Standing this close, I could smell all my favorite scents—sawdust and the fruity citrus of her perfume. When the glasses were on her, she reached up, adjusting them on her ears, and gave a shy smile. “How do they look?”
“Beautiful,” I whispered.
Her gaze flicked down.
Sensing she needed space, I stepped back. She asked, “What next?”
I went to the drawer with all my sanding gear. “Unfortunately, we picked the piece with the most crevices.” I handed her a rougher piece to get in the corners, pulled up a couple chairs for us, and showed her how to sand with the grain of the wood.
After a while, it was just us and the steady rhythm of sandpaper back and forth over wood. I liked the determined look on her face, the way she chewed on one side of her cheek while she focused.
Shewasbeautiful. I hoped she’d soon feel more comfortable hearing it from me.
“You’re staring,” she mumbled, looking up at me with an amused expression while continuing to sand in the crevices.
“Hard not to,” I flirted back.
She shook her head at me.
I got back to work, asking, “What’s your story?”
Again, she looked up at me, eyebrows raised. “My story?”
“Yeah, like if they made a movieBecoming Jada,what would it say?” I knew she heard me, but she was quiet for a long moment. Long enough to make me want to take back the question altogether.
But if there was something I learned from these projects, it was that patience could get you further than force.
Finally, she rewarded me with an answer. “I’m not sure my movie would be a happy one.” She tried to laugh it off, but I could tell there was truth to her words. There was a heaviness about her demeanor when I asked about her past. It made me want to lift it all from her shoulders and carry the weight of it for her.
But since I couldn’t fix it, I told her, “If the story isn’t happy, it’s not the end.”
“What do you mean?” Her hand stalled now, still resting on the piece. All her attention was on me with those sharp, curious eyes.
I gave her a half-smile. “I mean if you’re not happy yet, then this is only the beginning of the story.”
“Not all stories have happy endings,” she reminded me sadly.
“Not all stories—only the good ones,” I replied.
She shook her head at me, fighting a small smile of her own. Then she took a breath, shrugged, and started sanding again. “I had a good childhood,” she told me. “I loved my parents. My grandparents lived just a few blocks away. I went to college on a volleyball scholarship. I’m sure I had hard times, worries, but I can’t remember for the life of me what they were.”
I understood what she meant. Grief, loss, it could make every other trouble seem small.
“I definitely never thought I’d be struggling to get by and making weekly trips to BennyBlue to return stuff Glamma bought that we can’t afford.” She shook her head and continued, “My grandparents took me in after my parents passed. They encouraged me, were patient with me when I was so down I couldn’t even get out of bed. They paid my rent when I went back to college.” Her gaze was distant, like she was back there and not here with me.
“Sounds like they were really there for you,” I said, instinctively placing a hand on her thigh to remind her that we were here, not stuck in her dark moment.
When she met my gaze again, she was blinking back tears. “When my grandpa got sick, it just made sense for me to help them. They’d given me everything. I wanted to do the same for them.” As she sniffed, she put her hand over mine. I flipped my palm, holding her hand. It came so naturally, you’d think we’d been doing this forever.
“After Grandpa passed and the arrangements were made, his money didn’t last long,” she said, keeping her gaze down. “It was hard to get another job after I left in the middle of the school year from my last job... Esther, my boss at the daycare, got me a job as a favor to my grandma. I feel like my career is still starting from scratch even though my twenties have come and almost gone.”
I could see now that Jada hadn’t just lost her loved ones, she’d lost what she thought her life would look like. And now I was taking that from her with our arrangement. Guilt worked through my system, knowing that Jada had lost her college experience with her parents, sacrificed her career for her grandpa, and now gave up a fairy-tale romance for the marriage clause.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” she said firmly.
I looked up at her, truly seeing her for the first time.
She was strong. Loving. Selfless. Smart. Determined.
