Thin Air (Complete EDITING)

7- Brandon

7 Brandon May 15, 2020

The fields are beautiful out here. I wish there was enough time to stop and appreciate them, but I have to get out to the job site.

Dean's guys are pissed that I'm holding them up, but it isn't my fault they aren't following regulations. They're always trying to cut corners, half-assing stuff all the time, and I'm not about to let their lazy bullshit come back and bite me. That's probably why he wanted to meet with Dad this morning. To complain about me doing my job.

Dad turns seventy this year, and will be retiring soon. When he does, Shannon and I won't have his good name to get by on anymore. I'm not going to let a lazy construction crew tank the company our parents built. Holt Inspectors is a well-respected company for a reason.

We value our clients time and get the job done. I don't get paid to be their friend.

The whole crew is sitting around drinking coffee when I cut across the dewy grass. They're so focused on loudly bitching about me that they don't hear me approach. "Hey, y'all gonna get up off your asses and show me how you fixed the things I laid out for you on Friday? Or are you gonna waste another day then go complain to Dean that I'm the problem?"

They all look appropriately scolded and scatter, hoping into action.

"Sorry, Brandon, we were just waiting on Timmy's girl to get here with breakfast. She works over at the bakery. I'm sure she'll bring enough for you."

While the guy, whose name I can't remember, yammers on, trying to excuse their laziness, a petite dark-haired girl approaches. My breath catches when her face becomes visible over the pink boxes she's carrying.

Everything stills around me.

Erin.

"Hey, Babe!" A gangly redhead who must be Timmy jogs over and plants a quick kiss on the girl's lips as he lifts the boxes from her hands. "Guys, Hannah's here with breakfast! Come grab something before it's all gone!"

Hannah. Not Erin. Of course, she's not Erin. This girl is twenty-two, twenty-three max. Erin's thirty-nine this year.

Hannah uncomfortably clears her throat when it takes me a second too long to pull my eyes off of her. She's holding a bear claw out to me. "Oh, um. No, thank you," I stammer, trying to conceal my shock.

After close to eighteen years, you'd think she'd stop haunting me, but she keeps showing up in the most unexpected places.

A few hours later, I wrap up at the site, finally signing off so the worthless crew can move onto the next phase of construction.

That evening when I get home, I open the garage and sit at my workbench with a cold beer. I lose a couple of hours re-reading through the old newspaper articles. The inactive case file Drew slipped me a few years back taunts me.