Chapter 5
five
. . .
Beau
I walk into the shop a few weeks later and stop dead in the doorway, because for a second I think I've got the wrong building.
The sawdust that used to be piled everywhere is gone.
The workbench along the back wall, the one I haven't been able to see the surface of in over a year, is clear except for a jar of pens and a stack of order forms lined up square with the edge.
There's a whiteboard mounted on the wall by the office door that wasn't there two weeks ago, with a calendar drawn out on it in Sadie's handwriting, every job I've got lined up in a different colored marker, dates and deliveries and materials needed all laid out like somebody actually knows what the fuck they’re doing around here.
"Sadie?"
"Back here," she calls from the office.
I find her at the desk, laptop open, a mug of coffee next to her elbow.
She's got her hair up today, pen tucked behind one ear, and she doesn't even look up from the screen when I lean against the door frame.
"Morning," she says. "The Enslow’s bookshelf got delivered yesterday by the high school kid we hired, and they made the final payment this morning.
The Dawson job's on schedule for Friday, and I got the lumber order in for that oak Ricky's been holding for you, so you don't have to keep bugging him about it. "
"You talked to Ricky?"
"He called yesterday asking when you were coming to pick up the oak.
I told him I'd handle the order since you were out at the Dawson site all day.
He seemed surprised that somebody actually picked up the phone.
" She finally glances up at me, and there's a smirk sitting right on the edge of her mouth.
"I get the feeling that's a common reaction around here. "
"You have no idea." I walk further into the office, and it's clean in here too, the boxes gone, replaced with a set of actual folders in an actual filing cabinet that I don't even remember owning. "Where did all this come from?"
"I bought it. The receipt's in your expenses folder, don't worry, I logged it." She turns back to the laptop. "Figured shoe boxes weren't going to cut it long term." She pulls a face that’s half joking, half serious.
I should've come out here sooner. I've been so buried in the Dawson job the last two weeks, out at the site most days, that I haven't had much of a reason to sit down and actually look at what's happening back here.
I pull my phone out and open my banking app, more out of habit than anything, just to check what's sitting in the account before I head over to the lumber yard.
The number on the screen stops me.
"Sadie."
"Yeah?"
"This can't be right." I hold the phone out like she needs to see it to believe it, even though she's clearly the one who put it there. "This is more than double what I had in here a month ago."
"That's what happens when you actually collect on invoices instead of letting them sit for six months.
" She says, like it's obvious, like it wasn't a small miracle that took her two weeks of phone calls and follow-ups and probably more patience than I would've had with half these customers.
"I went back through everything. Found four jobs you'd finished and never billed for, including that one from March you mentioned.
Called every client who was past due, and set up a system so it doesn't happen again.
Invoices go out the day a job's marked complete now, automatically, and I follow up if payment's not in within two weeks. "
"You did all that in two weeks?"
"I did all that because I didn't have anything else to do, and your paperwork was, frankly, an emergency.
" She says it with a straight face, but there's a laugh underneath it.
"You were sitting on almost eleven thousand dollars in unbilled work, Beau.
Eleven thousand dollars. That's not a small oversight, that's a business that was actively bleeding money because nobody was minding it. "
This is why I’ve needed someone like her.
I don't know what to say to that. I've been running this place on instinct and long hours for years, telling myself if I just kept building, kept showing up, everything else would sort itself out eventually.
It never did. It just piled up in shoe boxes until a woman I barely knew walked in and fixed years of neglect in two weeks flat.
"Thank you," I say, and it comes out rougher than I mean it to. "I mean that. You've done more for this business in fourteen days than I managed in the last few years."
"That's kind of the job." She shrugs, but I catch the way her cheeks go a little pink at the compliment, like she's not used to getting one. "I'm just doing what you're paying me for."
Fuck that.
"You're doing a hell of a lot more than that.
" I stand there a second longer, watching her go back to whatever's on the screen, and my chest settles in a way that I don't have a name for. Gratitude, maybe. Or maybe it’s bigger than that, if I'm honest with myself, which I'm trying real hard not to be right now.
Being in tune with my feelings sometimes sucks.
I leave without saying anything else, because if I stay in that doorway much longer I'm going to say something I can't take back about how much this means to me, and that's not fair to either one of us.
I drive into town instead, telling myself I need to swing by the hardware store for a box of screws I'm running low on.
I don't need fucking screws. I've got a full box sitting on the shelf by the table saw, and I know it, but I get in the truck anyway and drive toward Main Street just to give my hands something to do.
Instead, I end up in front of the flower shop.
I sit in the truck for a solid minute, arguing with myself about whether this is a good idea or the exact opposite of one.
She works for me, and this is a bad idea.
I've been telling myself that every day for two weeks, every time I catch myself watching her walk across the shop floor when I come in to check on her at the end of the day.
This isn't about any of that, I tell myself. This is a thank you. A boss thanking an employee for saving his business. That's all this is.
Yeah fucking right.
The woman behind the counter, Delia, has known me since I was a kid buying flowers for my mother on Mother's Day because my dad always forgot until the last minute.
She raises an eyebrow at me the second I walk through the door.
"Well, look who it is. Beau Hutchins, in my shop, on a Tuesday, for no occasion I can think of. "
"Not for an occasion. I just want to say thanks to somebody."
"Uh huh." She comes around the counter, already reaching for a bucket of sunflowers like she's read my mind, then stops and looks at me a little closer. "This somebody a customer, or more than that?"
"Employee." I say it as if it’s an off-handed remark, when it’s anything but. "She's been fixing up my books, and getting the business in the shape it should’ve been since the beginning. She’s saved me a small fortune. I wanted to say thank you."
Delia doesn't look convinced, but she's polite enough not to push it. "What's she like? Sunflowers are cheerful, good for a thank you. Roses send a different message entirely, so I'm guessing you don't want those."
"No roses." That would be a whole different conversation, one I'm not ready to have with myself, let alone with Sadie. "She's got dark hair. She’s smart as hell, and has a nice smile. don't know, anything that fits that."
Delia studies me a second longer than I'd like, then turns and starts pulling stems, mixing sunflowers with some purple sprigs I don't know the name of and a handful of white flowers that look simple without being too plain.
"This'll do it. It’s cheerful, but not trying too hard.
Exactly what you're describing, and exactly what you're not saying out loud. "
"I don't know what you mean,” I play it off. I don’t want anyone to know for sure that I’m attracted to my employee.
"Sure you don't." She wraps the bouquet, ties it off with brown twine instead of ribbon, and hands it over. "That’ll be twenty-two even."
I pay her, and I drive back to the shop with the flowers sitting in the passenger seat, feeling more nervous about walking them into that office than I felt walking onto any job site in the last couple of years.
I grab a mason jar from the shelf where I keep spare hardware, fill it at the sink in the back, and arrange the flowers as best I can, which isn't great, considering I've never arranged flowers for anyone besides my mom in my life.
I set it on the corner of her desk while she's on the phone with a supplier, and I duck back out before she notices, heading for the table saw so I've got something to do with my hands that isn't standing around waiting for her reaction like some kid.
It's about ten minutes before I hear her voice from the office. "Beau?"
I turn the saw off, wipe my hands on my jeans, and walk over. She's standing by the desk, staring at the mason jar like she's not sure it's real. "You didn't have to do this."
"You earned it.” I say by way of explanation. “Eleven thousand dollars is a lot of flowers, honestly, this is probably underselling it."
She laughs, and it's soft, not the sharp laugh I've gotten used to. This one is quieter, she doesn’t hand it out freely all the time.
"Nobody's ever done anything like this for me. For work, I mean." She touches one of the stems carefully like she can’t believe it’s actually there. "Thank you. Really."
"You're welcome." I stand there a beat too long, the same as I did that first morning, not sure what to do with my hands or where to look. "I mean it, Sadie. You've done more for this place in two weeks than I managed on my own in years."
"I'm just doing my job."
"You keep saying that. I keep not believing it's just that simple." I clear my throat, take a step back toward the door before I say something I'm not ready to say yet. "Anyway, thank you. I’m getting back to work. The Dawson job's not going to build itself."
I leave her standing there with the flowers, and I go back to the table saw, and it takes me a solid twenty minutes before the anxiety in my stomach settles. I’m not the kind of man who makes a big deal about anything, but I did about this.
I tell myself again, for what feels like the hundredth time, that this is just gratitude. It’s nothing more than that.
I don't believe myself any more now than I did this morning when I pulled up, happy that her SUV was in the parking lot.