“I can help you do whatever needs to be done. Work comes first.”
I felt his hand cover my knee and instinctively hit the brakes and looked down at his hand. He removed it quickly and placed it in his lap.
“Thank you,” I said. He thought I meant for the help, but it was more for removing his hand from my knee. We picked up the panel from another project and drove it to the job site. Once we had done some damage control, we both realized that the situation was worse than we thought.
“When the bracket bro
ke, the panel slid down the roof and took two others with it. I thought they were fine, but the electrical is busted and is going to need to be replaced. We can dismount two from Salston, but the other is going to have to be shipped from Oklahoma. I didn't realize it was this bad.” John looked worried, but it wasn't his fault. It's better for these things to happen and delay a job then wait until after it’s complete and cause more problems.
“It's fine. We’ll get it figured out.” I patted John on the shoulder and moved around to inspect the back panels to see how much damage was done for myself.
“They should be repairable.” Chris said from just a little too close behind me. I moved and walked over to John.
“We should be able to get a rush on the panel from Oklahoma,” John assured me. “I’ll get on the phone with them now and see if we can at least get it here by Saturday.”
“That sounds great,” I said. “Thanks.”
We stayed and helped get the panel from Salston in place. The owner of the house was very understanding and didn't seem upset at all.
“We should grab some food. It's after nine,” Chris suggested as we walked back to the truck.
“Sure. John, you want to join?” I agreed because I was hungry and exhausted.
“Yes, I'm starved,” John exclaimed.
We’d just ordered a pizza at the restaurant down the street from the office when my phone rang. It was Luke.
“Hey you!” I smiled as I answered.
“You get everything handled?”
“For now. We just sat down to eat.”
“Who is we?”
“John and Chris. It's been a super long day, and we had lunch early because we had a conference call. So, I'm tired and hungry,” I complained.
“That sounds like a disastrous combo,” he laughed. “Is it as bad as a no sleep, no coffee combo?” he joked.
“It really is. I don't know how they stand me.” I lifted my water from the table and took a sip. Chris and John both had their faces in their phones, so I continued to talk.
“You get everything packed for tomorrow?” I asked.
“Yeah. I just wish I could have seen you before we left.”
“Me too,” I frowned even though he couldn’t see me.
“You'll be home Sunday, right?”
“Yes. I'm am going to stay on through Sunday morning and make sure this goes smoothly. Plus, I can get some other work done. That way, I only have to come up for one day next week.”
“I can't wait to see you." I heard his sigh through the phone and knew that he missed me as much as I missed him.
***
I spent all day Friday and Saturday fixing the mess from the broken panel. My mother had called me seven times in the past two days trying to set up a dinner between the two of us. I avoided her calls, but finally agreed to have dinner with her Saturday before heading back Sunday morning.
Once I finished my work on Saturday, I headed toward Granddad and Mimi's to change clothes and meet my mother for dinner. I sent a text message to Luke to see how he was doing. I wasn't sure what time his competition ended on Saturday, but figured it would be late since it was only for one day.