Page 5 of Backward Motion

Sam chuckled. “I was going to say the beard. You only managed lone whiskers back in the day. But look at you—two kids. Congrats.”

Brian gripped his shoulder and grinned. “This is crazy. I haven’t heard from you in forever.”

Sam felt a churn of embarrassment. He and Brian had spent summers painting sets for a local theater group. They’d shared a mutual love of cinema and had many a fanatic discussion about dirty framing and symbolic match cuts. To this day, several of his favorite films were ones Brian had recommended. Sam had lost contact with him over the years, happy enough to leave everything about Oakdale in the past.

“Yeah, I kind of fell off the map there.”

“Are you back for good?” Brian asked.

Sam smiled hollowly. He’d been asked variations of the question since returning home and still struggled with the answer. “Not really. Just taking some time to regroup, catch up with the folks.”

“I get it, man. It’s rough out there.”

The prescription bag crinkled in his hand, and Sam wished he was anywhere else. He turned toward the door. “Nice running into you.”

“Likewise. Hey, we should get together sometime. I want to hear what you’ve been up to.” Brian’s son was pulling on his arm as if he were a human seesaw.

“Definitely,” Sam said noncommittally.

“How about Thursday?” Brian said, swinging the boy back and forth and eliciting a peal of giggles. “A couple of friends and I do trivia over at the inn. We could always use the extra brainpower. Let me grab your number. I’ll text you the info.”

“Ah, sure.”

After exchanging numbers, Sam left Brian to his errands and walked back to his car. He tossed the meds onto the seat beside him and slumped against the headrest. It had been a pleasant enough interaction, but Sam couldn’t shake the feeling of having been exposed.

A melodic chime burst forth from his pocket, and he pulled out his phone to see his sister was calling. He thumbed the red button and dropped the call. Seconds later, a message popped up on his lock screen.

Call me. We need to talk next steps.

Sam scoffed.Nope.Georgia worked as a contract lawyer in Chicago, and they hadn’t spoken once since his return home. His parents had filled her in on all the gory details, but instead of supportive check-ins asking how he was feeling, she’d been sending him links to job openings and passive-aggressive hints that a flameout could be fatal to his career.

As if he needed the reminder.

Sam was staring at the booking tool on the office computer, unsure why something so simple was proving so damn difficult, when Connor appeared in the doorway to the workshop. It was Sam’s first day at Finnegan’s Electrical, and Connor had given him a brief tour when he’d arrived that morning. The workshop was as disorganized as the reception area. There was a large workbench stacked with boxes of random parts, and what little free space remained was littered with tools and coils of wire.

“I was just going through the job sheet,” Connor said, holding up the piece of paper Sam had printed earlier. “And I’m seeing a few duplicates.”

Sam sighed, embarrassed. “Yeah, sorry. I can’t seem to get the hang of this program.”

“Let me walk you through it again. It can be a little glitchy.” Connor came around to stand beside him at the desk and leaned over to grab the mouse. He smelled of soap and coffee.

Sam had noticed this morning how patient he was. Unhurried, relaxed. He knew Connor had at least half a dozen jobs to get to, but he acted as if bringing Sam up to speed was his number-one priority. It made Sam oddly nervous. He had expected what he’d always experienced starting out at a new job: to be thrown into the deep end and expected to swim.

The agency he worked for in Austin had been especially ruthless. His boss, Darren, had pulled him into a presentation on his first day to stand in for the assistant, who was out sick. Sam had barely skimmed the proposal before the client arrived, a midsize real estate firm that was looking to take on a bigger chunk of the local market. Sam’s job was to set the scene, outline the firm’s current pain points, and provide an opening for Darren to swoop in with the solution. He was only three slides into the pitch when it became clear the client wasn’t happy.

“There’s no way our market share compares with those figures,” the company rep said, interrupting Sam. “Where are you getting your numbers?”

Sam swallowed and glanced across the conference table at Darren, hoping his boss would save him. Darren’s assistant had put the deck together; surely, he knew where she’d sourced them from.

But Darren frowned and looked at Sam. “I’m curious as well, Sam. We want to make sure we’re presenting an accurate picture.”

Sam’s heart thundered in panic. Darren had no idea where the numbers had come from. He was throwing Sam under the bus. “Sorry,” Sam said, the word ashen in his mouth. “I’ll have to, uh, double-check the source on these.”

Darren clicked his tongue and gave a dismissive shake of his head. “That’s on me, folks. What can I say? He’s new.” The company rep snickered, looking vindicated. After the client had left and Sam and Darren were packing up the conference room, his boss turned to him with a grin. “No hard feelings, right, champ? Can’t have the big dog lose face.” Sam had nodded as though it made perfect sense. As if humiliation was just part of the job description.

“See how that brings the entry into the main calendar?” Connor was saying, scrolling down to show Sam how the jobs populated by date. “And then I can mark it done on my end.”

Sam saw where he’d gone wrong. “Got it. Thanks. By the way, Mrs. Gingham called earlier about a busted fuse box. She said she wouldn’t be home until after six, so I scheduled it for tomorrow. Five’s the cutoff for new jobs, right?”