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When I hung up, my cheeks were sore from smiling so much with Liz. It was another moment when I thanked the universe for bringing such a great friend into my life.
“We’ll find the right person,” I told the store, feeling hope rise in my chest. “I know the right buyer is out there.”
I stood from behind the desk and began walking down the closest aisle. I liked the ritual of walking from aisle to aisle before going home, imagining my dad doing this at the end of a long day. As a kid, I always wondered why he did it. Was he checking if anything was stolen or looking for broken shelves? But when I was older, I finally asked him.
“Why do you always walk all the aisles before you leave?”
I remembered the way my dad had shrugged beneath his baseball cap.
“Gives me time to think,” he answered as if trying to brush aside the question. But then he took a moment to think more deeply about it and looked thoughtfully at me before continuing. “A lot of people worked hard to make this place what it is. I like to spend a little time thinking about that.”
And so, after my dad was gone, I found myself reenacting the ritual. I walked aisle to aisle, guided by the bright fluorescent lights humming above me, and thought about my dad. I liked to run my hands along the shelves, checking that items were lined up properly even though no customers had entered the space for nearly a year.
I was in the last aisle, shifting my thoughts to dinner and what I had in my freezer to defrost, when I heard the ding of the front door. The sound surprised me. I hadn’t heard the bell over the door for months, and my heart beat faster as I raced through all the possibilities of who might come through that door.
“Sorry, we’re not open,” I called out as I rounded the aisle to meet whoever it was at the front door.
Of all the possibilities I thought about and the people I pictured, I never imagined that Callum Jones would be standing at the front door of my dad’s hardware store, smirking at me.
4
CALLUM
“What do you recommend for a leaky faucet?”
My attempt at a joke fell flat with Darcy, who stood at the end of an aisle, blinking at me. She looked shocked and possibly angry that I had burst into the store.
“What are you doing here?” Darcy asked. In truth, I was wondering that myself. While I knew this place belonged to Darcy’s family, I hadn’t expected her to be here. My own surprise and excitement over seeing her left me scrambling for what to say.
“I saw the ‘For Sale’ sign in the window,” I explained, pointing back toward it.
“And so … you came inside?” she asked, clearly questioning my level of common sense. I felt my cheeks flush in embarrassment. This was a new feeling for me. It was rare I couldn’t charm my way out of a situation like this, but something about Darcy kept me tongue-tied and confused, like a teenager all over again.
“No, I know that’s not an invitation to come in,” I explained. “But my grandfather used to take me here all the time as a kid. And I suddenly wanted to see it. And when the door was open, it seemed like a sign.”
I watched Darcy’s shoulders relax and something soften in her eyes. God, she was beautiful. Those large green eyes were taking me in carefully, as if finally looking at me for the first time. I had an impulse to brush the hair back from my forehead, but I kept my hands firmly at my sides.
“I didn’t know your grandfather lived in town,” Darcy said. She tucked her long blonde hair behind her ear and I smirked as I remembered the gesture. At the open house she had looked so professional in her blazer, so different from the girl I remembered. But she had taken off her blazer and rolled up her sleeves, so she looked much more casual and comfortable here in the hardware store. It made me breathe a little easier, feeling more comfortable too.
“Not anymore,” I said, sliding my hands into the front pockets of my jeans. “He died when I was eleven. Liz would have been nine, so it was probably before you knew each other.”
“How do you know when Liz and I met?” she asked, and I felt warmth flush through me as she smiled at me.
“I pay attention!” I said, laughing with her. “Fourth grade, right? Was it a softball team?”
“Soccer,” Darcy said, her eyebrows lifting. “But I’m impressed.”
There was a moment of quiet between us where I simply took Darcy in, waiting to see if she would say anything else. I knew I should probably leave. I had barged into the hardware store and found her alone. Clearly she wasn’t looking for company if she was inside a closed store with the shades covering the front windows. But she was looking at me intently, and I couldn’t help wondering what she was thinking.
“Well, go ahead and look around,” Darcy said, gesturing down the closest aisle. “If you want to.”
She turned away and headed toward the front desk. I watched as she walked back to her seat and began to sort through a stack of mail. The task in front of her seemed to take her full attention, and once again I wondered if I should leave. But something about Darcy’s expression as she invited me to look around the store, a slight glint in her eye, kept me there. I made my way down the aisle closest to the checkout, where I could still talk to Darcy and hope to catch her looking over at me.
“I’m sorry about the open house,” I said as I gently touched the paint rollers and brushes that decorated the aisle. I had a flash of Darcy at the open house, hands on her hips when she came through the doorway to check out the commotion my presence had caused. I remembered her shocked expression and how silly I felt with all the fans clamoring for my attention. That public persona, the celebrity musician, wasn’t the image I wanted to show her.
“I thought I’d have some relief from being recognized here. But I guess it was too much to hope I could just be a normal guy.”
She was still staring at the papers on the desk, and I wondered if she was even listening. But then she glanced over, looking at me sideways.
