Page 11 of Backward Motion

Connor’s expression turned sour. “I don’t know. When I was a kid, he was always harping on about the most inane crap. How disrespectful it was to leave your plate in the sink or not take the trash out when it’s full. It didn’t matter if I was on my best behavior—he’d still pull me up about tone or attitude. Sometimes I think his fixation on common courtesy is a substitute for actually being a nice person.” He shot Sam a glance, catching himself. “Not that he isn’t, you know, a nice person.”

Sam recalled the knot in his stomach when Ian Finnegan had talked about him like he wasn’t there. “It’s okay if he isn’t. Not everyone is. Common courtesies aside, you clearly are.”

“Now you’re just being a suck-up, Bryant.”

Sam laughed. “Do you remember back at school, that time in civics class?”

“I try to think of high school as little as possible.”

“When Adam Ronan made the substitute cry?”

Connor shook his head. “The poor woman. Hadn’t she just had a baby?”

“And you stood up and grabbed the can of pencils from her desk and told Adam if he didn’t apologize, you’d throw every one of them at his head until he did.”

“I think I managed three before she sent both of us to the principal’s office.”

“But Adam apologized,” Sam said.

“He’s still in town, you know. Works the register at the sporting goods store.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is—that me and Adam Ronan are both losers?”

“No!” Sam cried, exasperated. “That you’re a nice person.”

Connor said nothing, but Sam saw the careful way he tried not to smile.

Chapter Seven

Connor arrived at the office before Sam most mornings. He’d be in his work gear, sorting through tools in the workshop or loading up the van outside. Depending on where his jobs took him, he would sometimes stop back again midafternoon to answer any questions Sam might have, usually with coffees from Jenny’s Diner around the corner. Although five was technically their service cutoff, Connor often continued working past then—dealing with power outages and helping those facing the prospect of a cold night in the dark. Any calls that came in after five were forwarded to an after-hours service, which Connor monitored from his cell phone. If he wasn’t back by closing time, Sam emailed him the run sheet for the next day before locking up the office and heading home.

It had been almost a month, and Sam felt like he was finally getting the hang of the job. He could decipher Connor’s scraggly handwriting from the hastily completed quote forms, which Sam transformed into invoices and then sent out. He knew what to ask a customer who was contemplating a water-heater replacement and which light fixtures to recommend for a kitchen renovation. Any downtime was spent organizing the filing boxes of paperwork that lined the wall of the office. He picked through piles of old invoices, parts orders, and insurance forms and filed them in the cabinets behind the desk. When he got to the bottom of a box, he felt a little burst of pride as he broke it down and tossed the flattened cardboard into the recycling bin outside.

That Friday afternoon, a last-minute cancellation meant Connor had come back to the office early, and Sam was able to hand him Monday’s run sheet in person. Connor gave a low whistle as he flipped through. “Full up again?”

Sam nodded. “And for the rest of the week.” He tilted the computer monitor to show Connor the booking calendar.

“This is new,” Connor said with a slight frown.

Sam felt a flicker of trepidation. He’d been meaning to tell Connor but hadn’t found the right opportunity. This was as good as any. “It might have something to do with the post.”

“What post?” Connor looked up from the calendar to give Sam his full attention.

Sam navigated the mouse to the Instagram page he’d set up for the business. “I, um, thought it might be good to establish more of an online presence. Boost recognition within the community.”

He clicked on a thumbnail, and the photo of Connor in his muddy overalls popped up on the screen. There was something about Connor’s sideways grin and the way his eyes crinkled that made the image irresistible. It didn’t hurt that he was disarmingly good-looking in a salt-of-the-earth kind of way.

“Megawatt service?” Connor murmured, reading the caption Sam had posted along with the company’s contact info beneath the photo. It had already received hundreds of likes and shares.

“It kind of took off.”

Connor’s forehead furrowed. He reached over Sam’s shoulder to take the mouse and scrolled down the panel of comments.

OMG help me get my spark back!

How much for a house call? ;)