Summer Sweat (Spruce Texas)

“Early delivery!” sings Harrison with a cheery smile, which catches me off-guard considering how moody he was in the truck. “Got the finishing touches done last night, and figured I’d come by for a surprise. Do you and Chad know where you want it? Or—”

“Who do you think makes all the decisions around here? Not the guy who can’t tell the difference between beige and eggshell.” He notices me. “Oh, you brought a strapping young assistant …?”

“Hoyt,” I introduce myself after we set down the table in front of the door. I reach for a handshake.

The man—Chad Landry’s husband, I assume—gives me a nod as he shakes my hand. “Well, well. Strapping young assistant has manners. I’m Lance.” He’s still shaking my hand as he glances at Harrison and lifts an eyebrow. “Is this the new troublemaking hotshot I’ve been hearing about?”

I scrunch up my face with confusion as Harrison clears his throat. “He graduated high school this spring and needed a job. Gary offered. Now he’s shadowing me for the summer.”

“Shadowing.” Lance—still shaking my hand—smirks. “That’s a mighty lot of words to have still not answered my question.”

Harrison, clearly not up for playing games, keeps his cheery smile pasted on as he pats the table. “Where do you want your hot new beauty, Mr. Goodwin?”

“I got him right where I want him and I’m shaking his hand,” says Lance coyly. Then he lets go. “Kidding. You’re jailbait, and I’m still not sure what the rules are here for flirting with young men.”

I blink, confused. “Uh … flirting?”

“Ignore him,” Harrison says to Lance. “The boy’s kinda thick and everything goes over his head.”

Lance frowns, studying me. “Hmm. Why’s that make him even more adorable? Sorry, I’m coming off strong and we just met.”

I feel like I’m missing something. “Hey, I ain’t thick,” I retort to Harrison belatedly.

“You have to understand,” says Lance, “I’m a kind of Spruce-born California re-transplant. It’s confusing, and you are in no way obligated to understand it. I’ll show you boys where to bring the table. It’s the spot where Chad’s old ugly table used to be.”

Lance holds open the door to the guesthouse as Harrison and I lift the table and bring it inside. The guesthouse is an open room with a connected living room, dining, and kitchen area. Past the kitchen leads to a bedroom and bathroom, from the looks of it, and the other way past the living room appears to be a room full of sewing machines and baskets full of bolts of fabric. Lance leads us to the middle of the empty dining area, where we set down the table. Harrison smiles at Lance. “Ready for the big reveal?” Then he peels off the protective tarp, and before our eyes now sits a beautiful, smooth mahogany table, dark in color, with decorative etchings all around the edge and down the legs.

“Fucking beautiful!” cries Lance with sudden gusto. “Oh, and all the details on the sides …! You’re truly an artist.”

Harrison chuckles. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“I would, and farther. It’ll go so great with Chad’s chairs. You matched the color perfectly.”

“Tried my best,” admits Harrison.

“Ugh, now I’m wondering if we got this all wrong and should put this in the main house. I mean, we still need a table here, but now that I see it …” He shrugs. “Y’know what? I’ll let Chad decide. He’s got this weird emotional attachment to the table in the main house. Something to do with his ex Jo, but that’s another story. Also, Millie would probably gnaw on the legs and ruin it. She’s got a weird leg-gnawing obsession. That’s our dog,” he adds as an aside to me. “Anyway, enough of that. How much do we owe you?”

“Chad already paid,” says Harrison. “You owe me nothing. Got the chairs?”

Lance throws a thumb over his shoulder. “Stored them in my little studio. Wanna see? It’s kinda my spare studio, used for when I just want to play around with new ideas, experiment, all that. My bigger studio is in the main house, but—Y’know what? I’m talking too much. Come in, the both of you. It’s a mess, but if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be able to call myself a true designer.”

He takes us to his studio—the room with the sewing machines and baskets of fabric off the living room—to get the dining chairs. Lance can’t help but to show off a few pieces he’s working on, one of which reminds me of a dress I think I saw someone wearing at prom. Actually, more than one. Now that Lance Goodwin is the big name in local fashion, everyone in Spruce, Fairview, and about three or four other nearby towns want his clothes for all kinds of occasions, from weddings to school dances to ritzy galas.