Chapter 13 Jack
T HERE ARE THREE WOMEN MAKING my life exponentially more difficult than it needs to be and their names are Florence, Holly, and Clara.
I don’t think why Flo is making my life difficult needs a lengthy explanation, but the other two have me exhausted.
Ever since the Davenport videos went viral I’ve had a surge of orders and I’m so behind it makes me feel sick.
Everyone else is keeping up their side of the work.
The outfits are ready, the boxes are here waiting to be filled, the books are printed, and I have almost all of the toys prepared thanks to the weeks of prep work we did in the summer.
But because I’m so behind with shipping, I’ve had to temporarily pause taking orders, which means I’m limiting the income for my neighbors. Which means I’m a massive dick.
I should be focusing on that. I’m here on a Sunday morning looking at the stacked boxes in the corner of my workshop while I drink my coffee trying to hype myself up to make some progress.
Instead, I’m drawn to laughter on the other side of the door to the shop floor. Which leads me to the final lady making things hard for me: Clara.
Despite disappearing out of town and not turning up to the tavern to work like she usually does, yesterday morning Clara Davenport was up a ladder outside of my store helping fix the wind-tangled lights decorating Main Street.
Which meant for some reason, I put on my coat and found Arthur with his clipboard and ended up on my own ladder helping fix lights too.
Joe and Elf watched me through the store window, probably questioning what the fuck I was doing, just like I was.
When I got back, cold and confused about why the hell I’d done it, Joe asked me if he could tell people he’s the store manager now since I keep leaving him in charge to do town business. It was a hard no.
It feels like I’m spending all my time watching the Clara show and I hate it. I preferred it when I thought she was a figment of my imagination. I don’t have time to be so distracted by her pretty laugh and shiny hair charming the people I’ve known my entire life.
I know I still owe her an apology for the victim thing, but she hasn’t stood still long enough for me to be able to talk to her. She’s everywhere and nowhere all at once and I feel like I’m losing my mind.
I want to get her on her own. Hell, I’d accept her crashing into me at this point.
If she wanted to pull me on top of her again, I think I’d cope with that too.
Sometimes I think that’s exactly what would solve this weird energy between us.
Flo thinks I should give Clara a chance.
Flo clearly hasn’t considered that she doesn’t stop moving.
I follow the sound of a light melody to the shop floor and find her. I don’t hear exactly what she says to Joe but I swear she says the word nutcracker . I watch his face drop from a wide smile to panic as he mutters something back to her. My feet move a little quicker.
She spots me crossing the room and holds up her hands in surrender. “Don’t yell. I’ll get out of your hair before it starts receding from the stress of being in the same room as me.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I say as she turns on her heel and walks herself out of the store. My hand goes to my hairline. Joe clears his throat into his fist, trying to hide a laugh. Little shit. “What did she want?”
“She was asking about the woods, boss,” Joe says sheepishly.
“The woods?” I repeat.
“Yep.”
“What about the woods?”
“She asked where would be best to go for a walk.”
I know he’s lying to me but I can’t work out what about. “Okay. I’m going back to work.”
Joe nods and there’s something very suspicious about the whole interaction. I brush it off, putting Clara somewhere at the back of my mind, and focus on my current main headache and all her accompanying stories and accessories.
S UNDAY AFTERNOONS ARE QUIET SO I let Joe close up the store early so he can get home to do his homework.
I stay out back putting the finishing touches to a set of chairs that need to be shipped to Vermont tomorrow.
Each design carved with care and love and every ounce of my concentration.
It means no two things are identical; everything has its own unique difference, practically impossible to identify to an untrained eye.
It’s not a skill I even wanted to learn, but over years of being forced to hang out in this room because Dad thought if he could see me I couldn’t get myself into trouble, I needed to do something to pass the time.
Now I voluntarily spend hours in here, although you couldn’t tell that from how long my order list still is. I know I need to spend more time working instead of running all over town trying to be one step ahead of Clara, but I forget that in the moment.
There’s a snowstorm landing tomorrow according to the town newsletter I received twice earlier. Twice because nobody who sends the newsletters knows how to work the newsletter website properly. It’s the perfect opportunity to catch up while I’m here alone.
Starting tomorrow, since as soon as the email landed three people called to ask me to help them do various things to prepare.
The first was Tommy, who has a broken window frame I’ve been promising to fix for three weeks.
In my defense, the duct tape I secured it with has been holding up just fine as long as you don’t touch it or look at it too hard.
Tommy promised to feed me for doing free labor, so I’m heading there first, then I’ll tick off everyone else. Nobody wants anything difficult; it’s time consuming more than anything.
As I take a left toward the tavern, Clara walks out of Maggie’s front door and slowly descends the steps until we both reach the pavement outside the B just let me grab my truck keys.”
She’s quiet. Too quiet. Finally, she walks toward me, closing the short distance we’ve been talking across. “Can I pick the radio station?”
I raise an eyebrow. “No Thank you for helping me, Jack ?”
“Hey, you invited yourself. But if we’re saying thank you for invitations, thank you for inviting me to town, Jack.”
“I didn—”
“I really like it here,” she says, interrupting. She sounds like she really means it.
“Come on,” I say, nodding back the way I came. “You can pet Elf while I grab my keys. But if he knocks you over with excitement, I’m not helping you up. I don’t like that he seems to like you more than he likes me.”
She beams and my heart slams against my ribs. “There’s that not-being-mean-to-me thing you were talking about.”