For Us

4. The tent.

{Cary}

As a result, Cary expected to manage the drywall job alone. But when he pulled up to the address he'd texted away with a hope and a prayer, there was a battered Corolla parked across the street. Kurt Visser was leaning against his car, waiting, his long hair tucked under a camouflage hunting cap. He'd changed into a paint-spattered pair of jeans and boots--clearly he'd done this before. Relieved, Cary dug around in the backseat of his truck for a spare pair of work gloves.

"Thanks for coming." Handing them over, Cary checked the other man's face in the shadow of his cap.

Kurt nodded, his mouth neutral as he tugged the gloves on. Embroidered into the front of his cap was the charming sentiment: 'God hates fags.'

Cary's nostrils flared like he smelled something bad. "That hat's not coming on my worksite."

Kurt's eyebrows flicked up and he took the cap off to look at it. "It's ironic."

"It's offensive," Cary said. He dug around in the backseat of his truck, and tossed Kurt a different cap, something Jon's kid sisters had left behind last time they visited.

Kurt caught it neatly out of the air and laughed out loud at the purple 'My Little Pony' on the front. "I never took you for a 'brony.'"

"You can burn the other one."

"But my brother gave it to me." Kurt tucked his hair under the sparkly pink and purple cap, his eyes narrow under the brim. "He has a matching one."

Cary decided to ignore this, nudging his chin at the house. "Basement is framed up. We're hanging the drywall today and mudding. Back tomorrow for more mud and sanding between another framing job. Grab the tool box from my truck."

Kurt worked amiably alongside him, quick to take orders, to apologize when his end slipped, to notice when the sheet was crooked. He sweated through his shirt in the close basement air, the fabric sticking to the jutting bones of his shoulders, but he didn't slow down and he didn't stop until Cary stopped. Cary respected a person who knew how to work.

On the curb, as the light vanished from the sky, Cary peeled off the $250 and held it out.

Swiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist, Kurt flicked Cary a look. "We worked half a day--that's too much."

"It's tomorrow in advance," Cary improvised. "You're hired if you want the job. Hard to find someone who'll keep up to me. My last guy drank his paycheck and showed up still drunk. I had to fire him."

Kurt folded the money away, looking aside. "I won't do that." He handed Cary his pony cap back. "I'm going to a meeting tonight. I was almost four months sober--I'll get it back."

"Tough to go it alone," Cary commented.

Kurt shrugged, lifting his hand and swaggering away.

{Jon}

River House group home was an ordinary bungalow in a residential neighbourhood. When Jon arrived on shift that evening, two of his staff were talking quietly in the office off the hall as they finished filling out their paperwork.

"Mornin' boss," Angel said, giving him a small smile. Her pixie hair cut was sticking up in all directions and dyed grass green today, combining with her smooth brown skin to give her the appearance of a forest sprite gone urban-punk.

Angel was one of the only staff actually younger than her manager, but Jon thought the older staff were mostly over it. Jon worked harder than any of them, handled the conference calls with social workers and difficult family members, and listened patiently to the staff's grievances without letting them get away with shit. It probably didn't hurt that he covered more than half the graveyard shifts no one else wanted to work.