Ten Thousand Hours

by Ren Benton

  She misjudged how close he was — close enough that when she whipped around to give him another lash for ruining everything, she inhaled the smell of wood dust and machine oil clinging to him. She jabbed him in the chest with a finger to get him out of her space, in which he had chosen not to belong. “I can’t even plan my weekend, much less call dibs on the rest of your miserable life.”

  He wrapped his hand around hers, not tightly enough to hold her when she wrenched away from the contact but enough to remind her what big, strong woodworker’s hands felt like against her skin. “I misunderstood.”

  “What was your first clue, Sherlock?”

  He clamped his lips together, correctly deducing it would be wise not to laugh at her fury in such close proximity to a workshop full of motorized blades. “I’m sorry. Come inside. I’ll feed you, and then we’ll talk about it.”

  Now he wanted to talk about it. After disposing of her because he misunderstood. “Too late.”

  She marched toward her van.

  “You’re angry, and you have every right to be, but you’re too softhearted to stay that way.”

  This would be the time her heart toughened up. “You don’t know me at all.”

  She took full responsibility for his ignorance. She had pretended to be something she wasn’t. The charade proved too difficult to maintain for a prolonged period, and the more he saw of Boring Old Ivy, the easier it became to ignore her phone calls.

  “Duchess.”

  He may as well have called her by another woman’s name — another woman she knew he preferred.

  He stood in his driveway, shoulders hunched, hands jammed in the front pockets of his jeans. “When the anger burns itself out and you’re in the mood to see a man grovel, you’ll talk to me.”

  She wrenched open the driver’s side door. “Don’t hold your breath waiting for that call.”

  12

  Monday and Tuesday passed without word from Ivy. Griff had been sure her anger would wane in that time. She forgave her sister for treating her much worse than he had.

  He knew it was absurd to expect her to afford him the same leniency as family after a couple weeks of sex, but he wanted her to. He missed her laugh and her avid enjoyment of sensation and her skin and the coconut in her hair.

  He’d been missing her since the last time she left his bed. The sheets had been washed after their pie battle, but her scent lingered, a ghost that kept him awake at night. He couldn’t wear his favorite T-shirt because she’d been inside it and made it hers. Every joint mitered and edge routed on Violet’s cabinets was done to live up to Ivy’s belief that her mother would love his work.

  How could she be gone when he sensed her everywhere he turned?

  He watched the clock on the bedside table and released the breath he’d been holding as Tuesday became Wednesday. His brain whispered, Too late.

  His heart replied, Fuck that.

  He’d made a mistake. That much was obvious after her anti-marriage tirade. He remained at a loss as to why she’d been wearing the wedding dress and veil that led to the mistake, but his ignorance didn’t diminish the apology he owed her for not handling the situation like an adult. They could work it out if she would just talk to him.

  Waiting had been another mistake. In trying to be respectful of her right to be angry, he’d overlooked her sensitivity to being ignored. She wouldn’t appreciate the difference between giving her space and the neglect he’d demonstrated in the days prior. His absence would all look the same to her.

  Midnight was too late to call anyone. These were bad-news hours. But he’d rather give her another reason to be angry with him than allow her to go on believing he didn’t care enough to try.

  Her cell number booted him to voicemail. If the phone was buried in that cavernous purse of hers, the late-night ring shouldn’t scare the hell out of her, at least. “I jumped to a wrong conclusion. I should have known better. I’m sorry. I was an idiot for that and an inconsiderate ass for not talking to you about it. I’ll make it worth your while if you’ll let me grovel in person.”

  Forty-two hours later, he had learned his lesson about the crushing effect of unreturned phone calls and vowed never to fail to respond to a message from anyone who gave a damn about him again.

  He rolled his forehead against the cool stainless steel of his refrigerator and left another plea for Ivy. “At least leave a message telling me to fuck off again so I know you’re not in a coma. Please?”

  He went out to the workshop while he waited for the phone to not ring.

  The phone did not ring in the time it took him to assemble the cabinets. He placed a folded towel on top of each to protect the wood from the cans of paint providing fifty pounds of compression. He was sitting on the floor, carefully cleaning the tiny pearls of glue squeezed from the joints so no finish-ruining residue remained, when Mase strolled into the garage.

  “These are nice. Nails or screws?”

  “Neither until the mirror goes on the back. Glue, dowels, mortise and tenon.”

  Mase amended his assessment. “Really nice. Not that I don’t trust your expertise, but how are you going to get the glass in here?” He knocked on the air where the front panel of one of the cabinets would go.

  “The top is dry fit to keep the uprights square until the glue dries. I’ll pop it off and slide the glass into the grooves.”

  “You’re making good time for a change.” Mase stuffed his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t touch the raw wood and transfer the oil from his skin. He’d been chewed out for that offense while the kitchen was under construction and still wasn’t sure whether Griff had been joking. “Nothing better to do with your evenings?”

  Griff turned the rag over and over in his hands. “Do you remember when I succumbed to peer pressure and got that bartender’s phone number?”

  “Shit. Miss Pleasant Company found it. Man, I will talk to her and tell her it’s my fault.”

  He was a grown man. He ought to be able to tell his friends to go to hell when they busted his balls about getting serious about a girl. He’d panicked because it was true, and what he did after that was no one’s fault but his own. “I was more upset than she was. I’d moved to this other stage and forgot to send her a change of address. I had big plans for bringing her over to the new place. Told my family about her. Asked my parents for relationship tips.”

  “Ignore anything your dad said. Behind every man in a successful relationship is a woman working her ass off to make it look as easy as he thinks it is.”

  A wry twist shaped Griff’s lips. “I got that. The extent of Dad’s wisdom was ‘always let her win.’ Meanwhile, Mom’s teaching doctorate-level psychology on why that strategy is doomed to fail.”

  In school, he would have taken the crash course, but when it was important, he didn’t mind investing the time to learn the right way. It took him five years of training to make an end table, but that end table would last forever unless some dumbass took a wrecking ball to it.

  “This all sounds promising, so why do I get the feeling this story doesn’t have a happy ending?”

  Griff scrubbed the top of his head with both hands. “I stubbed my feelings on something I didn’t even get a good look at in the dark, so I decided not to have them anymore.”

  That was his pattern. All his life, he had pursued fun with clumsy abandon, and the moment he got hurt, he quit and moved on to the next adventure.

  He had never missed an adventure this much. “Now she won’t talk to me, and I don’t blame her.”

  Mase looked around the garage. “Okay, lock this shit up. I’m getting you out of here.”

  “I have work to do.”

  “What are you going to do, watch glue dry? Get off your ass. You’re not moping here all night.”

  Mase took him to Bleeker’s. A waitress passed with a platter of fried ravioli, which prompted Griff to check his phone.

  Still no word from Ivy.

  Mase pushed him into a booth as
it was being vacated. “Spill.”

  “I blew it.”

  The waitress came back to clear the table. “They didn’t leave me a tip?”

  Griff dug a twenty out of his wallet.

  She plucked it from his fingers and tucked it in her apron. “I’ll be back in two minutes to take my new favorite customer’s order.”

  Mase raised his brows as she left with the dirty plates and glasses.

  Griff shrugged. “One less woman who’ll want to spit in my food.”

  “Which brings us back to the question of the hour: how did you blow ‘just having a good time’?”

  “Thank you. Your mockery is very helpful.”

  “Sorry. Didn’t realize you were seeking my wisdom.”

  “Your wisdom is like Bigfoot. Many have sought it over the years, but all the so-called evidence has been proven a hoax.”

  “There’s no need to be hateful. Tell Uncle Mase what you did wrong.”

  Griff linked his fingers on the table. “I overreacted to something I saw.”

  “Well—”

  “And I didn’t talk to her about it.”

  “Ouch, but—”

  “And I ignored her phone calls until she came to make sure I hadn’t cut my hand off and bled to death in the shop because she actually knows how to care about someone, and then I took that opportunity to say something insulting pursuant to the aforementioned overreaction on my part.”

  Mase blinked at him. Only when certain no further idiocy was forthcoming did he comment. “That is some hole you dug for yourself.”

  “That was Sunday. She hasn’t returned my calls since.”

  “Ah. How does that medicine taste?”

  Ivy wasn’t retaliating for being ignored. She wasn’t that petty. He had treated her badly. She was perfectly justified in wanting to be done with him. He was just having difficulty accepting that in his entire lengthy history of idiotic behavior, this was the one time he couldn’t be forgiven.

  Their waitress returned with a platter of nachos. “On the house. What can I get you fellas?”

  Mase dictated his usual. “House burger, rings, and a pitcher of Coke for the table.”

  Griff’s order was more sentiment than appetite. “I’ll have the fried ravioli.”

  Mase watched her leave, then turned his stare back to Griff, his eyes full of pity but utterly merciless. “If the wrong conclusion you jumped to was about another man, tell her about Faye.”

  “No.”

  “Griff, that’s a sad story. She’ll give you a break.”

  Maybe she would, if there had been even a suggestion of another man upon which to base his assumption of wrongdoing on her part. All he had seen was Ivy modeling a wedding dress on TV. That could be her job, for all he knew — and the source of her disdain for weddings, her obsession with physical imperfection, and her reluctance to talk about work, all rolled into one.

  The correct response to his surprise would have been I saw you on the news. What was that about? Instead, he proceeded as if he’d caught her eloping with another man.

  Another man who was reliable and trustworthy, while Griff was only good for a playmate.

  Faye left that baggage behind, and he’d tripped over it and landed flat on his face.

  He had given Ivy no reason to think of him as anything else, but it laid him low when she made it clear she had no delusions that he was a better man. He hadn’t had enough time to prove he could be better.

  Bullshit.

  She gave him weeks in which he could have been a good man at any time he chose. He could have had more of her time if he hadn’t sabotaged his plan to prove himself within hours of conceiving it, in the process convincing her he wasn’t worth keeping.

  He warned her to keep her expectations low and then strove to underachieve so he wouldn’t be caught off guard again when told he wasn’t good enough.

  He set himself up for this outcome, just as he set himself up to crash through a glass door on a skateboard and to choke on a hunk of beef. He didn’t prepare himself to achieve a better outcome.

  A woman stopped by the table and punched Mase in the shoulder.

  A brief slap fight ensued until Mase tucked his hands in his armpits in defeat. “Martina, what’s this I hear about you getting hitched?”

  “I couldn’t wait forever for your wife to come to her senses and divorce you so I could have a turn, so I had to settle for the man of my dreams. How’s your little restaurant doing?”

  “I can pull some strings and get you a reservation in six months. How’s your little news gig?”

  “Shitty since all the people who used to do anything to be on TV have defected to the internet, thanks for asking.”

  Griff picked at the nachos while Mase caught up with his friend.

  “I spend as much time scrambling to cover last-minute cancellations as I do setting up the interviews. I got saved last week by the coordinator of an event I was covering when the guest of honor didn’t show up. I went home that night and gave Lars permission to leave me if being a bride makes me that flaky.”

  It couldn’t be a coincidence that brides in the news plagued them both. “Did you cover the party at the dress store?”

  “Oh, you saw it?” Martina pinned Griff with glittering eyes. “Did you have any idea it was a complete clusterfuck ten seconds before filming?”

  “It looked smooth to me.” The ten seconds he saw had been utterly, disastrously convincing. “What happened?”

  “The bride agreed to participate weeks ago and confirmed multiple times but decided not to show up. We obviously couldn’t shoot a bridal party without a bride, so the woman who came up with the idea put on the dress and faked the joy. Seeing the performance up close a million times made her the best understudy for the part.”

  Ivy hadn’t lied about hosting a party at work, or about trying out the merchandise she sold.

  She’d been doing her job.

  He destroyed a relationship with a woman who was simultaneously exciting and comfortable to be with for doing the job she’d been afraid to tell him about.

  He threw some money on the table to cover his food and a second tip.

  Mase looked up as he slid out of the booth. “Where are you going?”

  “To grovel on her lawn until she lets me in or calls the cops.”

  Martina tilted her head. “That kind of desperation is endearing. Or dangerous.”

  “He’ll be calling me from jail later,” Mase predicted. “If you follow him, you can capture the whole deed for the late news.”

  “It’s my night off. The internet can have him.”

  The waitress blocked Griff’s departure with a tray of food. He stepped out of her way so she could set it on the table. “Can your favorite customer get those ravioli to go?”

  “Sure thing, hon.” She left the food and drink with Mase. “Come on. I’ll throw them in a box for you on your way out the door.”

  As he followed the waitress toward the exit, Mase called, “Tell her about Faye!”

  Never. That story didn’t make him sound like a better man. It would only give Ivy a second opinion that he was as worthless as she already believed.

  He parked in front of Ivy’s house. The living room window glowed with light. The television flickered through the open blinds.

  Someone was home, at least.

  As he started up the walkway, the door opened and Ivy emerged. His heart bumped hard as she descended the steps, coming to meet him halfway — only to settle a beat later when it became obvious she wasn’t even aware of his presence.

  She held a hand over one ear and a cordless phone over the other. When she finally glanced his way, her expression was strained to the point of cracking.

  “I’m not taking the kids into that situation, Holly.” She listened for a few seconds, her expression drawing tight. “I will not leave them here alone. Call the police.”

  Her sister’s whine was audible even at a distance of several feet. Ivy looke
d at him with helpless panic.

  He passed her the takeout box and took the phone from her unresisting fingers. A man’s muffled shouts came from Holly’s end. “Where are you?”

  Holly latched onto a new source of attention without even asking who he was. “It’s behind the Kwikie Mart on Willow.”

  That narrowed it down to an area the size of a national park, but Griff knew it well — flophouse territory. “Do better.”

  “Like, two or three streets back. What am I, Google Maps? I don’t have the fucking mailing address, asshole!”

  Ivy winced at the shrill words.

  For her benefit, Griff held onto his patience. “What does the house look like?”

  “I don’t know. Brown?”

  Ivy would have known. Ivy would have been prepared.

  “Is there a car parked out front?”

  “His truck.”

  He waited for Holly to elaborate. She was spectacularly unhelpful. “What kind?”

  “Black. Big. What the hell do you want from me?”

  Be more like your sister. “I’m coming to get you.”

  If he could find her with that spotty trail of breadcrumbs.

  “Hurry up!”

  He returned the phone to Ivy. “Call the police. Brown house north of the Kwik Stop at Willow and Lakeview, possibly Cambridge or Lowell Street, with a black truck parked outside.”

  She clutched the phone to her chest. “They’ll never find her.”

  With any luck, irritated neighbors would be calling to complain about the screaming. “They will. Call them. Mention I’ll be there so they don’t shoot me.”

  Ivy would give them an accurate description of him, the make and model of his car, and the tag number because she noticed details and knew how to be helpful.

  She grabbed his arm. “You can’t go.”

  “I like my plan better than the one where you charge to her rescue.”

  He didn’t need the stiffening of her fingers to tell him she was still here only because she hadn’t figured out the logistics of being in two places at once.