AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jason shook his head in disbelief. “Grandpa, I can’t—”
“Now you call me that. Listen, you can. You can do this, Jason, can’t you?”
His grandpa’s confidence had carried Jason through years of doubt. Jason finally nodded. “Yes, sir, I can do this.”
His grandpa lifted his hand to slap him on the shoulder, then brought his hand back to the table before he made contact. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. So far, none of the candidates have been what I have in mind.”
What did he have in mind? “What about the woman who was just here? When I read her résumé, she seemed fine.”
“You don’t need fine,” Rueben muttered.
“What?” he asked, not sure he’d heard Rueben right.
Rueben cleared his throat. “Never mind.” He slid a small stack of papers over to him. “Let’s get started.”
Hours later, much later than he had wanted to take a lunch break, Jason grabbed his sandwich and headed for the stairs. The issue that had kept him out of the stairwell had been solved, and they were as open and free as ever. He sat down, pressed his face to his knees, and took deep breaths. Hours of small talk, shaking hands, and purposefully looking into every face—it had nearly done him in.
When his legs started cramping, he slowly stood and made his way down the empty stairwell. The quiet calmed him somewhat, and he took each step slowly, enjoying the silence broken only by his shoes on the tile floor. The stairwell led to an employee exit, and without mixing with a single crowd, he escaped outside.
He froze mid-step on the way to his car. The sidewalks were packed with people milling about. Too packed. He searched for some event that might be drawing in a crowd.
A tent on the far side of the building seemed to have the biggest group, and he searched with his eyes, not willing to mingle to get the answer to his question. Then he spotted the cause of the commotion. Little kids, gathered around a tent, sitting in chairs, and staying as still as possible while someone painted their faces. When he was eight, he’d daringly got his face painted. He shuddered, remembering the touch of a paintbrush against his skin. Within minutes of the paint stiffening on his face, he’d escaped to the bathroom to wash it off.
Just as he turned away from the crowds and headed toward his car, someone crashed into him. Wetness seeped into his shirt before he saw the stain. Looking down, his mouth gaped open at the colorful blood-orange display of paint on his white shirt and sandwich. Why today?
“I’m so sorry,” she said, obviously flustered. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. Shoot! What a mess.” She pulled a small towel from her back pocket and started dabbing at his chest.
He looked down at the graffiti mess again and groaned. And then realized what she was doing and backed away. “It’s fine.” He raised his hands to block her.
“But your shirt.” She reached around him and dabbed at his shirt once before he shook her off and took another step back.
He inspected her from paint-speckled hair to paint-splattered tennis shoes. A blood donor T-shirt peeked out from behind her overalls. Little flecks of blue and red paint were woven into her dark hair, and there was an orange smear on her cheek, marring her otherwise perfect complexion. Her lip trembled, and that small movement was enough to snap him out of the moment.
“Please, stop,” he finally managed. He balled his fists at his sides, completely demolishing his ruined sandwich. “I have an extra set of clothes in my office.”
She glanced up at the building. “You work here?”
He cringed. Was she asking him personal questions when he was standing with wet paint all over him? “Yes.”
“Well, let me make it up to you. I can paint your face or buy you a new shirt.” She gave a nervous chuckle, but her first suggestion soured his mood even more.
“No thanks. I think you’ve done enough.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but he fled for the office’s front doors, all the while holding his shirt away from his chest with one hand and his ruined lunch in the other. There was no saving the shirt, his sandwich, or the rest of the workday.
As soon as he changed, he was calling out sick.
2
Hannah
Hannah cursed herself for being so careless. Hadn’t her dad always scolded her, telling her to slow down and watch where her tornado landed? She had tried to forget that her dad had referred to her as a walking tornado multiple times during her childhood—needing to touch down everywhere she could—but it was hard.
Now look at what she’d done. She could almost hear her mom’s exasperated sigh.
Hannah stared at the paint-splattered sidewalk and groaned. At least not many kids requested orange. There was no saving any of it. She grabbed the empty container and headed for the front doors to find water and a trash can. Hopefully, she could find out the guy’s name too.
She stopped short. He didn’t want anything to do with her. He hadn’t said as much, but she could tell. His disgusted, disgruntled expression had spoken volumes.
