“It’ll take five minutes.” He’s already headed downstairs, probably trying to politely flee from the doe-eyes I just served up. He returns from his truck with a toolbox, and sure enough, he does fix it in five minutes, betraying no embarrassment about that—moment. Instead, he fixes the light switch in the guest room and also resecures the window air conditioner that I have in my bedroom, which he says is about to fling itself off the ledge.
But when the afternoon grows late, he checks the time on his phone and says he really does have to be on his way. He’s picking up pizza for him and his dad and Sharon, and since he does the bedtime routine with his dad, he doesn’t want to push it too late. Weirdly, I feel a pang of loneliness when he describes these plans, which are probably pretty exhausting for Ben. But since I was planning on eating a Lean Cuisine and online shopping for bathmats, pizza with a convalescing salvage yard owner sounds pretty great.
I thank him, maybe a little profusely, for his help. He waves me off, all handsome nonchalance, but—it was a reallykindthing for someone to do, and even though over the last hour I’d decided that moment in the bathroom was only a blip, nothing to think twice about, now, out here saying goodbye on the porch, my thoughts go right back there.Here’s this nice guy, this hot as hell guy, who spent the afternoon with you.
“You’re not going to get much time to miss me,” he says, his voice low and teasing.“Sevenp.m., tomorrow. You, me, and that microscope you like so much.”
Oh. I feel my face heat a little in embarrassment.Brilliant, he’d said, but of course he’d said that, this guy who’s recruiting me for a job I don’t want. I’d forgotten, a little. I’d forgotten the guy I met in the suit, the corporate guy with all that undeserved confidence, replaced him temporarily with the Ben who makes toilet repair look sexy. And it’s deflating to think I’ll have to deal with the other guy tomorrow.
“Right,” I say, a little flat, and he seems to hear it, or maybe I just imagine that little shift he does with his shoulders.
“Looking forward to it,” he says, heading down the steps. At the bottom, he pauses, looks back up at the house.“It really is a beautiful house, Ekaterina.”
I’m too dumbfounded by the compliment, by the way he’s said my name, to respond. So I wave and duck back into the house, more than a little confused about the day.
Chapter 6
Ben
I’m on the second floor lining up a bunch of shutters that came into the yard this morning. It’s dusty, frustrating work; they usually come in a huge heap, and so you’ve got to keep an eye out for matched sets. Dad is downstairs teaching River how to run the cash register, which I think is the worst idea in history, so my being up here is probably a smart move. Anyways, I’m distracted, worked up thinking about Kit—about getting to see her again tonight, about the time I spent with her yesterday.
Liking a client is an asset, really—some of my best recruits are also good friends, people I’ve kept in touch with as they transitioned into their new posts. The way I recruit, it’s essential that I get to know people, figure out what’s important about their lives aside from the work. But the way I feel around Kit is a liability. Yesterday when I’d seen her outside Jeff and Eric’s house, I hadn’t thought at all about Beaumont. At first, I’d mostly thought about her legs in those shorts, but even after I’d schooled myself not to look (much), I’d focused on her house, how I could help her with it, what things she could use from the yard, what stuff I could fix easily for her.
Even I knew that was entirely counterproductive. If anything, I should’ve been warning her about how she was just as likely to bankrupt herself on such a big project as she was to actually enjoy herself planning it. I should’ve been telling her things that would force her to imagine a different life, one in Texas. But the problem was, it didn’t feel like she was a job. It felt like she was someone I wanted to know more about, independent of work. It felt like she was interesting and smart and a little goofy, and she was sexy as all hell, and if I’m not mistaken, there’d been a moment there, up in her bathroom—a moment where she’d looked at me as if she was interested, and I don’t mean in the job I’m offering her. I’d resorted to toilet tank repair to stop from kissing her.
My phone rings as I’m slotting in the last shutter, and I’m a little grateful for something that’ll get me out of my head. Jasper’s voice is impatient, excited.“I need a few minutes.Can you take a break?” We haven’t talked much by phone since the day he’d called to tell me about Kit, and I knew he still felt a little guilty about railroading right over everything I was dealing with here.
“Yeah, sure,” I say, taking a seat on one of the grated metal stairs headed down to the first floor.“What’s all that noise?”
“I’m at Waterwall,” he says, referring to the uptown park in Houston not too far from our office. It’s only two p.m., so if Jasper’s out of the office, something’s up.“Your dad’s doing all right?” he asks, but it’s quick, a formality.
“Sure,” I say.“What’s up?”
“You remember Hamish Beck?”
“Hell yeah,” I say, smiling. Beck was an early recruit for Jasper and me, a German scientist working for a car manufacturer. He was a total nightmare, making insane demands for his contract, one of which included that Jasper and I each drink three tiny bottles of Kuemmerling before he signed. But he was also a genius. He’d gone to Beaumont’s Rochester division and designed a catalytic converter that made millions for the company. He’d left Beaumont last year when his contract was up, going out on his own to make money hand over fist for himself, but it’d still been one of our most profitable jobs.
“He’s in Houston for meetings, so I met up with him last night.”
“So you’re hungover, right?”
“Oh, man,”Jasper groans.“You don’t even know. I’m never drinking again.”
I laugh, sorry to have missed it. Hamish was a pain in the ass, but he was hilarious too. Somehow he could always cajole you into doing crazy shit, like singing“Angel of the Morning” at a karaoke bar in Munich.
“Anyways, he wants to invest. I told him about what we’ve got planned, and he’s on board. He says he can name at least fifteen people, right off the top of his head, who could use the kind of representation we’d be offering.”
“Oh,” I say, with what I know is decidedly less enthusiasm than I should be showing right now. This feels so far away from what my life is at the moment. It’s not easy for me to slip right back into thinking through all the complexities of what Jasper and I have planned.“That’s great.”
“Great? It’s fucking incredible, Tucker.” He goes on, telling me more about what Hamish is willing to do—and the thing is, itisincredible. Hamish is offering enough to fund our entire startup, whereas Jasper and I had been planning for at least a few months after leaving Beaumont to pursue investors. We’ve both been shoring up our accounts for unpaid time. With what Hamish is offering, we could put all that right into the running of the company.
“You think he’s for real?” I ask.
“I’m sure of it. And there’s something else too. I think we could get Kristen to come with us.”
Nowthat—that’s big news too. Kristen is one of Beaumont’s attorneys, specializing in H/R law, and we’ve worked with her in putting together several of our employment contracts. Kristen would be a huge asset to our startup—she knows the law inside and out, and she’s great with clients, easy to talk to and completely above board.
“Holy shit, Jasper. How’d you manage that?”
