Page 10 of Backward Motion

He pulled the van up beside the house, and they ambled out to meet Mr. Graham at the door. The man was getting on in years and insisted on giving them a walk-through of the property despite Connor having already done so when he’d prepared the quote.

“I’m not paying extra for this rookie, am I?” Mr. Graham grumbled, poking a gnarled thumb in Sam’s direction.

“No, Mr. Graham. Sam’s just here to observe.”

Connor herded the man to his car, and Mr. Graham drove away at a crawl, eyeing them through the driver’s window.

“All right.” Connor turned to Sam. “I’m going to flip the main breaker, and then we’ll get started under the house. You can grab my tool bag from the van.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Thought I was only here to observe.”

“So go observe yourself taking my tool bag from the van.” Connor crouched to jimmy open the slide bolt on the small access door set into the side of the house. “When we get under there, I’ll need you to hold the light.”

“We?” Sam asked, eyeing the dank confines of the crawl space.

Connor grinned. “Time to see what you’re made of, Bryant.”

The easiest way to go about rewiring would have been to cut into the walls, but Mr. Graham’s daughter had requested minimal damage to the horsehair plaster, which she thought potential buyers would findrustic. So instead, Connor had to go fishing. He’d made sure to disclose the extra labor in his quote for the job. It was tedious work. He went outlet by outlet, opening the receptacle box and attaching fish tape to the existing wiring. Then, from under the house, he carefully tugged the wire down through the joists until he got to the beginning of the fish tape. From there, he reattached standard Romex cable, which he fed back up through the walls from above.

He was on the last outlet of the living room and had just attached the replacement wire to the fish tape when the work light lurched upward and a string of curses filled the darkness.

“Problem?” Connor asked Sam, who was lying on his stomach beside him. Sam had been a good sport, considering the circumstances. Navigating tight spaces wasn’t the most glamorous part of the job, though Connor would hazard to say not much about his job was glamorous.

Sam repositioned the light, illuminating the section of wiring Connor was working on. “I swear, that one crawled down my neck,” he hissed.

“They’re spiders. More afraid of you than you are of them.”

“Pretty sure that’s not true.”

Connor tossed his pliers into the tool bag between them and zipped it closed. “Well, we’re all done under here. For now, at least. Let’s go pull this up, and then the attic’s next.”

“Thank God,” Sam muttered. “What do you usually do when you don’t have some flunky to hold your light?”

Connor took the lamp from him and flicked a latch at the back so that a small stand popped out. He placed it on the ground, and the light shone upward to where Sam had been pointing it moments before.

“Asshole,” Sam grumbled, and Connor snickered.

Then Connor turned off the lamp, and together, they army crawled across the soggy ground toward the entrance to the crawl space. He and Sam emerged, blinking into the midday sun, dirt smeared from chest to knee as though they’d gone headfirst down a mudslide.

Sam pulled out his phone with a laugh. “This is too good.” He snapped a photo of Connor in his muck-stained glory. “This’ll work so well for socials.”

Connor brushed his palms against the legs of his overalls. “Yeah, we don’t really do any of that.”

“We do now.” Sam smiled, and the sun caught on a stray wisp of spiderweb twined in his hair.

Before he could stop himself, Connor leaned over and gently plucked it out.

Sam rode along with Connor every day for a week. He would observe him on the job, ask questions, and help where he could. Connor certainly wasn’t shy about asking for help. He had Sam carry gear and hold ladders and fetch random tools from the van. Sam now knew the difference between wire cutters and cable cutters and single-conductor and multiconductor cables. He also understood the basics behind connecting and terminating wires and when to use three-way and four-way switches.

They would stop somewhere for lunch, and then Connor would drop him back at the office in the afternoon to catch up on his regular duties. It was the most fun Sam could remember having at work. Which was high praise considering he’d once spent four days at a client’s Palm Beach mansion, putting the final touches on a campaign for alligator-leather shoes.

It wasn’t so much the experience—which was grimy and physically demanding—as it was the company. Working with Connor was easy. He didn’t take himself or his job too seriously, which was a stark change of pace for Sam, who was used to tiptoeing around overinflated egos. Connor took the time to describe what he was doing and explain why things were done a certain way and seemed to possess the unwavering belief that Sam was capable of keeping up. It was stupid how accomplished that made Sam feel. He collapsed at the end of each day, too exhausted to think of Felix and his life in Austin and how spectacularly he’d fucked it all up.

Sam discovered a new respect for the trades and was ashamed to admit that before taking the job, he’d bought into the misconception that it was low-skilled work. Connor was tenacious and analytical and possessed a library of complex technical knowledge. He also had a natural rapport with his customers, most of whom he’d known growing up. He always stopped for a chat and took his work boots off when entering someone’s home, a habit Sam prodded him about on the drive back to the office one afternoon.

“My dad’s a stickler for stuff like that,” Connor said. “When we worked together, he’d rail at the service guys who’d tromp inside with filthy boots. Said the best way to get repeat business is to act like you’re visiting your grandma.”

“Your dad was onto something there.”