Beginner's Luck. Kate Clayborn
is full up, and I feel simultaneously overwhelmed and intrigued. I want to look around, to explore this place that’s probably full of treasures, but I don’t much feel like doing it around Ben Tucker. I don’t think I should betray that kind of enthusiasm in front of him.
“First time here?” comes a voice from behind me, and I jump, almost dropping the doorknob. When I turn around, I find myself—well, not face to face, yet, until I look down—with a man in a wheelchair, his left leg extended and elevated, his left arm held close to his body in a sling. He has graying hair and kind, blue eyes, and I know right away that this is Ben Tucker’s father. I’ve thought of Ben’s face that much since last week, which is probably not a good sign.
“Oh, hello. Yes,” I say, “It’s my first time here. It’s—ah. It’s big.”
The man chuckles, uses his right hand to move the lever that propels his chair forward, and then extends it to shake mine. “I’m Henry Tucker. This is my place.”
“I’m Kit. This is wonderful,” I tell him, shaking his hand and looking around again. “I had no idea this was here. I came to look for—”
He cuts me off before I can finish. “For my son? You’re the one he’s been telling me about this week.” He smiles up at me, a teasing glint in his eye. “Says you’re smart, and also immune to his bullshit.”
“Oh. Well. I suppose I am,” I say, feeling a little proud of myself under Henry Tucker’s regard. “I’m sorry about your accident,” I blurt, and then feel awkward for doing so. I mean, the wheelchair and casts don’t make it any kind of secret, but maybe he doesn’t want to talk about it.
He shrugs the best he can, given the sling. “These things happen. It’s just that when you get old, they happen and you’re probably going to break something. You ever break a bone?”
“No,” I say. “I’m a pretty risk-averse person. My brother used to make me wear a bike helmet when I played kickball as a kid.”
That makes him laugh, and once again, I feel that weird surge of pride. It probably feels good to laugh when you’ve been laid up, and I’m glad to be the one who’s done it.
“Dad?”
That’s Ben’s voice, echoing from somewhere in the depths of this giant building, and I feel a spike of nervous energy. There’s a thunk thunk thunk, heavy steps sounding on a metal staircase, but from where I stand, I can’t see it. I didn’t even realize there was a second floor in here. I immediately raise a hand up to my hair, smoothing it, and then I straighten my glasses. I completely fail at not blushing when I realize that Henry Tucker has caught me primping, but I clear my throat and give him a side-eye that’s meant to communicate something like don’t make any assumptions, mister. But probably it does not communicate that. Probably it looks like I have lint in my eye.
Ben strides in from somewhere deep in the recesses of the warehouse, and—wow. He looks different. The Ben I saw last Friday was the kind of handsome that made you do a double take, a lean, polished, practiced look that reminded you of high rises and fast cars and dimly lit restaurants. But this Ben—this is the kind of handsome that gets you right in the stomach, that makes your knees feel weak. His dark blond hair is messy, a slight curl at the ends, his face more tanned than it had been when I’d seen him last week, his square jawline shadowed with stubble. His gray t-shirt bears a strip of paint across his right pectoral, which—damn. The man has a chest. And shoulders. You could see it the suit, sure, but in the t-shirt, you could see it. I picture, for a flash, my hands spread across that chest.
“Hi,” he says, and oh, that smile. Like he’s genuinely glad to see me. “I see you’ve met my dad. Who is not supposed to be at work this week.” Ben gives a scolding look down at his father, who waves an annoyed hand in Ben’s direction.
“I’m renting this baby for sixty bucks a day just so’s I can be right here where I can see you, kid,” says Henry, tapping the chair with his good hand. “So you don’t go selling any of my treasures on the cheap. Again.”
“Dad, that was a good sale. You weren’t going to get two grand.”
“I could’ve got twenty-five hundred! This sideboard,” he says to me, as if we’ve known each other forever, as if I’m part of these conversations all the time, “you should’ve seen it. Mid-century modern, teak. Almost perfect condition—”
“One of the legs was missing!” Ben exclaims.
“It was a small fix! I could’ve fixed that myself, you know. If you had any sense, you could’ve fixed it.” He grumbles this last part, and Ben rolls his eyes.
I am enjoying myself immensely.
But then Ben turns his attention on me, and I drop the smile I now realize I’d had plastered to my face as I watched their exchange. “Sorry about this. We’re—you know. Adjusting to all this time we spend together.”
“That’s all right,” I say. “I get it.” But I don’t get it. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve spent any extended length of time with my own father. Mostly it was only me and Alex, and I never got sick of him. Now I feel uncomfortable—I’m the awkward plus-one in this comfortable family moment.
“Dad, how about you go back to the office and keep working through those receipts?”
“Oh, I see. You’re giving me tasks to placate me. Or else you’re trying to be alone here with this lovely lady. This reminds me of the time you were in ninth grade and had that redhead come here after school.”
“Jesus, Dad. You are the worst.”
I laugh, in spite of myself, and then put a hand over my mouth. Ben getting knocked down a peg—by someone who so clearly loves him, where the feeling is still light and jovial—makes me feel a little less nervous here in this big space, in his space. Henry winks at me and rolls away, the mechanized sound of the chair fading as he maneuvers himself around the glass cases toward a back room.
Then it’s just me and Ben, and he looks down at the floor and runs a big hand through his hair, shaking his head. “You’re early,” he says.
“Um, sorry?” I say, but I don’t really mean it.
“I wanted—I was going to be down here to greet you. My dad, he’s—he can be a lot.”
“He’s great. He makes a good first impression.”
Ben’s answering smile is crooked, sheepish. I like it so much that I can’t help but smile back.
“So,” he says, taking a cautious step toward me. “Hardware.”
He leads me back toward the wall of bins, steps away to pull over a ladder on wheels, the kind you see in one of those big-box hardware stores. “Why don’t you start by telling me what you’re looking for?”
“Well,” I say, twirling the crystal doorknob in my hand, “Now that I see how big this place is, I guess I’m looking for a lot. Doorknobs, cabinet handles, switch plates, that kind of thing…to start.”
“To start?”
“I’m hoping to find things that are, well, if not completely consistent with, then at least adjacent to the time when the house was built.” I twirl the doorknob in my hand again, welcoming its weight, and clear my throat. “I bought a house. Very recently.”
He gives me a long look, and I imagine this is not welcome news for him, given his recruiting goals. It’s probably much easier to recruit someone who hasn’t just purchased a home in an area you’re trying to get them to move away from. I expect, maybe, that he’ll be less helpful now, because let’s face it, I’m sure part of the reason he’s had me come out here, despite his promise not to talk about Beaumont, is to show me that he’s worth listening to.
“Congratulations.” He extends a hand toward me, palm up, and I have this odd moment of confusion, wondering if I’m supposed to shake it, and then he says,