you find Bailey? Is she okay?”

“Yes. I found her. She’s here with me now.”