Page 32 of Worthy

″Can I see it?” I’m legitimately curious about what he’s doing, but I also want to keep talking to him, since he’s at least talking right now.

My request catches him off guard. I can see him debating what to say, and it makes me wonder if it’s too personal. But that doesn’t make any sense. He already told me he does some welding, and no one at the concert seemed surprised when Ally asked if he could build her bike. So why is he wavering?

″Yeah, sure.” He finally exhales, and I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “You can follow me.”

We pull out of the lot, and I follow him to a neighborhood about five minutes out of town. The houses are smaller here and feel homier than where my uncle’s house is. That neighborhood is for vacationers, people who want space and quiet to relax, and this place has more of a community feel, with a park around the corner, and kids running everywhere.

We arrive at a cute little bungalow with a front porch spanning the length of the house, and a long drive leading to a garage in the back. Cade gets out of the truck and starts heading toward it. There’s a regular door to the side of the garage doors, and he holds it open for me to walk inside.

There are high and low cabinets around the perimeter, with what looks like a butcher block counter covering the lower cabinets,although it’s hard to tell under all the tools resting on it. There’s also a massive table in the middle of the space, with several stools underneath it. I recognize the mask you wear when welding, and what I think is the welder itself, but nothing else looks familiar. It’s just a random bunch of parts and pieces, although it does look like things are grouped together by size and shape.

In the corner closest to the garage door, it looks like there are several finished pieces. One resembles something like the tin man from Wizard of Oz, only rounder, because it’s made with mostly gears and pipe and standing on a block of wood. It also looks like there’s a bench of some kind. A bike frame with a cage-like thing on it is resting against the center table, and I’m guessing this must be his creation for Ally.

″It’s, uh, kind of a mess.” He clears a space at the table. “I don’t have many people in here.”

His statement makes my heart thump soundly in my chest, but I try to ignore it.He’s obviously trying to excuse the chaos, not implying there’s anything special about me being here.

″Shouldn’t it be a mess?” I ask as I take in the clutter. “I mean, a clean workshop would mean there wasn’t much work, right?”

The corner of his mouth ticks up like he’s fighting a smile. “True, but this isn’t work. This is just messing around.”

I wander over to the man made of gears and look to Cade for permission. He nods, and I pick it up, turning it over in my hands to see all of it. It’s not overly large, a little over a foot tall, but it’s heavy. Solid. There’s one large gear for the torso and a smaller one for the head. Straight rods are used for the arms and legs, but they’re put together at angles that suggest movement, like the little man is waving his arms as he strolls along, or maybe dancing. Even though there’s no real expression coming from the gears it feels like this portly man is happy.

″You like it?” Cade asks.

″I do,” I mutter, tilting it to look from another angle.

″Why?”

″He looks like he’s enjoying life,” I say without thinking, then immediately backtrack when my words register. “I mean, I know that sounds stupid, it’s just a bunch of gears. But he looks sort of fat and happy.” I shrug as if the comment was said offhand, though when I finally meet Cade’s eyes, I find he’s staring at me intently.

″What?” I brace for one of his indifferent replies, sure I’ve somehow offended him, but that’s not what I get.

″This reminds me of my grandpa.” He takes the sculpture from me and turns it over in his hands, studying it. “Fat and happy is a good way to describe him.” Cade shakes his head, almost like he’s confused. Or amused. I can’t tell which. “He was a tinkerer, hence the gears, and the older he got the fatter he got, which he blamed on my grandma’s cooking. But he was always moving. Always smiling. He’s the one who taught me how to weld.”

″He sounds interesting.”

″He is. He lived here until he started to have trouble breathing and had to move to a lower elevation… Left me this house and his workshop when he moved…” Cade trails off, looking around the room before his eyes come to rest on the sculpture in his hands, then me.

Suddenly, the air around us is so thick with emotion I can’t breathe. The way Cade’s looking at the sculpture—atme—reeks of an intensity I don’t know how to interpret, and rather than try, I panic, grasping at the first thing that comes to mind.

″Show me the bike,” I blurt.

His gaze lingers on me for a few seconds before he puts the fat man down and turns to the bike. “I was going for sort of a birdcage, like a frame that drapes over the back half of the bike, but it didn’t leavemuch room for Ally to get on. I thought about a door that would swing open on hinges, but that could trap her on it.”

He rubs his hand over the back of his neck. I’m starting to wonder if that’s his way of working through what’s on his mind as he speaks. It’s cute.

He sighs heavily, looking at his work. ″Right now, I’ve got the frame going from behind the seat and over just the back tire so she can drape her coat over it. That way she can get on and pedal like normal since it’s behind her. I still think I need something for the side of the bike to keep it from getting caught in the gears.”

″I think it looks good so far.” I inspect the frame. “Like a bustle.”

″A what?” He looks at me curiously.

″A bustle. It’s a thing that makes it look like a woman’s butt juts out behind her.” I mime the silhouette of a bustle with my hand, but all I get is a curious and slightly intrigued look.

“You know, Cinderella,” I prompt.

Still nothing.

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