Truck Me How I Like It

Chapter 1

Truck Me How I Like It

By J.D. Walker

If this guy moves any slower, I might just kill him.

I took a deep breath, willing myself to keep calm. I’d promised Adrian Mitchell, my boss at ConcreteXpress, that I would watch my temper. But this dude was pushing it.

I’d had run-ins with him before, and they had almost cost me my job. The forklift operator just knew how to push my buttons. It was as though he existed to make my life hell.

At least I had the weekend to look forward to, it being Friday afternoon and all. My brother Joey was thriving at the treatment facility, and I would be visiting him on Saturday. I loved our new home, too. It was much better than the tiny apartment we’d been living in, which had been the cause of so much stress for him.

The past six months at the trailer park had been a slice of heaven. The residents were cool, and Adrian and his boyfriend Brandon Perez were kind to me. The best thing, though, was that Joey was finally getting the help he needed to deal with all the things that had happened to him in Afghanistan. My brother was getting his life back.

Another fifteen minutes passed, and the dumb f**k on a power trip was still only halfway through unloading the pallets from the flatbed. I sent a quick text to Adrian about the situation, then decided that enough was enough. If the guy didn’t hurry up, I’d miss my last drop of the day because the business would close soon.

I got out of the truck, locked the cab, and made my way to the management office, ignoring the smirk on the dude’s face as I passed him. Jesus, did he even shower? I could smell him from fifty feet away.

Just my luck, the manager who’d intercepted my altercation in the past with the i***t outside was coming out of a back room.

He stopped when he saw me and sighed. “Please tell me there isn’t blood on the pavement, Mr. Choi,” he said, his silvery gray eyes wary as he waited on my response.

“No, sir, Mr. Fontana,” I said. “But the operator is slower than molasses, and it’ll make me late if he doesn’t hurry up. Can you do something? I gotta get going.” I tried to keep the frustration in my voice to a minimum, but it was difficult.

The manager shook his head. “Shit.” He placed the stack of papers in his hands on a nearby desk and walked back the way I’d come in. “Let’s go.”