“Daniel,” he says. “Everything all right upstairs?” He looks toward the closed doorway.
“Nan tried to get up and fell.” I shake my head. Nan’s head is still solid, but her body won’t cooperate and she just doesn’t fully grasp her limitations yet. “Pete’s upstairs charming her back into bed.” I laugh. That man has a way with people.
“The Reeds,” he says. “They seem pretty nice.”
I roll my eyes. “All five of them in one room can be a little overwhelming.” I had a crush on Pete for a little while, but then he met Reagan, and they are so freaking perfect for one another that I quickly discarded that notion.
“There are five of them?” he asks. He scratches his head. “I think I only met two.”
I start to count on my fingers. “Paul, Matt, Logan, Sam and Pete, in order of age. Sam and Pete are twins, although Sam swears he’s eight minutes older.”
I walk over to where Granddad started on Daniel’s watch. “Is this yours?” I ask, as I pick up my glasses and sit down on the stool. I bend Granddad’s light toward the watch. I look into it, and, although I’ve never worked on one of these, I might be able to fix it.
“It was my grandfather’s.”
I look up at him. “What happened to it?”
He looks everywhere but at me. “There was an explosion. In Afghanistan.”
“Was that where you were injured?” I ask, but my mind is already on the inner workings of the clock.
“Yeah,” he says and he blows out a breath.
“So your watch hasn’t worked since the blast?” I ask. I’m trying to figure out what could be the matter. Because the gears turn when I manually work them.
“Nothing has worked for me since the blast,” he says. His voice is suddenly heavy and I look up.
“What do you mean?”
“The clock,” he goes on to clarify, but I’m pretty sure he just meant life. “It hasn’t worked since.”
“Mm hmm,” I hum. I start to remove the gears and pieces and lay them on the table in front of me.
“Are you sure you should be doing that?” he asks. He walks close to me and pulls up a stool. He’s fidgety, and he makes me a little nervous now that he’s close to me. But Granddad and Pete are right upstairs.
I look up at him. “You do want it fixed, right?” I ask.
He nods. “More than anything.” He heaves a sigh. “I feel like time stood still that day, and it never started back up.”
I nod. But I can’t look at him. He’s telling me more than he wants to, and I’m afraid he’ll stop if he realizes how closely I’m listening. “Did you lose any friends?” I keep working on the watch, removing the parts piece by piece.
“I lost all my men.” His voice gets thick and he coughs to clear his throat. “Everyone. I lost everyone and everything.”
“Where’s your family?” I ask.
I feel the warm breeze of his heavy exhale. “All gone.”
I finally look up. “I’m sorry.”
He nods. He gets up and starts to wander around the shop. An hour later, I’ve put his watch back together and I wind it up. It should work. But it just doesn’t. And I don’t know why. I heave a sigh.
“What’s wrong?” he asks from directly behind me. I feel the heat of his breath on the back of my neck, and the hair on my arms stands up.
“Nothing,” I say and I start to take it apart again. I look over my shoulder at him. “Are you in a hurry?”
He shrugs and settles down beside me. He picks up a pen and starts to spin it on the tabletop. I look over at him. “Sorry,” he says sheepishly, and he stops the pen from spinning with a slap of his hand. “So, you live here?” he asks. “In New York? All the time?”
I nod. And I keep disassembling his watch. Watches are made on a series of gears, even watches this old. I make sure each one works as I put it back in place. There are no snags. No broken gears. No missing parts. Nothing was jarred loose in the blast. “Yep,” I say quickly.
“Have you always lived here?” he asks.
“No,” I grunt. “I moved here when my grandmother got sick. Before that, I was in Florida.”
“Do you like it here?” he asks.
I shrug. “One place is as good as another.”
“Why aren’t you married?” he asks.
I look up. “What makes you think I’m not?”
He grins, but it doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “Because any man in his right mind wouldn’t let you out of his sight.”
I jerk my head up. He gets up and starts to wander around again, like he didn’t just say something profound. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I mumble.
He cups his hand around his ear and leans toward me. He grins. “What was that?” he asks.
“Never mind.” My gaze drops to his lips. He licks his full upper lip, and I have to force myself to look away.
“Something wrong?” he asks. His eyes drop to my mouth and he walks closer to me. Is he thinking about kissing me?
I look down at the watch. I shrug out of my sweater, because it’s suddenly hot in here. “No,” I say.
I look at the parts of his watch, which are scattered all over my table. The door to the upstairs opens and Pete walks down. Half way, he slows down, and looks from me to Daniel and back. “What did I miss?” He grins.