Chapter 15 Here to Help
Here to help
Tinker watched as the man behind the reception desk punched a few numbers on the phone, messed up, hung up, and started the whole process over again.
He glanced up at Tinker before turning his chair slightly and cupping his hand around the mouthpiece of the receiver. It didn’t help.
“Can you come to the front office, please? There are some…” He glanced at Tinker from the corner of his eye. “Some people here to see you.
“I don’t care! Just get here now!” He replaced the receiver in the cradle and turned back to the front, now with the fakest smile Tinker had ever seen plastered on his face.
“She’ll be a moment.” He folded his hands primly on the desk.
“Uh-huh. Thanks.” Tinker knocked on the counter and the guy jumped. Tinker rejoined James and Ben at the front of the reception office.
They’d both agreed to meet Abby to discuss helping with her showcase.
He’d sent her a couple of messages earlier in the afternoon to let her know but hadn’t heard back.
She probably wouldn’t be comfortable with two strange guys showing up, saying we’re here to help, so he’d come to help with introductions.
“Jumpy little fella,” James said.
“Think it’s the vests?” Nick asked in a low voice.
“Could be,” James said. “Could be he’s just twitchy.”
Tinker grunted as movement at the door caught his attention. Abby and another woman pushed through the glass door. Abby’s hair was twisted up and held with a clip, a pencil sticking out of the knot.
She glanced between the twitchy guy behind the counter and Tinker. “Hi…what are you doing here?”
“You said you needed help with your showcase,” he said.
“Uh, I did. Who are they?”
He pointed at the man next to him. “This is Nick, he’s an electrician, and this is James, he’s a wood working genius. I sent you a couple of messages earlier about them coming, but I guess you didn’t get them.”
She shook her head. “I’ve had my phone on silent all day.”
A door with a placard that read “Principal” opened, and a man in a suit and tie exited with a couple who stared at the group of men with startled expressions.
“Uh…Phillip, can you please escort Mr. and Mrs. Garcia out?” the suit asked the guy at the reception desk.
“Of course,” Phillip said, standing quickly and gesturing for the couple to follow.
Tinker and his friends stepped back so the couple could pass. Abby’s mouth twisted as they walked by, but he wasn’t sure why.
“Abby,” the suit said. “Who are your guests?”
Abby squared her shoulders. “Oh, right. They’re here to help with the showcase.
Since Penny is out on maternity leave, we need outside help this year.
They’ve kindly cleared their schedules to help.
This is Christian, and Nick, and James.” She pointed at each man in turn.
“Gentlemen, this is the principal of the school, Isaac Newton.”
James, the oldest of them, held out his hand. “Your parents were physicists?”
Newton smiled wryly and shook James’s hand.
“No, but they had high hopes for me. Unfortunately, theoretical physics didn’t interest me, and I went into mechanical engineering before switching to teaching.
We really appreciate your help, gentlemen.
This showcase is a big deal for a lot of our students and the highlight of our school year.
The school doesn’t have a football team, but if we did, this would be our homecoming game.
“Abby and Naomi can take you to the conference room for the planning meeting. We can get your information after to get you into our system so you can just sign in next time you’re here.” He looked at Abby and Naomi. “Abby, you have lead on the showcase this year, right?”
She nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Great. If you want to escort our guests to the conference room, you can catch me up later. I need to wrap up a few administrative things, so I won’t be at the meeting.”
“Okay.” She shared a look with the other woman, Naomi, as Newton walked away.
Naomi leaned close and said in a low voice, “Maybe he’s getting laid.”
Abby smiled and smacked her on the shoulder. “Stop.”
“Do you have a better explanation?” she asked.
“Stop,” she repeated, laughing.
Phillip returned to the office and nervously walked through the group.
Abby looked at them. “Are you comfortable leaving your driver’s licenses here so Phillip can put you in the system?”
Tinker shrugged and looked at James and Nick. They both shrugged and pulled out their wallets and licenses to hand over to Phillip.
“What am I doing with these?” Phillip asked as he took them.
“Principal Newton wants them added to the system so they can sign in when they’re here,” Naomi explained. “They’re helping with the showcase.”
“Oh,” he said weakly. “Okay.”
Abby’s lips twitched and she turned to Tinker, James, and Nick. “Shall we?”
“Sure.”
“Sounds good.”
“Lead the way.”
Tinker held the door open as they all filed out.
“This way.” Naomi pointed down the main hallway.
Tinker fell in step next to Abby, shortening his strides to match hers. “What was all that?”
“All what?”
“You looked like you didn’t expect that Newton guy to agree to let us help,” he said.
“I was expecting more pushback,” she admitted.
“Because we’re bikers?” James asked.
“Because Newton is a stickler for the rules,” Naomi said over her shoulder. “Usually, non-parent or guardian visitors must be cleared ahead of time. The sponsor needs to submit a written request, explain the purpose of the visit, and provide a copy of the visitor's ID.”
“Makes sense,” Nick said. “Especially with all the school shootings and stuff. Never know who’s walking in.”
“Oh, we understand the why, we just don’t understand why he didn’t kick up a fuss about none of it happening.” Naomi pointed to one of the halls leading off the large atrium they entered.
“He has been much more flexible about things lately,” Abby added.
“Maybe he’s gettin’ laid more,” James said.
Naomi laughed as Abby shook her head as they walked into the conference room.
The noise stopped almost immediately as everyone caught sight of them.
Naomi introduced them and then went around the conference table and introduced the department representatives, which included Lindsey, and three student council members.
Their group sat at the empty end of the table, closest to the door.
“You guys do the toy drive for the children’s hospital, right?” A Hispanic woman with short, curly hair asked. Thea, the science teacher, if he remembered correctly.
“We do,” James said.
She nodded. “I recognize your vests. My son was hospitalized for two months at the end of last year.”
“He okay?” Nick asked.
“Yes. He broke his femur in two places, dislocated his elbow, and had a concussion.” Thea’s voice was tight as she recounted his injuries.
“Damn,” Nick said. James smacked him in the chest with the back of his hand. “I mean…dang. How’d he do that?”
“Motocross. He got run off the track by a competitor and crashed hard.” Her lips formed a thin line.
“He still competing?” James asked.
“Not yet,” she said. “He still has six months of physical therapy to get through, and to be honest, I don’t know that I’m okay with him riding again.”
“I get it,” Tinker said. “It can be a dangerous sport. No parent wants to see their kid hurt.”
She nodded and a few of the other teachers chimed in with agreement. The tension he’d felt when they’d first walked in seemed to leave the room. He wasn’t sure if it was her intention or not, but he appreciated her helping put people at ease.
He hadn’t thought about their vests when they’d shown up at the school and how people would take it. They’d worn their vests when they did Melanie’s ride, but that had been in a kind of official capacity—not rolling up into the front office.
“Let’s go ahead and get started,” Abby said.
“As most of us know, the theme for this year’s showcase is Fusion.
The student council came up with the tagline “Where Creativity Meets Curiosity.” I’d like to go around and have each department highlight their needs outside what they can provide themselves or have already completed.
Nick, James, and Christian are here to help with anything we can’t handle ourselves since Penny is on bed rest.”
The math department rep started, and each teacher chimed in.
Abby slid her notepad over and tapped it. He leaned forward. In tight script she’d written, Do you need something to take notes?
He slid her pen from her hand and replied, I wasn’t supposed to be part of the meeting. I’m just here to introduce James and Nick.
She nodded once and pulled the notepad back to her.
A twinge of something hit him quick. Yearning, maybe? He wanted her to write something else. He’d never been the guy in school girls wrote notes to. She’d taken the time to check on him, even if it had been to ask if he needed to take notes, and he liked it.
“What kind of budget are you looking at?” James asked.
Tinker realized he’d missed the last few minutes of the conversation, so it was probably a good thing he couldn’t get time off to help.
“Five thousand dollars,” Abby said. “I know it’s not a lot, so if we need to adjust designs, we can do that.”
“You got drawings? Measurements? That kind of thing?” Ben asked.
Lindsey, he remembered her, placed a large tube of paper on the table and unrolled it.
“Grades four and five are doing a medley of Alice in Wonderland. Grade six is doing a scene from Willy Wonka, and seven and eight are doing two ensemble scenes from Into the Woods. Each performance is fifteen to twenty minutes. We want to be able to have an interchangeable set for the performances so we can turn them around or move them from one side to the other to cut down on the time between performances.”
She continued to explain the set designs for the upper elementary and middle school before moving on to the high school.
Tinker leaned close and whispered, “What kind of art do you teach?”
Abby tucked her chin into her shoulder. “Fashion design, sculpture, and visual arts,” she said softly.
A sly grin formed. “Visual arts like video?”
Her blush was instantaneous. “Painting.”
“I like the way you blush.” He did. He imagined that blush at inappropriate moments of the day. Like right now, in the middle of a meeting about school plays, but he couldn’t help himself. She popped into his mind whether he wanted her to or not.
“Right, Abby?”
She jumped at the sound of her name. “Yes! What? No.” She took a calming breath. “What?”
Walter, Matt, and Thea weren’t even trying to hide their amusement while the students were snickering behind their hands. Lindsey had a shit-eating grin on her face.
Not that she could blame them. She’d been embarrassingly close to kissing Tinker. When his tongue had peeked out of his mouth and touched the center of his upper lip… Whoo, she needed to get control of herself.
“The showcase is in two weeks, Friday beginning at five p.m. Right?” Lindsey asked
Abby narrowed her eyes at her soon to be ex-friend before turning to James and Nick. “Yes. The doors open to the parents and public at five. The fashion show is at six and will run about forty-five minutes. The theater performances start at seven and should be over shortly after eight.”
“When can we start working on production?” James asked.
She appreciated that he, at least, wasn’t cracking a smile. “We have a student production crew for the theater performances. The next meeting is tomorrow at three.”
“The deadline for completion is the day before the showcase?” Nick asked.
“Ideally everything will be done on Wednesday,” Naomi said. “Although there are always last-minute issues that pop up, we have a final dress rehearsal Thursday.”
“All right,” James said, closing the cover of his small notebook. “I’ll be here at three tomorrow. I’ll assess what the students are capable of and figure out if I need to bring in any outside help.”
“You’re really going to help us?” Lucas, one of the students, asked.
“Sure. Why not?” Nick asked.
“Don’t you have like, work or something?” Chloe, another student, asked.
“That’s one of the great things about being retired, young lady. I get to decide when I work and when I don’t.” James pushed his chair back and stood. “Miss Lindsey, if you have time to escort me to the theater, I’ll take some measurements and figure out how much material you’re going to need.”
“I would be honored, Mr. James.” She rolled up her drawings and tucked them under her arm. She rounded the table and hooked her arm through his elbow as they left.
Tinker chuckled.
“What?” Abby asked.
“The old man still has some game.”
“Ew,” Taylor, the other student council member, said, not quite under her breath.
Naomi laughed. “You’ll get it one day.”
The girl didn’t say anything but judging by her wrinkled nose, she didn’t agree.
Tinker leaned close. “Walk us out?”
Abby nodded. Why was she suddenly nervous?
She had to walk them out anyway since they couldn’t be in the school unescorted.
Maybe it was the low rumble of his voice, or the intimate way he’d asked, or the gleam in his eyes.
Such a simple question and yet she couldn’t help but wonder if there was an underlying meaning.
The presence next to her was almost physical as they walked to the office to retrieve their IDs and then to the front door. Once outside, Nick said goodbye and headed to a beat-up pickup truck parked in the visitor lot. The kind of truck she’d expected Tinker to drive on their first date.
She turned and faced Tinker. “Thank you for coming today.”
“Sorry to spring it on you with no notice,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t cause too many issues.”
“It shouldn’t. Will you be coming to help?”
There was something about his grin that bordered on mischievous. “Eager to see me?”
“Just…curious about whether you’ll be helping or not.” She was not going to admit her heart skipped a beat at the thought of seeing him every day.
“I’ll pop in a couple afternoons, but I have that event I’m lead for as well as a few other jobs I’m helping out on.”
“Okay.” She didn’t know what else to say.
They stood there for an eternity, staring at each other, not saying anything. It was probably only a few seconds.
“Sooo…I’ll see you later?” she said.
“I’ll text you tonight.” He leaned forward and kissed her quickly before she could react. He lifted his eyebrows quickly. “Bye, Ab.”
“Bye.” She reflexively waved a hand as he turned and strutted away from her. He really did have a nice ass.
“Bye, Ms. Day,” a singsong voice said.
Abby looked to her left and saw two of the seniors from the student council walking toward the student parking lot. “Bye, girls. Drive carefully.”
The girls watched as Tinker’s bike roared to life and giggled at each other. Abby rolled her eyes and headed to her car. Who was she kidding—if Naomi or Lindsey had been there, she’d probably have squealed and giggled too.