Page 18 of Ring Rust

Choosing himself now, even with Stevie's words lodged stubbornly beneath his ribs and the threat of new debt hanging over his head, didn’t feel cruel. It, too, felt inevitable.

“I owe him respect, but I don’t owe him feeling useful,” Jasper finally said.

“Okay.”

Jasper finished shoving the rest of his tools in the toolbox with no finesse, then snapped it shut. He grumbled and shook out his finger, which he’d forgotten was so sore in the midst of his aggressive packing. The throbbing pain followed him as he brushed by Stevie.

“There is another option,” Stevie said quietly. “If we don’t want to involve Ryan.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, we could sell the park. Someone could invest a bit into it and make it really nice again.”

Whatever relief he’d felt by putting distance between him and Stevie vanished as his feet froze in place. His stomach lurched. “Sell it? How long have you been thinking about selling it?”

“Only recently.”

“This is Uncle Cliff’s park. We can’t sell it.”

“I don’t want to sell it, but come on, Jasper. It’s so much work, all the time. I outsource what I can, and it’s still impossible. Do you really want to go into debt to save a park that barely makes enough to cover the taxes on the land?”

“Kind of, yes! I love this park.”

“I love it too,” Stevie said, “But?—”

“It’s all that’s left!”

“All that’s left of what?”

“Of… how things used to be. I need it.”

Her face took on that same sympathetic shape from earlier. “Okay. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know the park was that important to you.”

“I don’t know it was either,” Jasper said, rubbing his neck. “But it’s important to both of us, right?”

“Yeah. It is.” She smiled at him. “And we’ll be fine, because now we have… Logan?”

Jasper nodded. “We have Logan.”

Chapter Seven

Jasper climbedout of his car balancing a carrier full of hot drinks in one hand and his work bag in the other. The nudge of his hip against the car door jostled everything enough that the drinks nearly went sideways, the latte he’d picked up for Logan coming dangerously close to toppling to the ground. Somehow, he managed to catch it.

The air at the park was slightly chillier than the air at home, still carrying that cool, damp smell that only dissipated when the sun burned off the clouds and dried things out. In the distance, Jasper heard hammering, or maybe chopping. He smiled, knowing those sounds, whatever they were, meant Logan was already hard at work, bringing them one step closer to the park being fully functional and the weight of its issues off his shoulders. A coffee for his workers was the least he could do to show his thanks.

The continued banging and shouting should have offered further comfort for Jasper as he approached the worksite. But the longer it went on, the more it reminded him of the time Ryan spent several days building Jasper a chicken coop.

Jasper hadn’t even wanted chickens at first. It was all Ryan’s idea, but his excitement had been infectious. Jasper ended up doing a week of research and fell in love with an all-white breed with bright red combs. With Ryan’s retirement on the horizon, it was easy for Jasper to give in—who could say no to the idea of Ryan loving on a bunch of birds?

Jasper told Ryan to wait until they saw a coop being sold online by someone who’d decided they were over the whole urban chicken thing, but Ryan had bigger ideas. He and his friend Micah went to the hardware store, then forced Jasper to stay out of the kitchen for several days since its only window overlooked that part of the yard. By the time they were done, the anticipation had Jasper more excited for the chickens than Ryan.

It was a beautiful coop. The day Ryan finally brought Jasper out to the yard had been one of those moments he thought would be a forever memory—two middle-aged guys standing in front of their new coop, preparing to raise a bunch of chickens together, figuring out what to do with a huge number of eggs, dreaming up ways to decorate the run just because it was fun.

And it was still a beautiful coop; it had just lost some of its magic. Jasper had been shocked to learn how much work chickens were, and how alone he would be doing it all. They pecked him when he got their eggs, they were messy, their food brought rats to their yard. But those reasons didn’t top the list of why he resented that structure every time he saw it out the kitchen window.

Just hours after Jasper had picked up the baby chicks they’d decided on together, Ryan announced he’d signed an extension on his contract and would be with CWA another year.

Forcing himself to stop thinking about it, Jasper looked up and found Logan leaning against a shovel and wiping his brow, despite it being cold and mostly dry.