Chapter Sixteen
Jessie
Clint was quiet during the drive home from work.
I was used to my truck, so I focused on driving his little car and not on what had happened today.
I didn’t push him to speak. No doubt he has plans he needed to make and those plans likely didn’t include me.
I knew what it was like to be broke. You had to go where the work was.
For him, with a broken ankle, that might be tough.
He wouldn’t be able to afford to sit around.
I didn’t feel right about why Mark picked me. He had given a friend a job. I fully expected him to let Clint keep it. Was it because of his ankle? I was in no position to look a gift horse in the mouth. Still, I had to know what came next between Clint and me.
I helped Clint to his apartment like always. When we got to his kitchen, I didn’t turn to go. “What are your plans now?”
He sank into a chair at the table and ran his hand through his hair. “I have a chance to get my old job back.”
I sat heavily into a chair beside him. “So, you didn’t need the supervisor job anyway?”
“Technically, no.” He was avoiding eye contact and this whole thing felt a hell of a lot like goodbye.
My heart fluttered in a way it shouldn’t if he and I were only messing around.
“I don’t want to leave though.” When I looked back at him, he was pinning me with his gaze and I couldn’t look away from the sincerity of what I saw there.
“Why wouldn’t you want to go back? I mean, look.” I wiggled the table we were sitting at to demonstrate how rickety it was. “You barely make it paycheck to paycheck as it is. Why wouldn’t you want to go back?”
“Jessie. Everything I came from may have seemed great but there was a price to pay. And I don’t know if I am willing to pay it again.
Every decision from what car to buy to what woman to date was all tied to the company and the image and the brand.
I may be broke but at least, I can be broke on my own terms.”
I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t force the sound past my lips. He must be crazy. “Why not go back for a year or something? Build up a nest egg and then quit?”
He shook his head. “For one thing, I would have to hire Mark, as a quid pro quo for him hiring me.”
My jaw ticked.
“I didn’t know that was the deal,” he added quickly.
“My father sorted it all out behind my back. Another reason I don’t want to be working under him again.
I want to make my own choices.” He shook his head.
“I’m either under my father’s thumb or I’m not.
There is no in between. Dad’s main goal of getting me back there is to raise the funds for a new lawyer so he can appeal.
Nothing that I earn would be squirreled away for me to make a clean break anyway. ”
I turned and studied him. Broken ankle but strong will. Inexperienced but eager to learn. Distinguished upbringing and blue-collar dreams. “You got out once. You could do it again.”
He brought a palm to my cheek. “If I hadn’t been forced to, I don’t think I ever would have struck out on my own. I would have lived my life for my father and forced any kid I had to do the same.”
“You sound like you’ve already made up your mind.”
He nodded. “I was ninety percent sure, but after talking it out with you, I’m staying.”
I wanted to hug him to ask what this meant for us, if there even was an us but my mind was nothing if not practical. “What will you do for work?”
“What did Mark threaten the first day I came to work on the site? If I didn’t work out as a supervisor, they always needed more flaggers.”
“Are you serious?”
He nodded. “I’m not qualified for the supervisor job. I need to start at the bottom like you did. Maybe then I will be as good at this job as you are. Once my ankle heals, I’m going to flag while I do my heavy equipment license course. Then drive a truck for a while. I never liked business anyway.”
“You think Mark will go for it?”
He nodded. “To see me doing grunt work, yeah, he’ll go for it. Besides, he won’t be around much longer. He’ll end up working for Kingston.”
“To throw everything away though? Clint, this is crazy.”
He shrugged. “I have an opportunity to start over. To do what I want, not what my father wanted me to do. I think I want to drive a big ass truck. Move dirt around. Not worry about any bottom line but my own. Just earn my check and go home. Besides, if I went back to my old job, I wouldn’t get to see you. ”
My eyes flew to his. “I would think that would be a perk.”
He reached for my hand and pulled me until I moved to sit in his lap.
“We may have started off on a bad footing, but things have turned out the way they were supposed to. You got the job you earned. I have the chance to start over without my father’s influence.
Not having him breathing down my neck has shown me two things.
One is that I don’t want to be stuck in an office all day.
The other is that I don’t want a superficial relationship.
I want you. We’re opposites in a lot of ways but I love the fact that you always speak your mind, that you aren’t afraid of a hard day’s work or of getting your hands dirty.
You’re stubborn and loyal and I swear I would clip coupons for the rest of my life just to hear you come with my name on your lips. ”
My heart was beating out of my chest. Clint and I had gotten to know each other pretty well, especially since his accident, but hearing him talk made me realize just how close we had gotten.
We weren’t at a place to use the L word yet, but we had been through more together than some couples went through in a lifetime.
Injury, stress, money problems and job loss.
“So you want this thing between us to be something real?”
He kissed the side of my head and pulled me tighter against his chest. “More than all the money in the world.”