Three days into my stay at the Boardwalk, and honestly? I'd settled in better than I expected to.
The mornings had fallen into a rhythm almost on their own. I'd find Maribel early and spend a few hours with her, walking the different parts of the Boardwalk as she showed me what kept this place running, the maintenance work, the supply rotations, the hundred small unglamorous jobs that kept a community from quietly falling apart. She'd hand me something useful to do and I'd do it. I'd like to think I pulled my weight. At least nobody complained out loud.
The afternoons were a different story.
The afternoons were Marlon.
I don't know if 'training' is really the right word for what he was doing to me. Getting beaten into the ground on a schedule, maybe. My body had been carrying a rotating collection of aches and bruises for three days straight and I was beginning to think that was just my life now.
Long days. Very long days.
