“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 calledJune?” 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.”