Chapter 29 #2
“Really?” I peer over at her. When she nods reassuringly, I feel actual pain in my chest. Ugh, even her willingness to go along with this plan is a testament to her good nature. Gavin owes me. He owes us!
Gavin sticks with Brennan and the rest of the carpentry team, who are busy cutting out and replacing the deteriorated parts of the wood siding, while Callie and I strip the paint off the intact ones.
True to her word, she doesn’t go out of the way to interact with Gavin aside from saying hi and goodbye.
I take a break from scraping off the paint and look around. “Where’s Hal?” I ask, noticing I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing his scowling face this morning.
She stops working and scans the area for him. “There he is,” she says, pointing at the entrance of the store.
“I didn’t recognize him under the shadow of the awning.” He’s quietly observing the volunteers from a distance.
“Yeah. He’s probably having a down day,” she says.
“What’s a down day?”
“A day when he’s down.”
“Oh. I didn’t think that’s what it literally meant.” Then, a second later, after I’ve had time to understand, I add, “Is he okay?”
Callie presses her lips together and shrugs. “I can’t say I know how he feels at the moment, but it could be because the work we’re doing today is changing the way the store looked when his ma was running it.”
“Oh my God. I’m the one who suggested the paint.” I put my palm to my forehead. “If it weren’t for me—”
“No, don’t be so hard on yourself. We’ve been telling him to repaint it for a while.
He thinks keeping the store as it was when his ma was alive is keeping her memory close to him, but the store’s falling apart.
And how is that going to honor her memory?
Anyway, everyone was surprised when he went along with the idea of a new color when you suggested it.
Maybe he’s ready to move on from his grief, and I think the new color will do him good. ”
“How do you know when he’s up or down? He always seems so…” I look again to confirm before I say, “Grumpy.”
“On the surface, he seems the same. But once you pay attention to him or know him as long as we have, you see the signs.”
Sure enough, when Hal doesn’t think anyone’s looking, he lets down his guard. The creases around his eyes release, making him seem downcast, and he lets out a sigh. As soon as a person turns the corner, his scowl comes back into place.
“Some people wear their emotional armor so well, it fools us into believing they’re doing okay. But even for them, it gets to be too much. And we’ve gotten to know how to support him.” Then she says, “I’ll be right back.”
Callie goes to her car and grabs a box, then casually walks over to Hal and hands it to him. “Would you mind stocking the shelves? I forgot to do it earlier, and my hands are tainted with paint thinner.”
Without hesitation, he takes the box from her and disappears into the store.
“Hal doesn’t like attention,” she says, rejoining me. “So I gave him something to do.”
Callie never ceases to amaze me with her acts of kindness, making me feel worse about the deception by the minute.
Between the prepping and the painting, we spend the next few hours in concentrated silence. When the siding is all fixed, half of the team works on the roof, and the other half, including Brennan, joins me and Callie to paint.
“That side is all prepped. What should I do next?” Brennan asks me.
“The last thing we need to do before painting is cover the windows and fixtures.” I grab a large plastic sheet and hand Brennan a roll of painter’s tape. “The plastic sheet isn’t an exact fit, so we’ll have to fold it to fit the window.”
“Got it.” Brennan tips his head toward me. A second later, though, it looks like he doesn’t “got it.”
“Um, are you okay?” I stifle a laugh as I watch him wrestle the plastic sheet down.
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” he tries to reassure me, but it doesn’t look like he’s fine, so I tape down my corner first, then help him with his.
“Fold the bottom under, then the side. Like this.” I model my instructions for him.
“The wind, my fat fingers…” He mutters a few excuses.
I suppress a laugh. “Plastic sheet, one; Brennan, zero.”
“I’m better with heavy lifting when it comes to this stuff.”
“How about this? Why don’t you hold up the ladder while I tape those windows?” I suggest.
“Deal.”
Brennan grabs the ladder and moves it under the window.
When it’s steady, I climb up and tape the sheet to the glass.
After I’m done, Brennan moves the ladder off to the side while I start covering up the hardware on the doors and light fixtures with painter’s tape.
Before I can reach for another piece, Brennan has one ready for me, perfectly timed.
When we’re finished prepping the exterior of the convenience store, he trails me to the storage shed.
Without being asked, he brings out the buckets of paint while I carry the box of brushes and rollers.
We fall into an efficient rhythm, almost like choreography, and I can’t help but notice how weirdly good at this we are.
Because I’ve never done this kind of work before and yet, somehow, this works.
Once the supplies are laid out, I gather the volunteers. Aside from the handful of people working on the roof, the rest of us, including my parents, pick up brushes and begin painting.
Gavin and Callie join us to make it less obvious when they catch stolen moments between them.
I glance over at my parents to see if they notice, but they don’t.
In fact, they’re so focused on painting that they don’t seem to notice anything around them.
You’d think it’s a race by the way they’ve taken over the whole front right side of the building.
News articles and interviews often heralded my parents for their work ethic, but I never understood it.
To me work was the reason for their absence from my life, and for years I resented them for it.
Having a front-row seat to Mom and Dad taking this job—and every other job they’ve done in Blaire—so seriously, I’m starting to see what others do.
Still, the botched family game night is making it impossible to fully let go of the resentment.
Can there be such a thing as too much of a quality as highly regarded as work ethic?
It seems like Dad has been reliant on himself for too long to notice any other way of doing things.
A splatter of paint on my face jerks me out of my thoughts. “What was that for?” I say to Brennan when I realize he flicked his brush at me.
“We’ll never get this done at this rate,” he says playfully.
“I’m the one slowing us down?” I dab my finger into my tray and flick it at him.
He winces, wiping the paint off his eyelid. “Bold move.” He grins mischievously before swiping his brush on my arm.
I gasp, then flick my brush back at him. We do this back and forth a few times, and the moment is like something out of a Hallmark movie, which, I’m not going to lie, is, like, a really cute look for me.
“Okay, now we’re really not going to make any progress if we keep this up,” I say. As fun as this is, there’s a nagging sensation creeping over me to stop fooling around, which is odd. I can’t remember the last time I preferred manual labor to anything else.
“Truce?” He peers up at me.
“Truce,” I say. Then quietly, under my breath, I add, “For now.”
With the brush in his hand, he smirks mid-stroke. I resist the urge to flick him again with the paintbrush, and we both somehow manage to get back to work.
It isn’t until we finish for the day that I realize I haven’t taken a break and I’m completely parched. Right as I’m about to look for my water bottle, Brennan hands it to me. Okay, now that’s weird. Is he a psychic?
“How’d you…”
“Looked like you could use it,” he says, again reading my mind. “We’ve worked up a sweat.”
I self-consciously wipe my brow. It’s true. I haven’t worked this hard since my last F45 cardio session. The water feels cool and refreshing. And so does Brennan’s attentiveness. Suddenly, I’m reminded of what Callie said. Could Brennan really be interested in me?
“We make a pretty good team,” Brennan says, staring at the progress we made today.
I’m starting to think we do too.
In fact, if Brennan is interested in me and I am ready for a long-term relationship, there’s no reason why we can’t be more than just a good team.