The Job (Auctioned) by Cara Dee (highly illogical behavior txt) 📕

That wasn’t so little. The canvas ceiling would cover most of the barbecue area, except for the firepit, and half the pool. Nobody was getting skin cancer on my watch. Mom had sent me this article a while ago, about skin cancer cases rising in Nevada, and it’d freaked me the fuck out.

It was funny—and by funny, I meant fucking awful—how having everything you’d never even dared to dream of having made you terrified to lose it all.

As soon as I pulled into the driveway and killed the engine, I could hear music coming from the other side of the house. I smelled food too. Boone must’ve gotten started on dinner.

I grabbed my bag from the passenger’s seat and left the car. Ma had given me the bag for Christmas. Worn leather, perfect fit for a small laptop. I bet she hadn’t considered that it would be a perfect bag to keep money in from illegal sales, but that’s what she got for having Boone and me as her kids.

Before I joined my family for dinner, I snuck upstairs and into our office.

Opening our safe was essentially foreplay. I was good to go for a hard fuck after every visit in here.

I emptied the laptop bag of money and stacked it with the rest.

It felt good, I couldn’t lie. We’d laid low for months, focusing on creating our home, Boone finding a job, and me researching our future options. After the summer, we were gonna take on the home of a rich, retired hedge fund dude. He had a collection of cars we wanted to get our hands on, something I wouldn’t have considered if it weren’t for a recent connection I’d made. Boone and I only had to steal them. A guy from Philadelphia would pay up front before selling them overseas.

It was gonna be fun.

After a quick trip to the bathroom and changing into more comfortable clothes, I trailed downstairs again and out onto the patio, where I came to a stop and just gawked at my dream come true.

Jesus Christ. A big smile took over my face as Boone glanced my way, and I couldn’t fucking believe him. He grinned back and tipped a beer bottle at me.

This was home. Fuck me twice and call me Santa, I was gonna grow old in this house, and no one could stop me.

“Hi, Daddy! The hot dogs are almost done!” Ace announced.

I crossed the lawn and took in my surroundings. The canvas stretching over the pool and barbecue area, the lanterns, the chairs—he’d painted them! There were four Adirondack chairs around the firepit, and he’d painted them in different colors. He’d only told me he was gonna “treat” them with something. Then the blankets Mom and Ace had bought, one for each chair.

Not a single goddamn thing was beige.

“You’re amazing,” I told Boone. “In-fucking-credible.” I walked up to him and kissed him.

He smiled into the kiss. “How did it go?”

“As planned.” We could talk more later. I touched his cheek briefly, then returned my attention to the campsite. And the food. I was starving. “We’re gonna spend a lot of evenings here, aren’t we?”

“Fuck yeah.” Ace left her seat to poke at the hot dogs on the grill. “I think they’re done.”

As if on cue, my stomach snarled. We took our seats and passed the ketchup, mustard, buns, and relish between us, and I had nothing to say. I just reveled and let Boone and Ace do the talking. Ace had been invited for a movie night at Emma’s house soon, and Boone asked the right questions about parental supervision and whatnot.

The next topic was the summer camp Ace would be attending in a couple weeks. She spoke animatedly about the excursions they’d be taking, and by the third activity, Boone had to remind her to breathe.

“I’m just excited!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never gone on a Jet Ski before.”

I grinned around a mouthful of food at a memory that surfaced and reached for my beer.

“It’s fun until your kid brother takes a sharp turn and throws you off it,” Boone replied wryly.

I coughed around a laugh.

Ace giggled and widened her eyes at me. “Did you do that?”

“I would never,” I bullshitted.

Boone snorted and shook his head in amusement.

At midnight, the neighborhood was dead silent.

Boone and I killed all the lights and climbed up on the roof of the Airstream.

It seemed he’d done work up here too. The foam mat was reinforced along the sides, making it level so we wouldn’t fall off the damn thing.

I knew our area had a spectacular view of Vegas; all I had to do was turn around. But I wasn’t here to see the city glittering in the night. I was here to disappear into a bubble with just Boone, and it seemed he was extra eager for the same tonight. We got comfortable on our backs and let out a big breath in unison.

“Everything okay?” I asked quietly.

“More than.” He threaded our fingers together. “Just been a long day. It feels good to have everything done.”

I squeezed his hand.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, more and more stars appeared in the sky.

Until there were millions of them.

Slow, deep breaths.

The day faded away bit by bit.

How many times over the years had Boone and I found ourselves in complete silence in the middle of the desert, just staring up at the night sky? It’d become transcendent for me. Because right here, right now, I could visit myself at any age and see us in the exact same position. At eleven, when we went camping with a friend’s family. At fourteen, after flunking a test. At sixteen, after being suspended from school for fighting.

We’d driven straight out into the nothingness after we’d learned about Tia’s death too. We’d been so fucking scared.

We didn’t need to escape from screw-ups anymore, though. At some point, it’d turned into a break that just reenergized us. At the same time as it centered us,