The TV flickered through the living room windows. The old man was home.
Dean cut the engine, made his way up the broken cement and let himself in. The interior hadn’t changed since his mother left: the same dilapidated cabinets in the kitchen, the same crusty stove. He’d bet his room in the attic had remained unchanged too, unless his father was using it to store more of the crap he could never throw out.
He didn’t want to go upstairs to check.
“Guess you’re feeling better.” His father’s gruff sarcasm carried over the sound of a Boston College football game on the living room TV. “There’s beer in the fridge, if you want it.”
“Thanks, I’m good.”
Dean trudged across the creaking floorboards and sank onto the couch. His father was still in work clothes, a rotation of dirty slacks and long-sleeved shirts that never varied, no matter what the season. Dean wasn’t so different, each day spent in his uniform of jeans, boots and a Henley tee.
He was turning into the old man already.
It never bothered him before, back when he’d first drunk the Kool-Aid of the family business. When he’d thought the name Trescott was something to be proud of. Things had changed, and he’d stepped forward to the chopping block regardless, accepting the fact that one day his father’s daily existence would become his own. That eventuality had seemed years off, but Dean had spent the whole day in the same position as the one Chuck was in right now.
Was this the only life he could ever hope to have? To spend his Saturday nights sitting in a broken-down house, drinking beers and watching a game alone?
The idea made him genuinely feel sick.
His father hadn’t been concerned over why Dean had called in today, either. He was just annoyed that his assistant manager hadn’t put in his time. It didn’t matter if a cog in the wheel wasn’t feeling well, only that it worked right.
What the hell was he doing this for?
Dean looked at his father. “Why do you want me to take over the shop?”
The old man’s gaze never strayed from the television. “Because people trust businesses that are family-owned, especially ones run by a second or third generation.”
All the emotion Dean had kept under wraps pushed up against a dam inside him. Overflow was imminent.
“Customer trust gets built up over years,” his father continued. “It’ll do even better with you.”
Dean’s stomach churned. The anger rolling through him was like spitfire, his father’s reply a shot of gasoline. The legacy Dean was being handed was never about him. It was what he could do for the business. A business he wouldn’t be allowed to make any changes in until his father had gotten them so deep in the red that Dean would never be able to pull them out of it.
He was through with being tied to that future, dragged toward it by a freight train he couldn’t direct.
He didn’t want that life anymore.
“I quit.”
His father’s gaze slid slowly over and landed on him. “What the hell do you mean, you quit?”
“I mean exactly what it sounds like. I quit.”
“You can’t quit. This is what we do. The shop is for you.”
“It’s not for me!” Dean shot up off the couch, his rage hitting a boiling point. “It’s so I can fix the mess you’ve made. You expect me to sit here and take orders, to watch you run the place into the ground, and I won’t do it anymore. The business is falling apart, and I’m not sticking around just to inherit an albatross.”
His words stung. Dean could see it in the way his father’s eyes burned.
“I kept the business alive to give to you,” the old man growled.
“It’s not alive. It’s barely breathing. You think you built it up to give to me, but there won’t be anything left if it goes down the tubes.”
Dean had the advantage in height, but his father’s glare still held the power to level him. He held his ground.
“You can’t walk away from your heritage,” he said. “It’s in your blood. Running this shop is what you’ve always wanted.”
“It’s not what I want,” Dean spat back. “Since when have you given a damn about what I want? You never even asked.”
They stayed silent and stared at each other across the bare floorboards, battleships poised on edge, each waiting for the other to strike. The sharp whistles and cheers of the game was the only sound until his father swallowed, a small move of resignation.
“All right,” he said. “Tell me what you want.”
Dean couldn’t reply at first. The ability to fill in that blank was a liberty he didn’t know what to do with.
“I don’t want to quit,” he said quietly. “But I won’t stay on if you don’t start letting me make real changes.”
Another beat of silence. “What kind of changes?”
Dean sat back down on the couch. It was strange, to have his father’s complete attention. To feel like a grown-up around him, for once.
“First, we’ve got to start working with the insurance companies. It doesn’t matter how low we make our prices. If we’re not on the adjusters’ lists, people won’t find us.”
He didn’t hit the usual resistance with that idea, so he kept going.
“I know it means negotiating lower labor and material rates to get repair contracts, but we can still be the good guys. If a rep tells us to put an aftermarket part on a car that’s barely a year old, we tell the customer. Yeah, we run the risk of being taken off that company’s list, but we’ll have made a connection with the client. We’ll still be building trust.”
His father looked at the wall. Looked back. “All right,” he said. “What else?”
Energy started pulsing through him. “We’ve got to get computerized. Either paying for QuickBooks or hiring that virtual bookkeeper,” Dean said. “Also, I want you to look at this workflow software I found. It puts the production schedule in one place, and even updates the customers through email or text message every time we finish a task.”
His father ran his fingers over the bristles on his chin. The slant of his eyebrows suggested he actually seemed interested.
“Anything else?”
He took a deep breath. Jamie’s suggestion had idled in the back of his brain all week. He’d poked through the Want-Ad Digest and found at least a dozen classic cars for sale, ones that could be fixed up without too much cost.
Dean wanted it to be possible—the idea that they could give something new a shot.
He stood up. Paced around the room. Stared at the floor and rubbed his hand over the back of his head.
“I want to discuss adding restoration as a new arm of the business,” he said.
No reply. Dean continued to pace.
“I know what you’re going to say, but we need to offer something that will set us apart. The only way we’re going to survive is by doing things the chains can’t, and this is it. You can’t take your 1932 Ford Model-B Roadster to Walmart for a cleanup. You’ve got to bring it to someone who knows how to tune those parts, and that’s us. We can’t compete on price, but this…this we can do.”
The silence was deafening. Dean couldn’t take it any longer. He dragged his eyes up.
His father had his chin lifted, and was regarding Dean with an expression that looked like respect.
“This is why I knew I was doing the right thing in planning to hand the business down to you,” he said. “Because you’ll run it better than I ever have.”
It was the closest he’d ever come to saying he was proud of him.
They talked for a while longer, a new kind of accord between them as they hashed out ideas. It was after midnight by the time Dean finally got back home, but it could’ve been noon for how charged up he was. The future in front of him didn’t feel like a dead end anymore. It felt like an open road.
And
the first person he wanted to tell was Jamie.
But she wasn’t his to tell, wasn’t his to call in the middle of the night and share good news. The reality of how things were between them punched a hole right through him.
Dean went into his bedroom and looked at his camera bag. It was sitting in the corner, where he’d dumped it when he got home on Sunday. All the photos from the weekend were still on it—the cars and Jamie at the fair.
Her body, gorgeous and naked in their hotel room.
She inspired him, not just as a stunning subject to be photographed, but in life too. He never would’ve summoned the guts to talk to his father about all this if it weren’t for her.
How many things would he never have tried for, if it weren’t in the pursuit of her smile?
He probably would’ve walked straight out of that art class and never looked back.
Moving on instinct, Dean went to his closet and gingerly extracted his portfolio. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he balanced it on his lap, taking a minute to finger its rich, grained texture. Then he dragged the zipper around the sides until it fell open.
One by one, he paged through the plastic sleeves, looking at his work. A black-and-white shot of the tree line by the high school baseball field. A self portrait he’d taken in the side-view mirror of his truck. A close-up of a shiny bumper from when he’d experimented with macro. Gray waves freezing as they crossed over the sand one extremely cold day in winter. They were all moments that had struck him in some way, ones he had to find ways to capture.
Like when he’d photographed Jamie at the wedding.
The same feeling that hit him like a club that day sucked the air out of his lungs again, but Dean realized there was more to it than a desire to claim her. What he really wanted was to be on the other side of the lens, her hand warm in his, a heavy piece of silverware between them as they sliced through their own wedding cake.
He wanted a future with her. To have her in his bed every morning, wake up to her smile and know it was for him. To clean gutters in their first house and jump in leaf piles they’d spent hours raking. To see all the ways she could figure out how to dress a belly swollen with his child.
He’d been in love with her his whole goddamn life. She was his best friend, not to mention the best sex he’d ever had. She knew him in a way no one else did, but he’d pushed her away over and over again because he wanted her to find someone on her level.
He’d never entertained the idea that he could actually be that someone.
She had, though. She’d given him so many opportunities to see that over the years, but he’d been too mired in his own crap to realize it. He thought he was protecting her, shielding her from the only future he could offer her, but that future was changing now.
He was changing into the man he wanted to be.
Dean closed the portfolio, went back to his closet and rifled through the hangers. He’d spent a lifetime not going after what he wanted, telling himself to be content with the status quo. But he deserved a better life than the one he was living.
And he didn’t want to live without her in it anymore.
Chapter Thirteen
Jamie pushed through the doors of the community center and blinked in the brilliant wash of midday sun. The weekly Sunday farmer’s market was set up on the street, the cobblestones alive with tables and tents. Harvest vegetables made squat piles on bales of straw, the air laced with the scents of apple cider and cinnamon. Some of her students waved from the crowd. She waved back happily and breathed in deep.
A massive weight had been lifted. She’d turned down the assistant director job.
Her boss had been disappointed, but Jamie explained it would’ve taken her out of the water too much. Being in the pool, teaching kids how to achieve, and eventually, surpass her skill level—that was where she belonged.
She hadn’t wanted to commit herself to the position either, when there were some possible changes coming up in her future.
Zipping up her parka, Jamie nearly skipped toward her car. She hadn’t needed the aid of an outfit this morning to bolster her courage. Her high-heeled boots, dark slacks, gray ruffled shirt and matching sparkly scarf just made her feel good—clothes that reflected how confident she was on the inside now.
The change made her smile.
Her grin sagged when she reached the parking lot. Dean was in the front row, leaning against the grill of his truck, one foot hiked up on the bumper behind him. He stood up when he saw her and squinted in the sunlight, his hair turned to gold in its rays.
Jamie’s legs went numb. She couldn’t seem to move from the curb.
“What are you doing here?”
He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Looked at the ground and laughed. “I wanted to talk to you.”
Talk. A funny thing to want to do when this time last week he was breaking her heart.
“How’d you know where I was?”
Dean laughed again and rubbed the back of his neck with his palm. “I kind of…went to your house and asked your mom.”
He lifted his gaze to hers and offered her a sheepish grin. The half smile was an ice pick to her sternum.
He’d probably run out of women to call and was hoping for a quick hit. Or maybe he wanted to see if she’d be willing to make a habit out of last weekend’s events. Pencil her in for one day a week on his constantly rotating calendar. Whatever he was here for, she didn’t care. She wasn’t riding that roller coaster again.
“We have nothing to talk about, Dean. Go home.”
She strode past him, and was halfway past his truck when he called out, “I thought you said we were good.”
The words nailed her to the spot. Jamie’s blood ran cold.
“I lied,” she barked, her hands clenching into fists as she whipped around to face him. Dean took a half step backward. “Don’t look so shocked. Did you really think we were okay after that?”
It took him a minute to find his voice. “No,” he admitted. “I just…hoped we were.”
“Why?” she asked, then thought better of it. “You know what? It doesn’t matter what you say, because I know all you’re going to do is walk away again. It’s all you ever do. You don’t actually care.”
Dean pinched his brows together in confusion, little wrinkles imprinted between them.
“Of course I care,” he uttered softly. “More than you know.”
“That’s such bullshit.”
“It’s not,” he said. “I can’t walk away. I never could. I just knew I wasn’t right for you.”
Jamie narrowed her eyes, all her muscles tense. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He sighed and shook his head.
“I’ve never fit into your world, Jamie. You’re beautiful and talented and you’ve got the whole world in front of you, and me—” He cut off his words with a shrug. “I’ve been some grease monkey. Nothing more than a small-time mechanic.”
Hurt and anger welled up inside her. “I’ve never thought of you that way. Not once. I can’t believe you’d think that I would.”
“I know you don’t.” He moved toward her, then inched back, hesitant. “I thought of me that way. That’s why I acted the way I did. I wanted you to find someone else. Someone who was worthy of you.”
“So you put me on some kind of pedestal?” She stepped back to him, close enough to hiss, “Someone you could fuck, but never actually be with?”
He recoiled slightly. “That’s not true.”
It was. She’d seen the proof of it, in a glossy four-by-six on her kitchen table.
“It is, Dean. This has never been about anything more than sex to you. You’ve made that pretty damn clear.”
She started to move away, but he followed after her.
“Jamie, please. I never meant to hurt you. I just didn’t want this life for
you.”
“What life?”
“The only one I could’ve offered you. One that was never going to be anything more than bargain basements and cutting coupons.”
She gaped at him, so frustrated she could’ve torn her hair out. “So you made the choice for me?” she shouted. “What gives you the right to do that?”
“I thought—” He sighed again and kicked at the ground. “I thought it was the right thing to do. That eventually you’d figure out you didn’t belong here and move on.”
He was waiting for her to figure things out, just like her parents. Except for Dean, it was only a method for pushing her away.
Years of wounded pride bubbled to the surface. She pointed a finger at him.
“You don’t get to decide my fate for me, Dean. You can’t tell me what kind of life to have, where I should live it or who I should spend it with. I can make those decisions for myself.”
He started to talk, but Jamie spoke over him, because she was done listening.
“At least I tried with what I wanted. At least I gave it a shot. You threw your hands in the air and gave up. That’s the only difference between us. Any others were all in your head. But if you can’t see that, then I have nothing more to say to you.”
Jamie spun around and stomped away, rifling through her purse for her keys.
“You’re right,” Dean called out, but she kept walking. “You always have been. I see that now. And that’s why I quit.”
She stopped her in her tracks and turned around slowly. “You quit your father’s garage?”
“I did,” he said with a shrug. “Well, quit and then agreed to come back with conditions.”
He stood up a little taller when he said it too. He crossed the pavement to meet her and moved in close. Too close for her to think properly.
“Have a cup of coffee with me,” he said. “And I’ll explain everything.”
Jamie eyed him warily. A different Dean was standing in front of her. It took her a second to realize he was out of his usual uniform, his jeans and Henley traded for a leather jacket and khakis, shoes instead of boots. He didn’t look like he was hiding though, or trying to be someone else. The collar of his shirt was low enough to reveal a taste of ink, that perpetual scruff forming a fine line over his jaw.
The Hierarchy of Needs (The Portland Rebels #2) Page 14