Page 29 of Raise The Bar
I shrug, pushing my curls back from my face. I wasn’t expecting the question and my brain is scrambling to come up with something. What do I want? “I want more people to have access to my soaps. I’ve seen what quality products can do and I want to help more people with their skin issues.” He stares at me, a smile creeping over his face and I stiffen. “What? Is that not the right answer?”
“Few people start a business with the primary goal of helping others. Sure, a lot of businesses help people, but the driving force behind them is profit. People will invest in something if it will make them money. If people benefit from it along the way, great, but when that happens it’s just a pleasant side effect.”
“Helping people has always been my goal.” I study one of the graphs he’s made, feeling his eyes on me.
“Spend some time thinking about what kind of business you want to build. Once you have an idea what your ideal end game looks like, I’ll help you build it. How does that sound?”
“That sounds great,” I beam at him with genuine gratitude. I can do that. “Thank you for your help with this. I really appreciate it.”
“It’s my pleasure.” He blushes a little bit, which is new on him. I hate how much I like it. “Do you have other plans tonight?”
“I do.” I stand from the table and sling my duffle bag haphazardly over my shoulder. “I have a new book and a bubble bath awaiting me at home.”
His eyebrows raise at this new information. “A new book, eh? Is this one as filthy as the last one?”
“A girl can hope.” I head for the door with Callum close on my heels. We’re standing in the exact place I kissed him. The memory of my lips on his is far from unpleasant.
“Any more dates lined up?” he asks, pausing at the door.
“A dinner date tomorrow,” I admit with a sigh. “I don’t know how many more I’m going to set up, to be honest. It would have been fun to find someone to take to the wedding, but between work, figuring out the business, and the wedding itself, I don’t think I have the time or energy.”
“That’s fair. Keep me posted,” he says. I raise an eyebrow at him. “What? Friends tell each other about their dates.”
“Okay,” I nod somewhat doubtfully. “I will keep you posted. As a friend.” Things feel a bit weird between us, but considering everything that happened tonight, I’m surprised they aren’t weirder.
“And keep me posted on the new book?” he adds, watching me walk the short distance to the elevator. “While you’re at it, keep me posted on the bath as well.” The elevator doors open almost immediately and I enter shaking my head. “Friends talk about books and baths as well.”
“Goodnight, Clark.”
“Sleep well, Lois.”
Chapter 17
Callum
“Istill don’t know how I feel about the beard. He looks like he’s some kind of cowboy. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t found a girlfriend.”
My grandmother’s face takes up the entire screen of my phone, squinting at me like I’m some sort of anomaly.
“He can hear you, mother,” my mom says off-screen. She has explained how FaceTime works to Grams at least a dozen times, but she continues to make comments like these ones as if I can’t hear her.
“Oh right,” Grams says, holding the phone even closer to her face and speaking louder. “Do you think the beard is why you can’t get a girlfriend, dear?”
I shake with laughter and grin at her. “Maybe, Grams.” I love this woman and would put up with her stinging barbs any day of the week. “But I seem to remember Gramps rocking a serious mustache in your wedding photos. He still managed to get the girl.”
“The seventies were a strange time, my boy. It’s best not to dwell on that decade.”
It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m catching up with my family. My mother and grandmother are making pies for a church barbeque this evening. The pies will be up for bid in a silent auction, with the money raised going to local charities. My grandmother’s pies have received the highest bids for the last twelve years, a fact that she is enormously proud of. What she doesn’t know is that my grandfather has secretly been the top bidder for each of those pies for the last twelve years. He told me this in strict confidence when I turned sixteen and for years I’d help him smuggle the pie home. We’d meet in the garage after everyone was in bed and eat the pie straight from the plate.
Seeing the women who raised me, wearing the same aprons they’ve had since I was a young boy, covered in flour and bickering about how much cinnamon goes in the apple pie mixture makes me feel homesick for the first time in ages. They’re standing in my grandparent’s kitchen, their blue gingham curtains visible behind them. They never bake at my mother’s condo because Grams doesn’t trust the “grandiose” oven.
“Leave him alone, Mom,” my mother chides, walking behind her in the background.
“How are people supposed to know how handsome that face is with all that hair hiding it?” Grams is back to talking like I can’t hear her again. “I’m just saying that with all that money, he can afford a good shave and a haircut.”
My grandmother was a nurse before she married my grandfather. My grandfather was an accountant who fancied himself a handyman on the side. He was helping a friend reshingle a roof when he lost his footing and fell right off the edge. He was taken to the hospital where Grams worked and she was tasked with bandaging him up while they waited for the doctor. Apparently, my grandmother gave him the most scathing lecture about his disregard for his own personal safety, that according to Gramps stung more than the broken ribs. When she’d finally stopped berating him, he promised to never set foot on a roof again if she agreed to let him take her to dinner. They were married a year later and, to this day, Gramps has never set foot on a roof again.
My grandparents are different in all ways, except for how much they love one another and the pride in the family they created. The strength of their relationship has been an unwavering constant in my life. If I thought I had a chance of finding someone who could give me the equivalent of what they share, I would sign myself up immediately. But love like theirs is the exception, not the rule.
