Life Rewired (Aspen Friends, Book 3) by Lynn Galli Page B

paycheck.
    “You might just want to crash here. I’ve got more beer and plenty of bad TV. Or the Rockies are probably on.”
    I thought about going home and finding the boys wearing out the Xbox or having some of the other guys over to watch the same baseball game. I’d rather watch the game with Molly then a bunch of loud dudes. Crashing here might be fun.
    I gestured to the remote. Molly smiled and flicked on the television. She settled in next to me and again I thought how nice it was to be relaxed around someone. Relaxation didn’t happen in prison, and friends after prison were hard to come by.
    “Glad you moved from Boulder?” she asked.
    “Denver, and yes.”
    Her brow furrowed. “Natalie mentioned Boulder.”
    “That’s where we worked together. After I got…uh, moved to Denver.” I was shocked at what almost jumped out of my mouth. I’d never actually said the words. After I got out of prison. Everyone who knew me before already knew. Only Natalie had stayed the same. My other friends dropped me. A few tried to keep up the pretense of politeness until I got the hint with all the unanswered phone calls and canceled plans. The few acquaintances I made at work would put in for other schedules when the dickhead line manager made a point of letting my ex-con status known. I hadn’t met anyone I wanted to tell or needed to tell since. Yet with Molly, I’d almost just blurted it out. I couldn’t chance that she’d react like Natalie. I didn’t know her that well yet, and I liked her too much to lose her friendship. I felt conflicted about keeping this from her but not conflicted about how good it felt to have someone give me the same consideration as she would anyone else.
    “Never lived there,” Molly continued, oblivious to my internal debate. “I go in every once in a while. Only place to find more than ten lesbians.”
    I laughed. According to her, I’d met pretty much all the lesbians in town, but Joanna and Brandy rounded up the tourists better than an escort service. I’d met more lesbians over the past five weeks than I had in my two years in Denver.
    “How’d you connect up with Nat again?”
    “She was dropping someone off at the airport, and we ran into each other.” Not at the airport, but Molly didn’t need to know the embarrassing truth. Natalie was picking something up at the building supply store, and I was loitering in the parking lot with twenty other desperate for work guys trying to make some extra cash on the weekends. Having her see me in that situation had been pretty mortifying, but she made it okay for me. Like she was making this restart on my life okay for me.
    “Lucky.”
    “For me, very.” Understatement of the year. She’d saved me from many impending hardships given my financial situation and employment outlook.
    “I was just curious when I asked this before, but now I’m invested. You are planning to stay, right?”
    A smile crept across my face. It was nice hearing she enjoyed our budding friendship as much as I did. “I’d like to. Affordable housing is going to be a problem. Nat pays more than my last job, but Aspen is more expensive than Denver.”
    “One of my neighbors is thinking of moving out. The landlord would give you a good rate because you’re handy. She’d rather have a no hassle renter for less income than her other tenants who call her when a light bulb needs changing.”
    “I won’t know until we finish the house and Nat picks up more work, but thanks. Let me know if the neighbor leaves.” I finished off the bottle of water, already starting to feel the buzz leave me. I could safely drive home, but I didn’t want to. I’d rather celebrate the normalcy of hanging with a good friend. Of all the things I missed in prison, this luxury was at the top of the list.
    “Did you decide what to do about J&B?”
    I snorted at the recurring topic. Sometimes I brought it up, and other times she did. One or the other of them called to try to make