Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
“A family down in Newport had a house fire. Lost everything.”
“So, you’re giving them your bedroom furniture.”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “Like I said, I’m hardly here. All I need is the bed to sleep on. I’m buying them a new mattress. They wouldn’t want my old one.”
“You know, you’re a nice guy, Apollo.”
“Let’s not let it get out. I need to move this stuff out to my truck so I can take it down to them.”
“All of this won’t fit in your truck. It’s going to take several trips.”
He worries his lip and then sighs. “Maybe I should just rent a moving truck. That would be easier, and probably better on the bank account.”
“I bet we could get a few people to come over with their trucks, and it could be a caravan situation.”
“You think?” he asks.
“Sure. Let’s call around, and see what we can come up with.”
Twenty minutes later, we have four additional trucks on the way over, despite it being dinner time.
“June’s on board,” I announce as I hang up the phone.
“You called June?” he demands with a scowl.
“Well, sure. She has a truck. What is your problem with her, anyway? All you two do is go at each other’s throats. Kiss and make up already.”
“She’s a difficult female,” he mutters. “So fucking stubborn.”
“And you’re not stubborn.” I smirk. “Right. Anyway, sounds like we’ll have a bunch of help.”
And I’m not wrong.
Four trucks, with eight pairs of helping hands, along with other furniture that they all want to donate, show up to Apollo’s place inside of an hour.
“You guys, this is…incredible. You don’t have to do this.”
“This is just what small towns do,” Luna reminds him as she stands next to June, who she rode with. “Not to mention, I had stuff that I wanted to get rid of. Now I know it’s all going to someone who really needs it.”
“Agreed,” Harvey, the owner of Lighthouse Pizza says. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
In a matter of minutes, we have Apollo’s furniture loaded into the trucks, and then we’re off, driving the couple of hours down to Newport.
“What made you decide to do this right this second, and not early in the day on a weekend?” I ask Apollo from the passenger seat. “I didn’t even hear about a house fire down there.”
“It happened last night,” he says. “I got a call from a construction friend down there, who told me about it.”
“Did you know the people?”
“Not exactly.” He clenches his jaw, and I turn to face him.
“Is this about a woman?”
“No. Hell no,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t always think with my dick, you know.”
“Okay. What kind of fire was it, Apollo?”
The muscles in his forearms bunch as he grips the steering wheel tighter. “Electrical fire.”
Fuck.
“And let me guess, you did the electrical in that house?”
“Six years ago,” he confirms, and it all starts to make sense.
“You don’t know that it was something that you did wrong.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know that it’s not something that I did wrong. We won’t know until there’s an investigation. They might have had too many things plugged into one outlet for all I know, but it’s a house that I wired, and it burned to the fucking ground because of an electrical issue, so, yeah, I feel obligated to do something. I’m not a rich man like Wolfe. I can’t give them money, or hell, offer to build them a new house, but I can do something.”
“They’ll have insurance, man. Did anyone get hurt?”
“No. No one was home.”
“Well, that’s something, then.”
We spend a good part of the drive in silence, watching what we can of the scenery as it gets darker and darker.
I shoot Sarah a text, letting her know what’s up, and before long, there are signs of more civilization as Newport comes into view.
Apollo leads the other trucks to a storage unit where a couple is waiting, and when Apollo gets out of the truck and walks over to them, they shake his hand and offer him smiles.
They’re not angry with him in the least.
I hop out and join the others who have pulled in behind us, and we wait for instructions.
“We’re just going to put everything in here,” Apollo says as he joins us, pointing to the large storage unit. “Tetris-style. They have some more donations coming in the next few days, so we’ll pack this stuff tight and try not to take up the whole storage space.”
Less than thirty minutes later, the trucks are unloaded, and everything is packed neatly in the unit, leaving plenty of room for more donations.
“Thank you,” the man says as he shakes all of our hands. “We really appreciate your kindness.”
I notice that June smiles at him, and without a glance back at Apollo, walks to her truck, and with Luna in the passenger seat, they drive away, headed toward home.