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Carson shook his head. “We first made the agreement in person and since then we’ve talked about it over the phone. I’ve got emails from his wife with design instructions, but that doesn’t matter. I can’t sue one of my coaches. I’d be blacklisted from the NFL forever. I just have to do a good job and hope they want to buy the place—or if not, that some other buyer will pay nearly as much.”
His father shoved his hands in his pockets. “You might not want to sue the jerk, but I do. We spent sixty thousand on the hardwood flooring alone. We wouldn’t have bought anything half as expensive if the Gordons hadn’t asked for it. Ditto for the fifteen-hundred-dollar copper kitchen sink.”
Before his father could point out all of their excesses, Carson said, “I’ll make sure you get your money back. Either when the house sells or when I go back to playing football.” He said the words with conviction. But another voice in his mind said: Your days playing football are over. Was that voice repeating in his father’s head as well?
“It’s not just about the money.” His father was still tight-lipped and boring holes into Carson with his disapproving glare. “It’s the principle of the thing.”
What had Olivia said to him earlier?You need to tell your father about the problems with the house sale so he can reassure you that whatever happens, he’ll still love you.
That glare wasn’t full of a lot of love.
Carson shouldn’t have listened to her. Hadn’t he learned long ago that his father’s love came with stipulations? He wanted children who were high achievers. Ambitious and successful. Carson had just stopped meeting the requirements. “I’ll make sure you get your money back,” he reiterated. “If the house doesn’t sell, I’ll sell my house in Denver and give you your money from that sale. This is my problem, and I’ll fix it.”
“You shouldn’t have to fix anything. This shouldn’t have happened in the first place. That’s why contracts exist.” His father waved a hand in the air. “You know about contracts. The Broncos signed one with you. If Coach Gordon expects you to—”
“I know,” Carson cut him off. “You don’t have to tell me I messed up. I already realize that. I didn’t insist on anything in writing because I didn’t want Coach Gordon to think I didn’t trust him, that I didn’t think he was a man of his word. Turns out that was a mistake. Lesson learned. If I can’t trust my mentors, I can’t trust anyone.”
His father’s face fell and the anger that had vibrated through him drained away. “That’s not the lesson you should learn from this. You can’t go through life not trusting anyone. The fact that you’re trusting, that you believe in people—it’s one of your best qualities.” His voice went low and reassuring. “You not only believe in people, you genuinely like them and that makes them believe in themselves. Don’t let anyone take that quality from you. Not because of this.”
Carson could only stare back at his father in surprise. That’s how his father saw him? As someone who made people believe in themselves?
“The lesson you should take from this,” his father went on, “is that you can’t mix business and friendship—or mentorship, or whatever Gordon is besides a fraud. The man took advantage of you, and that makes me furious.”
Oh. His father’s anger was directed at Coach Gordon, not at Carson. That was also a surprise.
His father paced across the room, frowning while he thought. “Have you explained to Mr. Gordon the position he’s putting you in?”
“Do you really think I should tell him that if he doesn’t pay the price we agreed on, we’re worried no one else will? That won’t make him think he’s getting a good deal.”
His father nodded and rubbed his chin. “Maybe we should have some people from town come up while he’s touring the place and pretend to be interested buyers. If he’s worried about competition, he’ll want to close the deal quickly.”
“If he thinks other people are interested, he won’t feel bad about backing out on me. Right now I think my best bet is to make sure the house is everything his wife wants and remind him that I spent a lot of money on the upgrades his wife wanted with the expectation he’d buy it. That might keep him from wandering off closer to Yellowstone to look at the chalets there.”
His father grunted, unhappy with the option. “If he doesn’t buy, I’m telling him off.”
“If he doesn’t buy, I’ll be doing that for both of us.”
16
Working construction, Olivia decided, got easier when you knew you had a stealth kissing break to look forward to. The weekend ended and she expected Carson’s father and brother to go home. But Mr. Clark wanted to make sure the house was done on time so he decided to take two weeks off from work to help with the renovations. He convinced Lucas to stay for a week as well. A lot of the work wasn’t complicated to do, just tedious.
Olivia was simultaneously glad Carson’s family was helping and frustrated that they hadn’t left. She couldn’t hang out with him after hours with his family ensconced on the property.
She sketched at night. Bold happy drawings. Soaring birds. Sweeping Montana landscapes with trees stretching into the sky. She drew more than one of Carson, trying to duplicate his mischievous smile. They were good likenesses, but she couldn’t capture his energy, the vitality that made him so charismatic.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Olivia had to keep reminding Carson that he shouldn’t overtax himself. He seemed insistent on proving to his father that he was giving the project his all. When she was around Mr. Clark, she found herself wanting to gain his approval. Working as a construction worker in place of her embezzling brother probably wasn’t winning her a lot of points in the wouldn’t-it-be-a-good-idea-to-join-our-families-together arena.
He was never friendly or even talkative. If anything, he seemed to want to spend as little time with her as possible. But then, Mr. Clark had some preconceived notions. Carson had likely said a lot of negative things about her back in high school. She would just have to keep showing Mr. Clark that she was actually a nice, hardworking, intelligent woman.
On Thursday, while the crew was taking a lunch break, Carson sat beside her at one of the card tables they put up for meal times. Lucas was perched on a nearby step ladder, and Mr. Clark sat across from Carson, rattling off things that still needed to be done.
Carson jotted them down on a list. She watched him writing, watched the messy scrawl of his handwriting. That hadn’t changed much since high school. He spelled the word underlayment right, but he wrote a couple of the letters out of order, filling in thelandaafter he’d written they.
“How often do you do that?” she asked. “Write words out of order like that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes I just do that.”
“That’s a symptom of dyslexia. Do you have it?” As soon as she asked the question, she knew he did. And suddenly Carson’s academic career made a lot more sense.
