Chapter 2
two
. . .
Sadie
I'm following this man, what have I heard others call him?
Beau? I probably shouldn't be, but I'm the single mom of a little boy who needs to eat, and I don't have a lot of options right now.
Vince, my son, is my main concern. I'll do whatever it takes to make sure he's okay, even if that means taking on a job from a man I've never had an interaction with before.
There's a part of me that's nervous, and I know I should be, but there's a much bigger part of me that's desperate. That desperation is winning out over everything else.
We pull up to a shop that's really just a glorified garage, and he gets out, motioning for me to as well.
There's a sign outside that says Beau's Hand-Crafted Goods, and judging by all the sawdust around the property, he's fucking busy.
When I get out and walk over to him, he's got his hands shoved into his jeans pockets and his long legs crossed in front of him. "Nice place," I offer, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning back against the front of my SUV.
"It's not," he laughs. "But it gets the job done, and that's all I need right now." He reaches up, wiping sweat off his jaw. "Follow me."
"You aren't a serial killer, right?"
He laughs, a smirk working its way across his face. "You probably should've asked that before now, but no, I'm not. I'm just a guy who owns a growing business and needs some help."
I follow him as he walks into the garage, and leads me into the space that seems to have been blocked off for an office. Once we get there, my eyes widen. He wasn't lying about putting all his paperwork in shoe boxes. There are so damn many of them. "You actually do this?"
"When it started, it was a hobby. It turned into a business before I knew it, and by that time I was so busy I didn't know how to stop it," he says by way of explanation.
"So this is..." I gesture at the shoe boxes stacked on a desk that's buried under sawdust and receipts and what looks like a coffee mug growing antibiotics. "This is your whole system?"
"That's generous.” He raises his eyebrows.
“Calling it a system." He picks up one of the boxes, sets it back down like he's not sure what else to do with it.
"I've got invoices in there I haven't sent.
I got customers who paid cash I never logged anywhere.
I got a guy who's owed me for a built-in since March and I couldn't tell you his last name if you asked me right now. "
"March." I say it flat, but with a little bit of humor because I don’t want my snarkiness to come through just yet.
"March." He rubs the back of his neck. "I know. I told you I was bad at this."
"You didn't tell me you were three months behind on collecting money you're owed."
"I didn't know it was three months until you just did that math.
" He drops into the chair behind the desk, and it creaks under him like it's been groaning under his weight for a while.
"Look, here's what I need. I need somebody to get this—" he waves a hand at the boxes, "—into a filing system that isn't cardboard.
I need invoices going out when the work's done, not whenever I remember I did the work.
I need somebody keeping track of what jobs I've got lined up so I don't show up at a site a week early again, like I did this morning, and end up standing around with nowhere to put six hundred pounds of cabinetry. "
"That's what happened? Before you heard the argument happen, and then found me next to my SUV?"
"That's exactly what happened. Dane's standing there telling me the roof's not on yet, and I'm looking like an idiot with a truck full of pieces I can't drop off.
" He shakes his head. "So yeah. Bookkeeping.
Scheduling. Somebody who can talk to a supplier and a client on the same day and not get the two conversations confused.
Somebody who can sit in this chair and make it look like I'm running an actual business instead of a very expensive hobby that got out of hand. "
I walk further into the room, careful where I step because there's sawdust covering most everything.
There's a window on the far wall, and through it I can see the main part of the shop — table saws, a planer, wood stacked against every surface that isn't already covered in something else.
It smells like cedar and pine and machine oil, and underneath all of it, like a man who's been working outside all day.
"You'd need me full time," I say. It's not a question. I already know the answer before he gives it, because a mess like this doesn't get fixed in a couple hours a week. Not to mention I need a fucking full time job.
"Probably. At least until it's caught up.
After that, I don't know. Depends how bad it stays once we get it straightened out.
" He watches me for a second, and there's a carefulness to the way he's doing it, like he's trying to read whether I'm about to say yes or walk back out to my SUV.
"I can pay you what Will was paying you.
More, if it turns out I need more from you than I think I do right now. "
I turn around and lean against the door frame, arms crossed again, because it gives me something to do with my hands that isn't wringing them in front of a stranger. "I need you to know one thing before I say yes to anything."
"Okay."
"I've got a son. His name is Vince, and he's four.
" I watch his face when I say it, because this is the part that's ended more job offers than I can count.
The part where my boss realizes hiring me means working around daycare pickup and sick days and the fact that I can't just stay late whenever an emergency comes up, because somebody's got to get him.
"I need to be out of here by five most days.
Earlier if he's sick, or if daycare calls.
I'm not going to pretend that's not part of this, because it is, and I'd rather you know now than find out in three weeks and decide it's a problem. "
Beau doesn't flinch. Doesn't get that look on his face that I've seen on half a dozen people behind half a dozen desks, the one that says they're trying to figure out how much of a liability I just made myself. He just nods, like I told him I take my coffee black.
"Five works. I'm usually out here by six in the morning and burnt out by four anyway.
Not much reason for you to be here later than that unless something comes up, and even then, I can probably handle it myself.
" A corner of his mouth pulls up. "You need to bring him with you sometimes? If daycare falls through, or whatever?"
I blink at him. "You'd be okay with that?"
"I got a shop full of sawdust and sharp tools, so probably not every day, but if you're stuck, yeah. Better than you not showing up, or you standing in a parking lot somewhere with nowhere to put him while you figure it out."
It's such a small thing to say, and I don't know why it hits me the way it does, standing in this dusty office that smells like cedar, twenty minutes after a man fired me for a mistake that wasn't my fault.
Nobody's offered me that before. Not really.
Will used to sigh through his nose every time I mentioned Vince had a doctor's appointment, like I was personally inconveniencing him by having a kid who occasionally needed medical care.
"Okay," I say, before I can talk myself out of it, before the desperate part of me and the nervous part of me finish arguing it out. "I'll do it."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. But I want it in writing, like I said. Pay, hours, what happens if Vince gets sick and I have to leave in the middle of the day. I'm not doing another handshake deal with a man who decides two years later that he wants to change the goalposts and fire me over his incompetence."
"Fair." He stands up, holds a hand out across the desk, and I shake it, and his hand is rough in a way that tells me he actually builds the things he says he builds. "I'll get it to you in writing by tomorrow. Tonight, if you want to start looking at this mess sooner rather than later."
"Tonight works. I don't exactly have anywhere else to be." I say it like it’s not that big of a deal, but it is. A few hours ago I had a job that I hated. Now I've got a stranger's shoe boxes and a four-year-old at daycare who doesn't know his whole world just shifted under him.
Beau studies me for a second, like he heard the part I didn't say out loud. "Hey. For what it's worth — Will's an idiot. Anybody who watched you handle what just happened out there and decides to fire you instead of promote you doesn't deserve to have you running his books."
"You don't know if I'm any good at this yet."
"I know you correct people's grammar mid-argument and still remember to bring receipts. Figuratively and probably literally." He nods toward the shoe boxes. "I'll take my chances."
That gets a real laugh out of me, the first one all day, and it feels strange in my chest, like a muscle I forgot I still had. "You're going to regret saying that once you see how particular I am about labeling things."
"I built a filing system out of cardboard boxes. I don't think you can out-particular yourself into a problem for me." He grabs his keys off a hook by the door. "Come on. Let me show you the rest of the place before you decide you hate it here and change your mind."
I follow him out of the office, past the table saws and the stacked lumber and a half-finished project that looks like it's going to be a headboard, and for the first time since Will pointed at that gravel lot and told me to pack my shit, the tight place in my chest loosens up, just a little.
I still don't know this man. Don't know if this job's going to last a month or a year, don't know if the shoe boxes are the worst of it or just the beginning.
But Vince needs groceries and daycare paid through the end of the month, and I need somewhere that isn't a house getting quieter by the day, and right now, sawdust and cardboard boxes look a lot like somewhere to start.