by Devon Rhodes
The Swap
By Devon Rhodes
When layoffs hit Jim LaRue’s company, his first concern isn’t for his own job, it’s for his friend and coworker, Tommy Graves. Tommy’s going through a bitter divorce, and he’s closing on a new home. Losing his job would mean losing the house—and the fresh start he desperately needs. Jim can’t let that happen to the man he’s secretly in love with, so he proposes a swap: his job for Tommy’s.
Now out of work, Jim reluctantly agrees to help Tommy remodel. He needs the income, but he can’t stand being a charity case—especially not when things between them start heading in a direction he hardly dared hope for. The strain drives a wedge between them, and a confrontation might spell the end of their relationship.
Table of Contents
Blurb
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
More from Devon Rhodes
About the Author
By Devon Rhodes
Visit Dreamspinner Press
Copyright Page
With gratitude to Trace, Karin, and Laura. Thank you for everything.
Chapter 1
JIM STOPPED short at the threshold of his boss’s office, his heart seizing with dread at the sight before him. The normally commanding and in-control Keith had his head in his hands. Coupled with the visitors Keith had just had, that didn’t bode well for any of them.
Plastering a normal-feeling grin on his face in spite of his apprehension, Jim purposely scuffled his feet to announce his presence as he resumed walking into the shop foreman’s office. “Hey, boss. Free for a late lunch? Sorry, got tied up on a project.” And was waiting for your unexpected company to leave.
“Jim. Shut the door behind you.”
Keith didn’t bother looking up, and Jim dropped the useless, carefree façade as he closed and locked the door, then sat down and waited for the hammer to drop.
The silence stretched between them, and finally Jim couldn’t stand to watch Keith trying to get up the courage any longer.
“So, the suits just left,” he prompted.
“Yeah.”
“How bad is it?”
“Pretty fucking bad, Jim. Shit.” Keith scrubbed at his face, refusing to look up. Jim might’ve suspected any other man besides the one in front of him of crying. But not Keith, surely….
“They shutting us down?”
An ironic snort. “Not quite. Skeleton crew starting on Monday. Coming down as layoffs, since things ‘might pick back up.’” Keith finally pulled his hands away from his face to make quotation marks with his index fingers, and Jim got his first look at Keith’s eyes. They were reddened from the rubbing, and Jim was relieved to see they nonetheless held their usual determined glint as Keith somberly met his gaze.
Jim gave a short nod of acknowledgment, steeling himself. “The machinists?”
“Decimated. Just about the whole roster, except for two.” Keith looked supremely uncomfortable, jaw clenching.
Only two? Jesus. “Seniority, probably had to use last-in, first-out,” Jim speculated aloud. No response from Keith but a slightly pitying look in his eyes. Jim looked down at his hands, ever-present grease darkening the nails and knuckles.
“So Martinez stays. And… Graves?” Didn’t take Jim long to count to two. Full stop. Confirming his own imminent departure made his chest feel as though an engine block had just dropped on it, but even so, a part of Jim was relieved that his friends would be spared the carnage. Martinez had—what?—five kids? And Tommy was just getting back on his feet after a nasty divorce.
“Not Tommy,” Keith corrected quietly. “You.”
His head snapped up so quickly his neck popped. “What? Tommy’s been here longer than me. Hell, he trained me. That can’t be right.”
“Yeah, but with your schooling you have more experience with the computer modeling, making the adjustments in-house instead of having to send the specs back to the geeks every time something doesn’t work.” The excuse rolled off Keith’s tongue as if he’d rehearsed it. Which he probably had in order to justify keeping Jim. Loyal bastard.
At once grateful and appalled, Jim jumped to his feet, slamming his hands on the desk. “That’s bullshit, Keith. You know Tommy can take and tweak anything and make it work, with or without engineering courses. That’s why we call him Maestro—he’s a frigging natural.”
“I can’t believe you’re arguing this,” Keith yelled back. “Fuck, Jim. I saved your fucking job. What the hell? It’s like you’re trying to talk me out of it.”
What was he doing?
For a moment, Jim was tempted to just back off and accept the news, but the image of Tommy’s recent transformation from haunted to hopeful burned in his brain. Jim’d do anything to make sure he never went back to hopeless again. Even this.
He folded his arms over his chest. “Right is right, man. Last-in, first-out. You need to keep Tommy.”
Keith stared at him, shock written on every feature. “You’re serious.”
Jim nodded, resolute. He tried not to let himself think of the consequences just yet. He’d have plenty of time to ponder unemployment in the weeks and months to come.
His boss slumped back in his chair and Jim knew he had won. Or lost, as the case may be.
“But I just gave his name to Central Accounting.” Keith weakly tried one last time to give Jim the out.
“Call ’em back. It’s okay, Keith,” he added in a softer tone. “I’ll be fine.” He gestured to the phone. “Go ahead. I’ll even stay here and give you support while you can my ass,” he teased.
“Fuck. Off. Asshole.” But Keith grudgingly picked up the phone and speed-dialed Accounting. They’d known each other since they were kids, and obviously Keith could see Jim wasn’t backing down on this.
“Yeah, Carson here. Put a stop on the final for Graves. Uh-huh. Yeah, I’ll fax a new one. Uh, the final name in that cost center’ll be James LaRue.” Keith shook his head without looking at Jim and heaved a sigh. “Okay, I’ll get it right over. When will the courier be here? Fine, I’ll schedule the all-staff for four o’clock, then. Bye.” Keith disconnected. “You asshole. Making me fire my best friend. Sandy’s gonna kill me.”
“Sandy’ll understand. She’d be more pissed if you kept me around just ’cause I’m your friend. Nepotism and all that shit.” Jim just stood there, the swirling pressure of conflicting emotions making him feel like his chest was about to burst open. He was glad to be doing the right thing, but hell, who wanted to be out of work? Especially with jobs about as rare as he liked his steak. Bloody business, either way.
“Gotta get back to work. I’ll work through lunch, get as much as I can done. Tommy and Piero are gonna be swamped by themselves.”
Keith’s lips pressed so flat they were white around the edges. “You’re a good guy, Jim. God, this sucks.” He stood and walked around the desk. “I promise you’ll be the first guy I take back as soon as I can.”
“I know.”
“Are we cool?” He hesitated. “I mean, as friends.”
Jim gave a snort. “You can’t get rid of me that easy, Carson. Twenty years or whatever? Been through worse and came out fine. Oh, and Keith?” He met Keith’s gaze steadily. “All this is between us, okay?” Keith frowned and opened his mouth as if to protest, and Jim held up his hand. “All right, and Sandy.” That finally got a reluctant smile out of Keith. “I just don’t want Tommy to know how close he came. He’s had a shit year.”
Keith cocked his head in frustration but kept any protests to himself. “Fine, I won’t tell Tommy or the guys.
But I still think he should know what you did for him. Someday.”
“Maybe after everything settles down,” Jim hedged, knowing he’d never go there. He didn’t want to be a “hero,” and he sure didn’t want any speculation as to why he’d given up his livelihood for Tommy. And he knew Tommy—he would go ballistic and mess up the whole thing with some grand gesture if he knew what Jim had just done for him. Better off to have it stay between him and Keith.
And Sandy.
And Central Accounting.
OF COURSE the first person Jim ran into after leaving Keith’s office was Tommy, coming down the hall wiping his hands on a rag, huge smile appearing on his face as he saw Jim.
“Hey! I have some great news. But first, is the boss still in his office?”
“Uh, nope.” Jim winced as Keith’s unmistakable voice just then called for his secretary. “Well, yeah, but he’s on the phone. Really busy. Too busy to talk. Why, what’s up?”
“Oh.” Tommy stopped in his tracks. “I just wanted to ask him about the time off.”
For a brief one-track moment, Jim’s brain thought he’d said “layoff.” He finally caught up mentally. “Time off? What time off?”
Tommy’s grin resurfaced, transforming his regular features into something memorable and special. “Got the official closing date on the house, so need to take a morning off to break my hand signing my name about a gazillion times.”
“That’s great, man.” Tommy’s grin was contagious, and Jim mentally clapped himself on the back for what had just gone down. Tommy had gone through two years from hell, culminating in a nasty divorce this winter that left him broken and silent. After a couple months of doing a great imitation of the walking dead, he finally got interested in living again—by house hunting. Tommy was a serial renter like Jim, but all the hoopla about the record low interest rates and bottomed-out market got Tommy excited about maybe buying a house of his own. A new start, he’d called it.
So Jim had tagged along on many of Tommy’s weekend house hunts and open-house crawls. Not sure just how serious Tommy was, but glad he was embracing life again, Jim humored him as they went through home after home. And then one day, they’d found it—the house. A fixer, yeah, but all stuff that Tommy was well capable of turning around given enough time; a grand old place with great bones under the bad-decorating taste and poor upkeep. It was a short sale, listed for a song, so Tommy had made his best offer and sweated through the long wait for an answer. Finally, in late April, he got the good news.
He tuned Tommy back in. “…and got a call from the title company to set up the appointment. This is it! Gonna hand over my check in two weeks and sign everything and get the keys. Then I can get to work on the renovations. Gave my apartment complex my thirty-day notice last week. I figure I can live in part of it while I do the work. You know. One bathroom at a time, do a lot of takeout and grilling while I do the kitchen. That sort of thing.”
There was a pause, and Jim tried to insert a congratulatory comment, but Tommy barely took a breath before he was off again. “Guess it’ll take me about two months to get it all done in the evenings and on weekends. Depends on the subs I hire too, I guess, but I’m thinking most of it either I can handle or we can do it together.”
Jim blinked at his inclusion in the project, and some of it must’ve shown on his face, because Tommy suddenly reddened, smile disappearing in a flash. “Sorry, making assumptions there. But thought maybe I could talk you into helping out with some things that need four hands instead of two.” Said hands—capable, with long fingers that looked more suited to an artist than a machinist—were currently twisting themselves into knots. Jim knew Tommy’s self-esteem had taken a huge hit when most of his so-called friends had disappeared—or worse, turned on him—during the course of his toxic marriage and divorce.
“Of course I’ll help. Every minute I can spare.” From job hunting, he finished in his head.
“Thanks, Jim.” Tommy’s throat worked as he swallowed before adding sincerely, “It’s good to have someone I can count on for a change.”
“No sweat, Maestro.” His response turned on that smile again. Oh, he’s killing me here.
Jim felt a stirring in his groin and knew it was time to go before he shocked the hell out of his friend. Tommy had no idea that his good buddy Jim was an equal opportunity kind of guy. With a soft spot—hard spot?—for a certain blond machinist….
“Gotta get back to work. I’d say leave a note in Keith’s box about the morning off.” Jim walked away, trying to make himself scarce before he did something else he would regret. He’d already fulfilled today’s quota of crazy moments. Three more hours until the meeting.
Four more hours until he was unemployed.
Am I being a schmuck or noble?
Jim gave a humorless little laugh as he reached his familiar workstation, looking at it with new eyes. Pretty fine line between the two… and he was straddling it.
Painfully.
Oh, his aching balls….
Chapter 2
ALL-STAFF MEETING at four? Huh.
That hadn’t been on the board in the break room, had it? Tommy tried to think as he rubbed the back of his neck before shrugging it off. Busy as he’d been with the whole closing process, it wasn’t surprising he’d missed something like a workplace safety seminar, or whatever it was. Good thing Keith had come around in person to remind them. Tommy would’ve probably been right in the middle of something.
“Hey, Piero. So what’re we learning today?” He spoke loudly in the din of the shop.
“Who knows?” came the booming response. “They’re always doing something. I just hope it doesn’t take too long. My oldest has a baseball game.”
“Yeah, hope it’s not CPR again already. I hate that.”
Piero laughed. “Why? What’s wrong with CPR?”
Tommy used a finger to hook out the hair that had gotten caught inside his hearing protection. Time for a haircut soon. “Oh, you know. The whole part where you have to yell as loud as you can: ‘Somebody call nine-one-one!’ like an idiot.”
“Ha! You jerk.” Piero slapped the metal counter, cracking up. “You’re gonna let somebody die because you don’t want to yell?”
“No!” Tommy rolled his eyes. “I’d do it if it was for real. I just didn’t want to do it in the break room in front of… everyone.” Even though he was hot with embarrassment, his lips were twitching with the effort to keep from smiling.
“Just because that instructor made you do it five times because you weren’t loud enough….”
“Shut up!” Tommy was flushed at the memory of the frighteningly attractive male instructor finally telling him that he’d fail him if he didn’t do it right. “It wasn’t five times, maybe three. But still—”
“Hey, pipe down! Some of us are actually trying to work here.”
Tommy spun around to face Jim at his workstation on the other side of his own, ready to involve him in the heckling, but the tight, pissed-off look on Jim’s face had his response drying in his throat. Christ, is he serious?
“Screw you, LaRue,” Piero chimed in. “Like we’re even busy. Barely have enough work to stretch our days out anyway.” He still had a smile in his voice, probably thinking Jim was joking around, but Tommy knew him well, and he looked really upset.
“Hey,” he called to Jim, knowing from long practice just how low to speak so that he could still hear him but wouldn’t be overheard. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? Nothing. Not a thing. Just trying to do my job.”
Feeling hurt, but not quite knowing why, Tommy gave Jim’s averted face one last probing glance, then turned away. Starting toward the door, he heard Piero yell as he passed, “Where you going, Graves?”
“Bathroom. Wanna come hold it?” he bantered back as he walked by.
“You wish.”
Tommy gave him a thumbs-up without looking and continued out the door, not stopping until he was in the bathroom splashing water
on his face. His stomach roiled. What an up-and-down day. The up part was understandable, he was itching to get started working on his—his—house. And the end was finally in sight. It’d been a stretch to qualify on only one income, but in this case his lack of college degree—and the subsequent lack of student loan debt—had probably been a good thing. But soon he’d be making a house payment instead of paying a landlord. He couldn’t wait.
The down part was a little less clear. Jim’s moodiness had the effect of a needle pricking a balloon. And he didn’t really get why. Certainly it was an overkill reaction to have your whole day crash down just because a friend gave you a snarky comment.
But you want to impress him. And that makes him a little more than a friend.
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t even say anything yet.”
Tommy spun around, catching himself on the sink when he started to lose his balance. Cheeks heating at his clumsiness, he reluctantly faced Jim. Way to go. That’ll impress him. He might be able to work magic with his fingers, but his gross motor skills were apparently still at toddler-learning-to-walk level.
Don’t forget he caught you talking to yourself, his brain piled on gleefully.
Barely catching himself before saying shut up out loud again, he instead grabbed a paper towel. “What’s up, Jim? You’re acting kinda cranky.”
Jim gave a strange, mirthless laugh. “Cranky? What am I, a kid?”
Tommy waited patiently as Jim shuffled in place—practically dancing with the discomfort he was exuding—knowing Jim would eventually spill if he waited long enough. And Tommy was right.
“I just… got some bad news today. Sorry to take it out on you guys.”
Feeling a rush of sympathy, Tommy immediately crossed to lay a hand on Jim’s arm. “Something happen to someone? News like that?” The muscles tensed under his hand, rolling the skin as if trying to eject Tommy’s hand from the surface.
“No,” Jim began slowly, watching Tommy’s hand pat his arm while myriad emotions crossed his face. He sighed, seeming to come to a difficult decision. “It’s about work.”
