"Aren't you gonna state your business?" he asked after we stood there and stared at each other for a few seconds.
"I, uh, I thought you were expecting me," I stuttered. "I'm Laney."
He continued to stare, slack-jawed.
"Are you Peter Craig?" I asked timidly. He was holding a glasscutter in his hand and he used it to tap on the small plaque that was mounted by the door, which clearly stated that I was standing at the entrance of Brushfire Studios, owner, Peter Craig.
I giggled nervously as he continued to stare at me. "I thought you'd have dreadlocks or something, or at least not show up like you just got off work at a hardware store."
I let out another nervous giggle and glanced down at my trusty jeans and t-shirt. I thought he was just making a random guess about the hardware store thing, but when I looked down I realized I was wearing one of my Callahan's t-shirts.
"I worked at a hardware store before I moved here," I said. "That's how I met Mrs. Williams."
"Rita told me you were skilled beyond your knowledge," he said. "She said you were a rare talent. She basically begged me to let you come study with me." He wore a serious expression that made me wonder whether or not he was happy about seeing me there.
"She said you were the best," I said, hoping to put him at ease a little.
"I don't take students," he said. He tilted his head back and did a thorough inspection of me through those glasses. "I'm an artist, not a teacher. I'm great at what I do and I really don't need anyone standing over my shoulder asking what's what and who's who."
My eyes widened. I suddenly got the feeling that he wasn't going to let me in. Up until now, I had assumed everything was all set and he was okay with me coming. I got very nervous thinking I'd just drug my sister to San Francisco for nothing.
Then, just like that, he stuck his hand out and ruffed up my hair. "Rita's a dear friend and she said I'd like you, so I'll just have to take her word for it," he said. He gave a flick of his head for me to follow him inside, which I did.
"Just stay out of my way, and don't ask any stupid questions."
I brought some of the sketches I'd done for window designs, but I didn't dare offer to show him any of those. I knew Mrs. Williams had already emailed him some photos of work I'd done, and that would have to be enough. I decided that for now I'd be better off keeping my mouth shut.
"It took me over a year to make the windows you'll see today," he said. "They're being installed in a church across town and I'm going to oversee it."
"I'll bet they're beautiful," I said.
"Of course they are," he said. "If they weren't I'd lose my job." His tone carried a little humor, but he had not cracked a single smile since I arrived. I wondered if that's how he always acted.
His studio was beautiful. At first glance, it seemed glass and tools were scattered everywhere, but the more I looked around, the more I saw that it was highly organized. The selection of glass was overwhelming, and I hoped I'd be able to use some of it one day.
We didn't say much to each other as he finished up some things around the shop. He glanced at me every now and then, but he'd just go back to whatever he was doing. We stayed there for about thirty minutes before heading to the church.
He drove an old Volvo station wagon that had obviously been restored. He was odd enough that I wondered if he'd let me sit in the front seat with him, so I got in slowly, but he didn't say anything to stop me. It took us over thirty minutes in traffic to get to the church. We made a little small talk about how I was still getting used to driving in a big city.
After a little conversation, he turned on the radio, which was tuned to classical music. He cranked it loud enough that any further talking was out of the question. I didn't mind. I just stared at my new city with Beethoven or Bach or whoever it was as my soundtrack. I wondered what Lexi was doing. I couldn’t help but hope she decided to stay home with the door locked till I got back.
He turned down the music as we pulled into the parking lot of the church. "This place is smaller than you'd think," he said. "The glass projects I do are usually for grand cathedrals but this one's more like a little chapel you'd find in Sherwood Forest or something."
"I think it's charming," I said, getting my first look at it.
"It's charming all right, and so are the windows. They're not your typical church windows."
"How so?"
"The guy who hired me commissioned them for his mother and father. His dad is the pastor here and apparently his mom has always wanted stained glass. She was a fan of some of my earlier, art deco inspired stuff, and they gave me free reign to interpret the gospel as I saw fit. I've never had a church give me that sort of freedom before."
"Have they seen them?" I asked.
"No. The son is meeting me here today to get a glimpse, but the pastor and his wife are intentionally staying out of the sanctuary until the installation is complete."
The place was as charming on the inside as it was on the outside. I felt a sense of peace the moment I stepped foot in the door, and I thought it must be a feeling that comes with entering a holy place. The construction crew already had the first window underway. The old window was out and they were working on cleaning the space for the new one.
"I'm glad you got here, Peter," the foreman said. "I was just about to put it in and I didn't know which way was up."
Peter cracked a smile for the first time all day. He narrowed his eyes and wagged a finger at the guy who spoke. "You know better than to test me first thing in the morning, Freddy." He gave Freddy a curious expression. "Have you seen Zack Martin?"
"He's here," Freddy said. "He already got a look at the window."
Peter sighed and shook his head. I couldn't tell whether or not he was happy about that. I assumed Zack Martin was the man who hired him, but I was still a bit confused. I decided not to ask any questions.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked, figuring that was the only acceptable one.
He rubbed his own head, making his hair stand on end even more than it was already, then he pointed to a set of doors at the back of the sanctuary. "Go through those doors," he said. "You'll be in a hallway. The pastor and his family should be the only ones back there. Find Zack if you don't mind and tell him I'm here." Peter turned and immediately started informing some of the crew on things they weren't doing properly. He and Freddy were bickering as I walked across the sanctuary to find the man named Zack.
I couldn’t help but think of Zack Callahan. I smiled about the name and the visions of the heartbreaker that formed in my mind upon hearing it.
There were about ten doors off the long hallway. I hoped I'd be able to find the right person, since the last thing I wanted to do was let Peter Craig down. The first four or five rooms seemed like nursery or Sunday school classrooms. They were all dark and empty, so I just walked right by them.
I came upon a room that had about five mothers with babies sitting around in a circle. I thought about Peter telling me the pastor's family should be the only ones here and wondered who these people were. One of the ladies looked at me when I walked by.
I smiled and decided it'd be awkward not to state my business. "I'm looking for the pastor and his son—a man named Zack," I said.
"I don't know if I'd call him a man," one of the ladies said, giggling a little. She looked at another lady. "Is Zack a man yet?"
All of them laughed. "I think when you make your first million you're a man," one of them said.
The girl who spoke first turned to me with a shrug and a huge smile. "I guess he's a man," she said.
"Do you know where he is?" I asked. "I'm here with the stained glass people."
"Oh I heard about that," she said. "Is it getting put up today?"
"Yes it is," I heard a deep voice say from over my shoulder. "And don't think I didn't hear you questioning my manhood in here," he said.
I could hear them all laughing hysterically as I turned to face the person who'd come to stand
behind me. He was not a man. I mean, he was a man, but not the type of man I expected. He definitely didn't seem old enough to commission Peter Craig to re-window a church. He couldn't be much older than me—25 tops.
I gawked at him for a few seconds. He must have been the most gorgeous human being on the planet. He was ten times better looking than Zack Callahan, and until this day, I hadn't thought that was even possible. He had the same tall, dark, all-American look, but this Zack blew the other one completely out of the water.
He was standing so close I was unable to function or think. My body physically couldn't handle the proximity. It was the first time I'd ever been stunned speechless by a guy. I stared at his chest to avoid looking at his face. He had on a t-shirt with some non-descript logo on it, and I traced the shape of it. I could feel blood trying to make it's way to my face, so I took a calming breath before I tried to spit out the words.
"I'm here with Peter Craig," I said. I gestured down the hall as I cleared my throat. "He asked me to tell you he was here."
Without another word, I took off down the hallway. I should have probably thanked the girls or not been in such an awkward hurry, but I couldn't think of anything else to do but walk away.
"Wait up," I heard him say when I was about halfway down the hall. I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer that I wouldn't say anything ridiculous.
"I saw the first window," he said, falling into stride next to me. I didn't look at him. "It's amazing. Did you have anything to do with it?"
I let out a little laugh. "Oh, goodness no, I haven't even seen it yet. It's my first day working with Mr. Craig. I just moved here from Washington."
"I go to Seattle quite a bit," he said.
"Oh, that's cool," I said. "I've actually never been there."
He laughed a little as if he thought I might be joking, but when I didn't laugh back, he said, "What brings you to San Francisco?"
"I came to work with Mr. Craig," I said. "Or maybe I should say I came to study with Mr. Craig. I'm not getting paid or anything."
I started to reach out to open the door to the sanctuary as we approached, but he jumped in front of me and held it open. "You're supposed to let the gentleman open the door for you," he whispered as I walked past him.
I smiled but couldn't think of anything clever to say, so I just stayed quiet. Peter caught sight of us entering the sanctuary. "I heard you peeked," he yelled from across the room.
"Was I not supposed to?" Zack asked.
"They're your windows, you can look at them if you want," Peter said.
"I just saw one," Zack assured him.
They had a conversation about how blown away Zack was and how his mother was going to cry her eyes out when she saw them. Peter smiled several times during the whole exchange, which gave me hope that maybe one day he'd smile for me too.
Peter told Zack that the second window would go in that day and that all five of them would be installed by Friday. Zack assured him that he was happy as long as they were ready for church on Sunday, and Peter and Freddy both promised him that would be the case.
They spoke for about five minutes before Zack said, "I guess I should be letting you guys get back to work. I'll drop by again later this week to see the progress."
Peter and Freddy both told him goodbye, but I stayed quiet. Zack turned to leave, but as he did, his gaze shifted to me.
"I didn't catch your name," he said.
"Laney, Delaney, Laney." I said like a babbling idiot.
"It was a pleasure, Laney," he said, smiling and extending a hand, which I shook. "Welcome to San Francisco."
"That boy could run for governor," Freddy said, when the door closed behind Zack.
"President," Peter said. "Don't you think so, Laney Delaney Laney?" He phrased it as if that were my first, middle and last name and then he cracked a smile. He was teasing me, and I gave him a fake little warning glare. This made his smile broaden a bit, which pleased me greatly.
Chapter 9
I wish I could say that Zack Martin succeeded in taking my mind off worrying about my sister, but his gorgeousness was only able to distract me briefly. Thankfully, I had other distractions with getting to know Peter. He started to warm up to me that afternoon. We had a good conversation about art and composition, and I learned a lot even though we didn't talk about glass at all.
I made it home at 2pm that day and was relieved to find Lexi there when I arrived. "I almost called Andy to see if he'd gone with you to look at shoes," I said, smiling with relief as I walked in.
"Hello to you too," she said smiling back. "How'd it go?"
"It was good," I said. "Peter Craig is a piece of work, I'll tell you that right now."
"Uh-oh," she said with a worried expression. "Not in a bad way, I hope."
"It's gonna be fine, he's just a little hard to read. I thought at first he wasn't happy to have me there, but by the end, he seemed to be having fun talking to me." I paused for a second. "Did you go anywhere?"
"Can't you tell?" she asked, pointing at the shoeboxes that were stacked near the couch.
A wave of anxiety hit me imagining everything that could have gone wrong. "Did Andy go with you?" I asked.
"No, he wasn't home," she said. "And I'm fine." She held out her arms to let me inspect. "See? All in one piece."
I narrowed my eyes at her.
"Aren't you gonna say thanks for getting you some shoes?" she asked.
"Thanks," I said. I went to the boxes and opened them one by one, inspecting her selections. "Did you spend a ton of money?"
"They were on sale buy one get one half off." She watched me look at them. They were both black. Hers were dressy, but still looked comfortable. Mine looked like lace-up boots, which matched perfectly with my work uniform. We both knew there was no need for me to try mine on since we wore the exact same size and she had no doubt already tried them for me.
"Did you get to make a window today?" she asked, having no idea how time consuming the process was.
"No," I said. "In fact, we were at a church almost the whole time I was there."
"A church?"
"Yeah. Peter did some windows for it and they were being installed today."
"Oh, cool," she said. "I never thought about windows for churches, but that makes sense."
"They're huge. There are five of them and they took Peter a whole year to make."
"Whoa," she said. "They must have to pay a ton for that."
"Their son Zack paid for them. Peter told me on the way home just now that he started an internet business when he was seventeen and two years ago he sold it for eight million dollars."
Her eyes got huge. "How old is he now?"
"Peter wasn’t sure but he said he thought he was about twenty-four or twenty-five."
"I wonder if he's hot," Lexi said.
"He's super hot," I said nodding wistfully. "He's hotter than hot."
Her eyes got so wide that I cracked up laughing.
She shoved at me. "You saw him?" she asked.
"I talked to him," I said with a confident smile.
"You talked to an eight-billionaire?" she asked, totally amazed.
"Eight million," I corrected.
"Same thing," she said, shoving at me again. "Did you flirt with him?"
"If you call blushing and blabbering like an idiot flirting," I said.
She thought about it for a second. "I can't believe his name's Zack. You always end up in love with men named Zack."
I laughed. "I'll hardly end up in love with either of them," I said.
Suddenly, I felt a sharp stabbing sensation in my girl parts, and I made an expression that reflected the pain I felt.
"What's wrong?" Lexi asked.
"It hurts a little down there." I said. "And I've been feeling like I have to pee all the time even when I don't have to."
That was Wednesday afternoon, and 24 hours later I was at a walk-in clinic peeing in a cup so they could test me for a urinary tract infection.<
br />
They prescribed a week's worth of Penicillin in the form of 500mg pills and said that should do the trick. We had to work at the restaurant that evening, so I hoped the antibiotics would kick in. I was supposed to take 4 a day, so I took one before work and another when we got home that night.
The next morning when I woke up, I felt dizzy and out of it, but I figured it was the infection since it could take at least 24 hours for the antibiotics to kick in. I took another pill on my way to Peter's. It was Friday and the window instillation would be complete, so he and I left for the church as soon as I arrived at the studio.
We hadn't been there long when I knew something was really wrong. I got extremely nauseous and felt dizzy and light-headed. Peter was talking to Freddy in the main sanctuary when I excused myself to go to the restroom. By the time I got there, my head was spinning. My ears started ringing and my chest tightened making it difficult to breathe. I sank down onto the bathroom floor with my back against the wall.
"What's happening to me?" I mumbled to myself. There were four stalls in that bathroom, and I stared at them wondering for a second if anyone was in there and if I'd been overheard talking to myself… not that I really cared. Then I remembered that I could clearly see under the stalls and there was no one in there with me.
My head felt heavy.
I couldn’t hold it up any longer.
I decided the cold tile would feel nice, so I slumped to one side letting my cheek make contact with the floor. I was thinking about how badly urinary tract infections sucked when Kate Martin, the pastor's wife, came into the bathroom.
"Oh, hi," I said, picking my head up of the floor and making my way to an upright position. She gasped and stooped down beside me. "Honey, are you okay?" she asked in a concerned voice.
"I think so," I said. "I don't know." My head was spinning and I closed my eyes for fear that I would throw-up. "I took some Penicillin and I think it might be making me sick," I said. "I don't feel good at all."
Something of a Storm (All in Good Time Book 1) Page 6