As usual, his gaze skittered away from her, but this was a different avoidance. Jumpy. Nervous. He dragged an agitated hand through his hair. “He’s been traveling, and I didn’t realize the time. I need to head to work.”
She’d fibbed enough to sniff out lies a mile away, and Not-Maxwell Jack David who performed as Elvis was telling falsehoods. She didn’t push. She didn’t want to distance him more than she already had. Talking dragons was a novelty, but what she needed was to get into his family estate. “Want to meet at the diner for a coffee? I can show you pictures of Lucy.”
“Another time. I’m behind at work.” He tipped his head to her and jogged toward his car.
Her focus stayed firmly on him. On his calves as they balled and lengthened, his shifting back muscles and delectable butt. A butt she wouldn’t touch, delectable or otherwise. She had a job to do for Nisha. For Lucien. For every kid who hadn’t chosen to be abandoned. She just had to work harder and ignore Jack’s gravitational pull.
8
Jack loved living in Whichway. The slower pace appealed to him. There was no aggravating traffic. The small town meant he’d never fully shake his awkward teenage past, but every hill and tree was part of his DNA.
Each morning, he’d drive past the rock where he’d skinned his first knee. He’d smile at the field that housed Whichway’s annual Race Into Spring weekend. His father had cheered him on there. He’d swung him in the air, even if he’d dropped his eggs while running to the finish line. They’d done the three-legged race together, falling over in hysterics.
They still attended every spring, played the same games with Jack’s little sister—the surprise child his parents hadn’t planned at their age, but who brought them untold joy. His father had missed his twelve-year-old daughter’s smiles at this past spring’s festival. If cancer beat him as predicted, he might never see another race.
Jack enjoyed passing the field these days, having these moments close. What he didn’t like was how often he ran into Clementine.
We can be friends, she’d said. Have coffee and go for runs.
Whichway suddenly felt too small.
She’d been everywhere the past two days. Running with him. Slipping onto the stool beside his. He may have skipped his coffee and pastry one morning, a desperate move to resist Clementine’s allure, but he couldn’t repeat the maneuver. Status quo needed to be maintained, which meant suffering through polite conversation with Clementine when what he wanted was anything but polite.
Now it was eleven p.m., and he was holed up in his research lab, thinking about Clementine when he should be focused on work.
He forced his attention to his page. His employees had left hours ago. The only noise was the droning air conditioner and the frustrated tapping of his pen. He was so close to solving their formula and finding the secret sauce to lower their costs and increase their volume. If they could do that, it wouldn’t matter that their technology had been stolen. They could compete for a chunk of market share.
“Keep that up and you’ll be as bald as me.”
Jack startled and dropped his pen. He hadn’t realized he’d been tugging his hair, and he certainly hadn’t heard his father enter. “What are you doing here?”
“Last I checked, I own this place.”
“Last I checked, you should be at home in bed.”
Maxwell David shrugged, the slow slump of his frail shoulders gutting Jack. “New treatment starts tomorrow. Wasn’t sure when I’d get out again. Any progress?”
He should insist his father leave, rest up for whatever horrors tomorrow would bring, but he understood the need to feel vital. Useful in the face of a disease neither of them could control. “The optics keep stonewalling us. Every time we add the extra layer to the substrates, it falls apart.”
Maxwell scanned the sterile room, pausing on the microscopes and customized test chambers. “Have you tried re-integrating the LCD process?”
“A million times.”
“Adjusting the ITO electrodes?”
“Of course.”
His father leaned heavier on his cane, his lips flattening into a grim line. “This can’t be a repeat of the Ant Man Project.”
As amusing as that project name was, there was nothing funny about his father’s jab. Maxwell David the Second was the epitome of conservative. Always had been, always would be. His staunch focus had built their business and lens factory. Sure, Jack’s first attempt to advance them and miniaturize their lenses had failed. It was part of the reason they were in financial limbo now, but Jack hadn’t given up. He’d been sure their technology had been too expensive to grow with the times, so he’d worked his ass off to shrink and leverage their current lenses until they’d been efficient and cheap enough for cell phones. Jack’s work had been some next-level engineering, taking David Industries global. It had been exhilarating. Ego inflating.
This project, however, was testing his patience. There was no coasting in business, only improving. “I’m close,” he said. “It’s dogging me, but I can feel it.” He just couldn’t untangle it.
“If it fails, everything falls apart.”
“It won’t fail.”
“Time is running out.”
“If you would sell the house or tap into your funds, I could hire more people and work faster, and—” He clamped his mouth shut. He hadn’t meant to raise his voice. “Sorry. It’s just late, and I’m stressed.” And his recent bank loans wouldn’t last forever. Loans that had to be repaid.
His father pulled up to his full height. Even bald with skin sagging over his frail bones, he could be formidable: the Great Wall of Maxwell David the Second. “This will be the last time you suggest using more of my money. The estate will go to your mother. My savings will support her and your sister and your sister’s kids, and their goddamn kids, God willing. I won’t budge on this, Jack. It’s the only peace I have.”
To provide for his family when he’s gone. Guilt and helplessness thickened his throat. Jack understood his father’s vehemence, but the bigger picture haunted him, too. A derelict town with broken windows and mangy dogs, the factory closed, unemployment sucking the life from Whichway. “I won’t mention it again,” he murmured, feeling boxed in.
He wouldn’t suggest selling his assets, either, a solution he’d offered before. His father had kiboshed that as well, red faced and frustrated, telling Jack liquidation was as good as putting up a billboard, advertising their business’s demise.
Maxwell nodded and smiled at his son. “How’s the rehearsing going?”
His father may be formidable, but he excelled at breaking tension. Jack wasn’t sure how he’d say goodbye to him one day. “Good. Hard to find the time, but good.”
“I always loved it, you know. Seeing you on stage. Sorry I’ll miss it this year.” His rheumy eyes misted.
Jack’s eyes burned. So fucking unfair, how disease felled the best of them. Made him want to punch a wall. “So don’t miss it. Let’s tell the board you’re sick. They deserve to know, about that and what Gunther did. They’ll understand and vote to put more money into my research.”