Page 45 of Safety Net (Mendell Hawks #3)

LINCOLN

It took us an hour to load everything back into the rideshare. Lucas helped after I ended the current ride with a substantial tip and promised to do the same once he took me back into town.

"You sure you got this?" Aaron asked before I could hop back into the SUV and hurry back to Tinsel.

"Not at all." I flashed him a smile and cracked open my last water bottle. The buzz of alcohol had worn off, replaced by a headache akin to what I'd imagine the sensation of someone drilling directly into my skull would feel like. But I was still standing and still committed.

"I'm going to give it one hell of a shot," I said. Celeste was my main driving force, but there was also a small hope I could prove myself wrong. That I wasn't a lost cause.

The ride back to Tinsel took longer because the rain picked up once again. This time, it became a full-on storm, and Lucas became a timid driver.

"Is it too much to ask you to pick up the pace to a steady, I don't know, twenty-five miles per hour?

" I sat in the front this time, obsessively watching the clock.

It was almost 3 AM. We had to stop at Celeste's aunt's because I had no way of getting into the playhouse without a key.

I'd texted Ellis, who was thankfully up.

He was a night owl who liked me enough to push off his sleep a bit longer and pass off a set of keys.

"You alright for one more stop?" I asked, wary when Lucas swerved around a pothole that couldn't have been larger than a mixing bowl.

"Yeah." His knuckles were white from his iron grip on the wheel, gaze never straying from the torrential downpour.

I wanted to offer to drive, but I still wasn’t entirely sober, and there was no chance in hell he'd let me bend the rideshare rules.

By the time we reached Celeste's aunt's house, I’d concluded I was not taking the quick nap I thought might be on the horizon once everything was unloaded.

And I was okay with that because every time I thought about how Celeste looked when I confessed I hadn't done what I promised, I felt like throwing up.

"Celeste's going to be so nervous about this.” Ellis answered the door, dressed in all-black and tugging on a pair of sneakers.

"I just need the keys," I said.

"I'm coming with you. This musical means a lot to me, too. Plus, I really like you for Celeste. You challenge her without being overbearing. She needs that. And you're very close to fucking it up. I'll feel guilty till the end of time if I don't do something to help."

I sighed. Even though I was still adamant about fixing this on my own, every minute that went by felt like a crushing weight.

I had to be smart about this if I really wanted to finish in time.

If I didn’t complete this task, it wouldn't matter whether I did it alone or not.

Celeste's trust in me would plummet. And who knew how long it'd take to get it back. Or if I'd ever get it back.

"I'm going to see this through," I promised. "And not just today. Because losing Celeste isn't something I'll ever be able to live with."

Ellis smiled and clapped my shoulder. "Let's make sure it doesn't happen."

The rain finally stopped once we got to the playhouse.

It was still dark outside while we unloaded everything.

At night, the playhouse felt eerie and smelled stale.

The moment we placed the last display on the stage, I slipped into autopilot.

Lucas wished us good luck, leaving Ellis and me exhausted on our own.

"Let's catch our breath for a second." Ellis practically crawled to a chair in the audience, resting his head back onto the cushion and closing his eyes.

"You rest a bit," I offered. He'd started huffing and puffing on our third trip to the car. By the fifth, I knew he wouldn't have enough energy for the mountain we had to climb.

"How are you not knocked out?" Ellis asked with his eyes closed.

"I've got a pretty consistent third wind."

"Huh?"

"If I'm focused on something, I don't just have a second wind, but a third." I clicked a few pieces into place, just as Aaron shown me.

"Lucky."

"Very. It's twenty percent genetics," I said.

"Eighty percent Celeste. I keep imagining a scenario where I did everything right.

And it's constant fuel. Like trying to push myself onto a different timeline.

A preferred timeline. A place where I'm not so dead set on ruining everything before it’s begun. "

"I love ruining things. Self-sabotage is my favorite hobby. My therapist says it's a coping skill from being expected to deliver a perfect routine before my brain developed. What about you?" Ellis asked around with a yawn.

"I don't have a therapist," I said. "Yet."

That would be going on my list of high priorities. No more managing my emotions with only mystery novels…even though it didn't seem like the worst way to cope.

"No, why self-sabotage? You figure it out yet?"

I opened the box of screws and sat down on the cold, dusty stage as I sorted them. "My parents told me I wasn't worth it. From what I can remember, it was a joke. But it stuck."

"Damn, sorry," Ellis said, voice quiet with sympathy. "It's the little stuff sometimes. Things people don't mean anything by."

"Tell me about it." I nodded, thinking about what had happened and how I hadn't even remembered what my parents had said until talking to Celeste. She'd broken that spell. When she asked for my help, she'd expected more from me. She'd trusted me to deliver. She believed.

A stab of pain shot through my chest, and I picked up the pace.

Ellis' soft snore and the scraping of wood against the floor were the only things left to keep me company.

I stuffed all the doubts into the depths of my mind, replacing them with the reminder Celeste had believed.

Hopefully, that meant somewhere deep down, I could pull this off.

My hands were dry from paint, my arms ached from rearranging, and my legs were ready to give out from dragging myself past my threshold.

I hopped off the stage to get a better look at how the lights shone down on set.

The sun came up a couple of hours ago. Warm light stretched in from underneath the entrance door, trying to wake the dark theatre.

"Well?" I asked Ellis, who had also gotten off the stage, to join my side as we took in our work.

He'd slept for only an hour before getting up and getting to work.

Since Ellis wasn't motivated to make the woman he was in love with happy, he moved at a slower pace than I did.

Despite that, I appreciated the company.

"Does it look okay?" I examined our handiwork.

Despite this being a rush job, I'd done everything possible to make sure the details were correct.

The paint job had been meticulous, resulting in clean lines and no smudges.

I'd rigged up the backdrop so the crew backstage could easily change it with a tug of the rope.

It took a good half hour to retrieve decor from storage and figure out how to arrange the flowers, bushes, and wicker baskets in a non-distracting way.

"Do you think she'll like it?" I asked, reconsidering my arrangement, wondering if the banister needed a fourth coat of paint. I debated whether I'd given enough attention to the balcony positioning because if it were a little more to the left, the lights above would hit the actors more easily.

"She's going to love it." Ellis nudged my arm when he noticed my brow was tense. "You did an incredible job. It looks way better than I thought it'd be."

"Really? No notes? Don't hold back. I need this to be perfect for her." I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to quiet my critical thoughts. I'd reached the point of fatigue where opening my eyes from blinking felt like pulling a boulder from the bottom of the ocean.

"Lincoln, it's perfect," he assured. "You've been up for over twelve hours. Even if there was something to fix, I don't think your brain would be capable of doing it well. You need to get back home and get some rest."

"What about the bench on that side?" I pointed. "Don't you think it'll look better in the middle?"

"Lincoln," he said, serious. "Have you been diagnosed with ADHD?"

I blinked (it takes my last bit of willpower not to knock out while standing). "What?"

"You've never mentioned it, so I thought maybe you hadn't. And then, I wondered if maybe you didn't even recognize your symptoms."

"I'm…no, I haven't gotten tested." It'd been something my teachers considered when I was in elementary school.

But somewhere along the way, my grandma brushed off testing and instead decided TV and the internet were the problem.

And books were the solution. I stayed still long enough when I got caught up in the Hardy Boys series, thus satisfying the adults around me.

"You should consider it," Ellis said. "Meds help me a ton."

"I'll add it to my growing list of concerns," I promised, tucking the information in the back of my mind to revisit when I wasn't challenging the earth to a race around the sun.

"Good. But for now—" Ellis grabbed my shoulder and gave it a tight squeeze. “—sleep. You need it. We could nitpick right into next week; it doesn't matter at this point."

"This just...it all has to be perfect for her," I said. "If I ruined this—"

"Celeste is the most forgiving person I know."

"I know, and that's exactly why I don't want even to ask that of her.

" One night of hard work wasn't going to change me fundamentally.

I had to do better consistently, and I would keep doing so.

In the meantime, I wasn't expecting forgiveness.

But a small, selfish part of me hoped she'd be willing to give me a chance. That she’d be willing to wait for me while I removed my roadblocks and untangled my hang-ups.

"You won't have to ask," Ellis said.

I smiled. "Thanks for being here."

"It's my mom's set and my cousin's dream," he said. "I'm biologically obligated to be here."

I chuckled. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Sorry, I'm not as alert as you after this long," he said. "You must be incredible during finals week."

"It's typically my best week," I confirmed.

"Let's go home." Ellis's shoulders relaxed, relieved he was finally able to step away.

I shook my head, mind still racing and stomach twisting at the thought of forgetting something. There would be no stone unturned, especially this close to the finish line. The joy of finishing the set was temporary, overshadowed by one final task. "Not yet."

"Lincoln." He groaned. "The bench is fine where it is. Everything's fine where it is."

I laughed. "No, I know. I just have to pick up some flowers. That's tradition, right? Opening night flowers?"

"Celeste will understand if you forgo tradition."

"I want her to have it all. She's going to have it all."

"Fine." He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "And then, sleep?"

"Then sleep," I agreed.