In my futile attempt to put the brakes on my feelings for her, I decided to take a day to myself. To step back and figure shit out.
Though, if I honestly wanted to get away from Jessa Robson, I should have come up with a better plan. I should have probably rented a boat and taken it up the river for the night. Throw back a few beers. Camp out in the woods.
And I definitely shouldn’t have driven to her hometown to spend yet another day with her eccentric father, helping him set up his repair shop.
I shake the thoughts loose from my head and squint at Jessa’s father. I make the same argument I’ve made ever since the first day I started coming here. “For the life of me, I can’t figure out why you’re taking on all this work by yourself. You’re handy, that’s for sure. But the workload here isn’t worth the time it’s taking away from your shop being open.” I shoot another dozen nails into the sheetrock in a precise, straight line.
Okay, straight-ish.
Fuck it. Straight enough. No one will notice once it’s patched and painted.
“Of course,” he beams, ever the optimist like his daughter. “Especially if you can get that brother of yours to help, too.”
I laugh. “Please! Pretty boy Cannon? As if he’d get his billion-dollar hands dirty? I’m telling you, you could get someone to do this work in half the time. Hell, they’d probably have it finished in just a couple days, with a big enough crew.”
The old man scoffs. “Yeah, and they’d charge me a month’s worth of labor. Can’t spend money before you’ve got it. First rule of business, son.”
“You’re lecturing me on business? Are you forgetting I ran a multi-million dollar real estate empire for years?” I shoot back. “Sometimes, you’ve got to spend money to make it. That’s just the way it goes.” I’m sure the crick in my neck is permanent by now. “If we hired someone, you would be able to open up shop next week.”
“Where’s the joy in that? I can do this on my own. The framing. The painting. The electricity. You name it. I’m a jack of all trades. Why hire someone to do the work I know how to?” I fail to remind him that I’m here helping, too. I’m still wondering how the man planned to get today’s two-man ceiling project off the ground by himself. “I ain’t never hired someone to take care of my business, and I don’t plan to start now.”
I chuckle. He really wants to do this his own way. “You may be all about saving money, but the business man in me is determined to get you to see the light. Eventually.”
“Ha! Good luck, son,” the man says with a booming laugh. “I respect your persuasion tactics, but they won’t work on me. I see why you’re in business, Eli.”
And so it goes, he and I arguing back and forth all morning. It’s all in good fun, though. I feel like I fit in here. It helps that I don’t feel the resentment toward the Robsons that I do toward my own family. And being here always makes me feel a little bit closer to Jessa, even though she doesn’t know that I’m here.
The little woman’s parents didn’t ask questions when I requested that they not mention that I’ve been coming to help at Douglas’s soon-to-be-open repair shop in my very ample spare time.
At first, I told myself I kept coming here out of boredom. With no job and no more home projects to keep me busy, I was just coming to Cowersville to entertain myself. But based on my never-ending questions about Jessa, I think the Robsons are starting to figure out that I’m freakin’ smitten with their daughter.
During a well-deserved lunch break, Douglas and I sit on overturned buckets, chowing down on the burgers I ordered from the diner across the street and staring out at the light traffic passing in front of the oversized shop windows.
It’s been a good day. The man is a little kooky, but he’s entertaining and no stranger to hard work. I see where Jessa gets her carefree love for life.
When there’s a lull in the conversation, I can’t help but ask. “What was Jessa like as a child?”
“Christ. That girl. You know how they always talk about the terrible-twos and those god-awful teenage years?”
“Well, I know about the two’s. Sure as hell am dreading the teenage period.” I chuckle.
“That was never Jessa. Lexi, definitely. But not Jessa. That girl was the happiest kid I’ve ever seen. Her mom and I kept waiting for the tantrums to come. The talking back. The strong-willed stubbornness. But nope. Nothing but smiles and laughter and silliness. I don’t know where she got it, but I’ve never seen a person bursting with so much hope. So much positivity.”
I can’t help but grin.
At first, I tried to find that trait annoying but it quickly grew on me. With all the bullshit life has thrown at me from every angle, Jessa Robson has been nothing short of refreshing. She just has a personality that draws you in. She’s so damn bright, so certain, and it pulls you like a magnet.
I listen as her father carries on. “Hell, it was damn-near impossible to discipline that girl. You’d be yelling, red-faced and spitting, telling her she was grounded until the end of time, and she’d just stand there with that pretty smile, ‘Okay, Daddy’,” he mocks, in a high-pitched, sickly sweet voice.
We both laugh, because I know that tone. It drives you mad, because you just can’t stay…well, mad.
Our laughter fades away and Douglas gets a wistful look in his eyes. “My Jessa is a very special girl,” he says meaningfully.
I look the man in the eye, earnest as fuck when I say, “I
