Chapter Fifteen
Avery drove them to Hardy’s. What if he ended up working there?
She guessed the pros had it.
“Is there anything I should know about working there?”
A small flurry of tumbleweeds blew across the road, and one hit the passenger-side window. “He’s a weather savant,” she said, smiling.
They pulled into the tiny parking lot behind the store where her father could get the car later if he needed it. As she opened the door, a stiff gust tried to blow it shut again. She only just caught it from slamming on her knee.
“Are you okay?” Lucas asked, opening the door from the outside and holding it.
She couldn’t help but smile. Wednesday evening, Mr. Hardy put a special on brooms, and sure enough, the windstorm was starting to blow in. Everything was as it should be. “I’m fine!” she shouted against the wind. “Come on!”
She grabbed her backpack from the seat behind her and hurried in through the back of the store. “Mr. Hardy?”
“Here, dear,” he replied with a smile as she rounded the corner into the store. “Who’s this?” He pulled his glasses down from his head and tipped his head back to peer through the bifocal. “Oh yes. Forgive me, I’ve forgotten your name, but I definitely remember you nearly dying last night. How’s the head, son?”
“It’s all right, thank you, sir,” Lucas said, touching the side of his head. “I can’t play for a few days, but I should be okay.”
Mr. Hardy’s eyes skittered away, back to the register. Avery thought he looked embarrassed, but there was no way he could have known she’d overheard his conversation with Mr. Duchamp. “That’s too bad. You looked as if you had a little potential tucked away in there somewhere.”
“I hope so, sir.”
“I brought Lucas to work to see if he could help you with the repairs in the back. He needed work, and I know you needed a hand.”
Mr. Hardy paused and looked at her. And then his gaze shifted to the room at the back of the store. “It’s true that I could use the help, so let’s see how handy you are.” He nodded back to the workshop, and Lucas followed him back, only turning to wink at Avery.
Something inside buzzed with happiness at the wink. It felt private and personal, as if they shared a secret. She took a breath and then remembered the other secret she was keeping. The happy buzzy feeling disappeared.
Avery started her usual duties. She opened the cash register and counted the cash float. She put on her apron and started taking out the baskets of brooms and doormats and rakes. The wind blew strong but warm against her face. She anchored the baskets with Mr. Hardy’s sackcloth bags of metal pellets and looked up and down the street. No cars, no one in sight. Except Mrs. Van Sant—the baker—putting out her breakfast sign. Although Avery couldn’t actually smell the bread and muffins baking in the store, she could imagine it.
She made a deal with herself that she would slip down and get a muffin as soon as everything was straight in the store. But she didn’t have a chance. Within a few minutes of opening, the construction workers started to arrive.
By eleven, the store was busy. With no big stores nearby, Hardy’s was a weekend mecca for Hillsdale. Mr. Hardy could show people how to fix an A/C unit or hang a picture straight or set mouse traps. He would lend his tools to people, knowing that some couldn’t afford to buy a tool just for one job. People came for science project ingredients, storage boxes, and even dividers for kitchen drawers.
Some just came to hang out with Mr. Hardy. Like Mr. Duchamp. This morning he brought a friend, and Avery’s blood grew hotter.
“How can I help you, Mr. Duchamp?” she asked, forcing a smile.
“I’m just headed back to see Benny.” He nodded to the back of the store and started back without waiting for her to reply.
The man with him hung back. “Do you go to the high school here?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” she said, slotting some wrenches back in the tool box that a construction worker had been looking at.
“You a Hammers fan?” he asked.
She looked up and wondered if this was the guy. Mr. Duchamp’s oldest customer’s son. The guy angling to take her dad’s job. He looked barely older than the guys on the team.
“Everyone in town is,” she replied evenly.
“Cool.” He leaned on the counter where she was still fitting the tools back in the box. “I used to play football at school. I was the QB.” He smirked. “QB. You know what that means?”
She looked back at the wrenches and just nodded.
“I ran my team right into the conference playoffs. We won three years in a row.”
She finally looked up and snapped the tool box shut. “And what do you do now, Mr…?”
“Seymore. But you can call me Billy if you like. What do I do? A little of this, a little of that. Looking at getting a new job ’round here.”
A little of this, a little of that. So, nothing? Now she was 100 percent sure he was here to take her dad’s job.
Every time his players had a good game, her father reminded them that their glory days shouldn’t be in high school. That they had to work on ensuring their best days were after high school. That the feeling of elation they were experiencing from the win was a feeling they had to aspire to after graduation.
She guessed Billy Seymore hadn’t had a coach like her father. Which meant that he wouldn’t be a coach like her father. He wouldn’t teach his players to respect people, to be polite and helpful off the field. Hillside wasn’t a place guys came to score a football scholarship, her father had always said, but while they were his, they’d have to learn about life as well as football.
“Billy?” They both turned their heads to the back of the store. Mr. Duchamp had stepped out of the workshop and was beckoning him back.
Billy nodded at him and slowly picked himself up from the deep lean he’d been doing on the counter. “See you around town.” He pushed his finger up as if he was tipping the brim of a hat to her and slowly walked through the store saying, “G’morning,” to bemused customers as if he were the freaking mayor of Hillside.
Yup. There was no doubt that he thought he already had her dad’s job.
There was no way she was going to let that happen.
No. Freaking. Way.
She’d kill him first.
She grabbed her journal and a pencil from the empty peanut butter jar-turned-pencil-holder on the counter.
She slammed the book shut and bit her lip. It was a tough one to call.
Lucas was still the answer. At least the only answer that wouldn’t get her a life sentence and an orange jumpsuit.
…
It turned out that Lucas had a bit of a knack for fixing things. Well, he’d known that he could fix things—he’d been fixing things in the house since his dad left. They never had any money to buy new appliances, so he’d learned to change fuses, fix busted circuit boards, unblock drains, fix leaking showers, rebuild the vacuum, and, as it turned out, put together a toaster that had been taken apart by someone trying a little do-it-yourself at home.
By the time it was nearing lunchtime, he was plowing through the minor repair jobs that Mr. Hardy put on the workbench. Each time he put something in front of him, Mr. Hardy raised an eyebrow as if to say, “There’s no way you can fix this, punk.” And he just about managed it, only having to ask advice once or twice.
It was eye opening to see that it wasn’t just his family that apparently couldn’t find the extra money for new things. He’d always thought they were alone in that. But it seemed like there were a lot of people in Hillside who couldn’t, or didn’t want to, spend the money on new items.
He wondered what Avery was doing outside in the store. If he got this job, that would be another thing he would have to thank her for. She was helping him fix his game and land gainful employment. He would be thanking her forever. She was really the kindest person he’d ever met. The goodness in her—basically helping a complete stranger—almost overwhelmed him, particularly since he didn’t really feel like he deserved it.
His brain drifted back to the hospital. They had nearly kissed, right? Like her mouth had been this close to his. She hadn’t mentioned it or even looked at him weird. She hadn’t blushed or seemed awkward. Maybe it hadn’t happened. Maybe it had all been in his mind. But nothing could take away how he’d felt when he’d thought he was just about to kiss Avery. Even if it had only happened in his mind. Alive, excited, happy, hot. Things that hadn’t even hit his radar in the previous four months.
Was she an angel? Put here to fix his life? She certainly seemed that way. Except…he knew he didn’t deserve an angel. He was putting her father’s team in jeopardy. At the very least, certainly LeVonn, who was looking for a way out. A scholarship. He was fucking with everyone’s life, just to get his own straight. That wasn’t right. He wasn’t right.
He clenched his fists and tried to steer his mind back to the Leap Frog circuit board he was working on. It still had droplets of water on it. He guessed some kid learning to spell had dropped it in the bath. “Do you have a hairdryer?” he asked Mr. Hardy, who was chatting to a tall man in his office. They both turned to look at him, and he flashed back to his teammates all turning to watch him walk by as he left his last school. None of them saying anything or smiling. All condemning him silently. Even though they’d happily accepted rides in his car and drank beer bought by the “stipend” that MFU alumni had given him.
Mr. Hardy made his way around his desk back into the workshop. He lifted a box out from a shelf. “There’s one in here, kid. You might have to rummage around for it some.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Mr. Hardy returned to his office. Lucas heard the tall man say, “Who’s that?” but he didn’t hear the answer.
He took the hairdryer on its lowest setting and held it a good half foot away from the wet electronics. It’d take patience to get rid of the dampness without heating up the components.
As he wafted it across the Leap Frog pad, a younger man came back, too. Like, maybe just a few years older than himself. He grinned at Lucas and went straight back to the office, with his hand already outstretched toward Mr. Hardy.
Mr. Hardy didn’t seem as enthusiastic to see him. He looked at the young guy’s hand, looked at the taller man, and then shook the guy’s hand really fast. Lucas really wanted to switch off the hairdryer just to hear what was going on. Secret son? Being introduced to the tall guy’s new boyfriend? He couldn’t figure it out. And it was probably better that he didn’t. The last thing he needed was to take on anyone else’s secrets. His own were heavy enough.
Finally, he figured that the circuit board was as dry as it could be and set it to one side to completely cool.
Just as he did, Avery popped her head around the door. “Mr. Hardy?”
“Yes, Avery?” He stuck his head out of his office and looked over his glasses at her.
“Is it okay if I go for lunch? Can you take over?” she asked.
Mr. Hardy looked at his watch. “Good heavens, yes, of course. I lost track of time.” He looked back at the men in his office. “Sorry, gentlemen. I have to go let this young lady get some sustenance.”
“Lucas and I have some errands to run. Is it okay if I spring him, too?”
Mr. Hardy smiled. “Certainly.” He turned to Lucas. “I think you can consider yourself hired. When you come back, we’ll fill out some paperwork.”
Lucas’s spirits raised once again and basked for a second in the warmth of being wanted and Avery’s happy smile. “Thank you, sir.” He had a job, and he was about to run errands with Avery. It already felt like a good day. Except when they stepped out into the windy sunlight, his head started to throb again. He winced.
“Are you okay?” Avery said with a hint of concern in her voice.
“I’m fine. What errands do we need to run?” he asked, putting his shades on, protecting his eyes from the sun and the flying debris.
“I don’t really have any. I just wanted to get out for a bit,” she said.
He had no argument. “I think you may have just scored me a job. Thank you.”
She skipped ahead of him a little and turned around to talk while she was walking backward. “You did that. I just drove. You got the job.” She grinned and poked at his chest each time she said “you.” She skipped again and was walking next to him once more. She seemed as happy as he was.
“Hey!” a voice screamed at them.
Lucas turned to see who was shouting down the quiet high street.
“It’s Lexi.” Avery laughed without even turning to see or stopping.
“Do you want to wait for her?” he asked, looking around again. “Oh.” Lexi was right behind them, overtaking the tumbleweed that was flying down the road with the wind.
“Yeah, she’s the school track star…as well as a million other things.”
“At least a million,” Lexi replied, not even out of breath. “S’up?”
Avery stopped and hugged her. Lexi punched Lucas’s arm lightly to say hello. He grinned.
“Lucas got a job at Hardy’s today,” Avery said.
“Congrats, man,” Lexi said, smoothing her hair down. “Hey, we should totally go out to celebrate. What do you think, Lucas?” She turned to look at him, deliberately blocking his line of sight to Avery.
“Okaaay?” he replied.
Lexi spun round with finger guns at Avery. “Ah-ha! Now you have to come out!”
Why wouldn’t she have come out? He tried to read her expression but couldn’t.
“Sure. I’ll drag Colin out, too.”
Lexi punched her arms in the air and ran a victory lap around the pair of them. Avery rolled her eyes.
“I like you!” Lexi said, punching his arm again.
He didn’t reply, because even he could see that these shenanigans were about her and Avery and not about him. He just grinned. He was going out with Avery tonight, and he didn’t even have to go through the agony of asking her on a date. Not that you would. No. Bad idea. You’ll get benched. No dating, no pissing off Coach or Colin.
But he ignored his inner voice. Everything was on the up and up, in the space of, like, four hours. He felt as if he were walking on the wind that was snaking through the alleyways and streets of town. Maybe this was where his world turned around. Maybe this was where life finally got good again.
And it was all thanks to Avery Stone.