“Mike, a word if you don’t mind” I said when Mike and the rest of the crew came in that evening. “Sure boss, how can I help you” Mike responded “What trouble are you in now. Detective Alsup from the Sheriff’s Department called and had some questions for me regarding your use of company vehicles last Wednesday. You had asked to borrow the truck, remember”? Mike thought for a minute, “Yes” he said, “I moved some furniture that my wife had bought back to our house. I told you then that is what I was going to do”. “Nothing else” I said? “Nothing” he responded.
I walked away determined to get to the bottom of it all. Though I didn’t mind the men borrowing the company stuff as long as they asked, I drew the line at leaving it parked outside of a bar or any such place that could give us a bad name. The company name was written all over the trucks and the men knew they had to be discreet. Besides, I didn’t want my name involved in this anywhere.
I put those thoughts out of my head for a while and reminded everyone that we were working Saturday Evening and Sunday as this was the only time we could get some of the work done on the Brown job. We were at the stage where in order to finish up the project, we had to have access to the entire store. We planned to start work at 4:00 pm in preparation for working through until about 2:00 am Sunday morning which should give us plenty of time to do what we had to do. They all mumbled in agreement and drove off to their various things of choice. The two older guys, Bill Smith and Glen Smalling were probably going straight home as they both had wives to care for. The two younger guys Harvey and Matt, were heading for the nearest bar to start their Friday evening early. I had no idea what Mike was up to as he slipped out before the others which didn’t help the things I was thinking about him much.
I locked up the place and made my way home to my wife, Jody. Not with any particular sense of excitement or even anticipation. She would probably be ready to go and would push me into the shower so that she could get to see her movie on time. Me, I had no feelings one way or the other about it.
True to form, she greeted me at the door and before I knew it, I was in the shower and felt a lot more relaxed as the hot water splashed on my body. My thoughts turned to the past day and some of the events that had happened as I soaped my body and then let the hot water wash it off. Ten minutes later, I was down the stairs and we were on our way to the next town over where the movie house was located. We stopped for a meal at local eatery and then made our way to the movie house. I can’t even remember what we saw or if I even enjoyed it but Jody was full o chatter about it so at least she had a satisfactory evening.
We stopped at the Royal Arms as Jody felt more comfortable there. Me, I was OK in either this place or the local Bar and so much depended on who I was with. We sat at the bar and struck up a conversation with the people on either side of us and all in all had a very pleasant evening. On the drive home, Jody snuggled up to me and chattered aimless stuff about the evening. I just grunted here and there hoping they were in the right place and sounded enthusiastic enough. We arrived home I sat down ready to watch a soccer game on TV. Jody came over and whispered in my ear. “Not tonight dear, please come to bed”
I followed her up the stairs and into the bedroom. She turned and I kissed her wondering what sort of response I would get. I need not have been so concerned as she readily sank into my arms as we lowered ourselves onto the bed. it was not like the movie we had just seen where the principal characters tore at each others clothes in the fit of passion that they were portraying. Ours was more of the slow, no need to hurry we got all night sort of love-making as we blended into each other.
The next morning, Jody was up early before me as though she had made a mistake the evening before or shocked by her own passion and couldn’t face me at least not in bed for fear that I might want to do it again. I lay in bed by myself thinking of our lovemaking and wondered what caused this. Normally, Jody was pretty reserved which I put down to her strict Catholic upbringing but last night, it was as though the shackles had been loosened and a whole new woman had been born. This morning, that same woman who I had come to expect was back all thoughts of last night long brushed aside,
I got up but she was already gone on one of her long runs. She was very athletic and ran most mornings. Sometimes, I would run with her but she didn’t even ask today if I wanted to go. Like I said, she needed time to get over the night before. I cooked myself a couple of eggs and ate them with toast and settled down to read the paper with my cup of steaming coffee.
Jody came back from her run looking fit and trim not even breathing hard. I know that she had probably sprinted the last quarter-mile or so as that is what she always does. When I run with her, I let her do this sprint thing by herself. I tried to keep up with her a couple of times but quickly got fed up with being humiliated by her although in fairness to her, she never ever meant to make me feel that way. When it came to running, I was a very distant second to Jody.
She had some things that she wanted to move and re-arrange in the house so I stayed around and helped her with the heavy stuff.
Later that day, just after lunch time, I made my way to the Office to check on some things before I headed down to the Brown project and pull an all nighter trying to get the project finished and the store open by the following Monday.
