Terrible Advice From a Career Temp- Chapter Eight: Try to Fail Upwardly
Updated: Oct 5
Hawk and Piper drove through the night toward the Nevada border, where his company was based.
For once, they barely spoke.
Piper spent the first hour staring at her phone.
Blaise, meanwhile, hadn't contacted Piper at all.
That didn't particularly surprise her.
He was probably with his men's-club friends, drinking and explaining how Piper had humiliated him at the wedding where he'd hijacked the microphone and proposed without a ring.
Self-reflection had never been the club's primary activity.
Piper locked her phone.
Then she looked around Hawk's truck.
It was a nice truck.
Not flashy.
Expensive, certainly, but practical enough to suggest somebody had deliberately chosen not to look like he'd spent what he'd spent.
The back seat caught her attention.
There was a shallow indentation in the upholstery.
Booster seat.
Piper looked toward Hawk.
He didn't notice.
Then she lowered the passenger visor.
A faint lip-gloss smudge remained on the mirror.
She closed it again.
Dena had been right.
There was history here.
A lot of it.
Hawk had some explaining to do.
Strangely, Piper wasn't sure she wanted him to.
“There’s a park near here,” Hawk said sometime before sunrise. “Want to stop?”
“Sure.”
Piper was grateful for the suggestion.
They turned off the highway and eventually found themselves at an isolated bird sanctuary that looked as though somebody had forgotten to tell the rest of Nevada it existed.
The parking lot contained one other vehicle.
An elderly man stood nearby with a camera lens large enough to photograph wildlife in another state.
Otherwise, they had the place to themselves.
They started walking.
Cool morning air moved across the marsh.
Fog hung low over the water.
For the first time since Sofie's wedding, Piper felt as though her nervous system had stopped screaming.
Hawk shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.
“That was crazy back there.”
Piper shrugged.
“If you knew Blaise, you'd expect it.”
“The proposal?”
“The narcissism.”
Hawk looked at her.
“He always has to be the center of attention. It's what got me fired once.”
“How?”
“Long story.”
“I've got time.”
“I don't.”
Hawk laughed.
And there it was.
Piper glanced at him.
For the first time in years, his laugh sounded like his laugh.
Not bitter.
Not drunk.
Not defensive.
Just Hawk.
Something about that hurt.
They continued down the trail.
“Why stay with somebody like that?” Hawk asked.
Piper considered lying.
Then didn't.
“I was waiting him out.”
Hawk frowned.
“Waiting for what?”
“A better job. More money. Somewhere I could afford alone.”
She shoved her hands into her pockets.
“Blaise and I haven't really been a couple for a while. More like a partnership.”
“That doesn't sound like much of a partnership.”
“It wasn't.”
Hawk opened his mouth.
Piper expected advice.
Instead, he closed it again.
“Hmm.”
She almost smiled.
That was new.
The Hawk she'd encountered in San Antonio would have had an entire speech prepared.
This Hawk apparently understood that sometimes the smartest contribution to a conversation was shutting up.
They walked.
The trail circled the marsh for almost two miles.
Hawk told her how he'd discovered the place years earlier.
A road closure.
A wrong turn he'd mistaken for a detour.
No cell service.
Then suddenly this.
“You got lost,” Piper said.
“I discovered it.”
“You got lost.”
“I was exploring.”
“Against your will.”
“Details.”
Piper laughed.
There he was again.
The Hawk from the Stop 'N' Go.
The one from San Diego.
Funny.
Easy.
Confident without constantly needing to prove it.
She'd spent years thinking that version of him had been something she'd invented.
Apparently not.
He'd simply gotten buried for a while.
That realization should have made Piper happy.
Instead, it filled her with a strange sadness.
Because somebody else had apparently helped dig him back out.
They reached a small viewing platform overlooking the marsh.
Fog floated above the reeds while the first sunlight broke through the clouds.
Piper rested her arms against the railing.
“So what's the actual story with your company?”
Hawk scoffed softly.
She recognized that sound.
“You still do that.”
“Do what?”
“That little noise when you don't want to answer something.”
“I don't.”
“You absolutely do.”
Hawk smiled.
Then his expression became more serious.
“When I got out of the Marines, none of those cushy federal jobs everybody promises you were hiring. Contractor jobs either.”
“What did you do?”
“Construction.”
Piper looked at him.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I can't picture it.”
“I was extremely handsome holding lumber.”
“You've always been humble.”
“It's one of my best qualities.”
Piper smiled.
Hawk stared across the marsh.
“I kept running into other vets in the same position. Guys with useful skills who couldn't figure out how to translate any of it into civilian work.”
His smile disappeared.
“Some of them were living like beggars. Sleeping in trucks. Taking whatever they could get.
It pissed me off.”
“So you hired them.”
“One.”
He shrugged.
“Then another.”
“Then another?”
“Pretty much.”
Hawk explained how he'd started taking small contracts.
Then larger ones.
How he'd used contacts from the military and construction industries.
How logistics became more profitable than the actual labor.
How eventually he stopped being the guy looking for work and became the guy finding work for everyone else.
“And now?”
Hawk pulled out his phone.
The screen was covered in notifications.
“I've got a hundred and thirty-seven missed alerts since last night.”
Piper stared.
“You counted?”
“My phone did.”
“Thank God. I was worried you'd become insane.”
“Still possible.”
He put the phone away.
“It never stops.”
“Do you like it?”
Hawk hesitated.
“That wasn't my question.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Hawk looked over the marsh.
“Sometimes.”
“That's not convincing.”
“If I stop growing, we lose contracts. If we lose contracts, people lose jobs. If people lose jobs, I feel like I failed.”
Piper considered that.
“So you keep making it bigger.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want it bigger?”
Another pause.
“I'd feel like a failure if it got smaller.”
“That is also not an answer.”
“I know.”
They stood together quietly.
Piper suddenly understood something about Hawk she hadn't when they were younger.
Hawk needed forward motion.
Maybe he'd always needed it.
The Marines.
The business.
Expansion.
Contracts.
New places.
New challenges.
He wasn't necessarily chasing money.
He was chasing momentum.
Standing still frightened him.
Piper was almost the opposite.
She wanted something she could finally keep.
They walked back toward the truck.
Inside, Piper reclined her seat.
Something rolled beneath her shoe.
She bent down.
A sippy cup.
Piper picked it up.
Hawk saw it.
His expression changed.
“And here I thought I could sneak that past you.”
Piper handed it to him.
“I already knew.”
“You did?”
She pointed toward the back.
“Booster-seat dent.”
Then toward the visor.
“Lip gloss.”
Hawk rubbed his forehead.
“You should've been a detective.”
“I've worked enough terrible jobs. Don't give me ideas.”
He placed the cup in the back.
Piper looked at him.
“Kids?”
Hawk nodded.
She waited.
He didn't elaborate.
“Wife?”
Hawk stared through the windshield.
“Complicated.”
Piper almost laughed.
“Of course it is.”
“Separated.”
That explained Dena's ring observation.
“How long?”
“A while.”
“Does she know you're here with me?”
“Yes.”
That mattered.
Piper nodded.
Then Hawk said:
“She knows who you are.”
Piper slowly turned toward him.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Good oh or bad oh?”
“Depends on the year.”
Piper winced.
“Great.”
Hawk laughed softly.
Again, that familiar laugh.
Piper looked at him.
Really looked.
He seemed healthier.
Not physically perfect.
Not twenty-something Hawk.
Better than that.
Settled.
There was still exhaustion around his eyes.
But the anger she'd seen in San Antonio wasn't there.
Neither was the constant need to prove something.
“You stopped drinking,” Piper said.
Hawk glanced at her.
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Completely?”
“Completely.”
Piper nodded.
“Good.”
“That's all?”
“What do you want, a coin?”
“I have coins.”
“Of course you do.”
Hawk smiled.
Then Piper asked the question before she could lose her nerve.
“Was it her?”
“Was what her?”
“Your wife.”
Hawk became still.
Piper continued carefully.
“You're different.”
His expression tightened.
“Different good or different bad?”
“Old different.”
“That clears it right up.”
“You're more like the person I met.”
Hawk looked away.
Piper studied him.
“I thought that guy was gone.”
“For a while, he probably was.”
“And she helped?”
A long silence.
Then Hawk nodded.
“Yeah.”
That single word hurt more than Piper expected.
Not because she resented his wife.
Quite the opposite.
Piper suddenly felt an unexpected gratitude toward a woman she'd never met.
“She put up with a lot,” Hawk said.
Piper smiled faintly.
“I bet.”
“I wasn't easy.”
“I know.”
Hawk gave her a look.
“Sorry.”
“No. Fair.”
He stared at his hands.
“She got me to stop drinking.”
Piper said nothing.
“Got me into counseling. Helped with the business when it was barely a business. Her family
helped too.”
There it was.
The rest of the story.
Not the self-made Hawk Piper had unconsciously imagined.
A real person.
Helped by other real people.
His wife.
Her family.
Connections.
Money.
Support.
The things that allowed people to become success stories instead of cautionary tales.
Piper wasn't disappointed.
She understood him better.
And understanding him made the whole thing sadder.
Because the Hawk she'd wanted back had come back.
Someone else had helped him find the way.
Piper looked through the windshield.
“You know, for the longest time, I wished you'd come find me.”
Hawk turned toward her.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn't you ever say that?”
“Because I have pride.”
“That seems inconvenient.”
“It has been.”
Hawk smiled.
Piper didn't.
“I used to imagine you'd move out there.”
“To your town?”
“Yeah.”
Hawk's expression changed almost imperceptibly.
Piper noticed.
There it was.
Not disgust.
Not judgment.
Just hesitation.
“You'd hate it,” Piper said.
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't have to.”
“Piper.”
“You would.”
Hawk sighed.
She smiled.
“It's okay.”
And strangely, it was.
Piper pictured Hawk in her world.
Dena dropping by unannounced.
Sofie needing somebody to watch a child.
Benny borrowing tools.
School pickups.
Grocery runs.
Neighbors who knew everyone's business.
The same restaurants.
The same roads.
The same people.
Hawk would tolerate it.
Maybe even enjoy it for a while.
Then he'd start looking toward the horizon.
Another opportunity.
Another contract.
Another city.
Something bigger.
“You think I'm small-town,” Piper said.
“I don't.”
“Yes, you do.”
“That's not an insult.”
“I know.”
That surprised him.
Piper smiled.
“I think you're too big-city.”
“I don't even live in a city.”
“You know what I mean.”
Hawk did.
Piper looked toward the back seat.
“You'd move in with me and reorganize my whole life.”
“I would not.”
“You absolutely would.”
“Why am I the villain in this imaginary scenario?”
“You'd buy the empty lot next door.”
Hawk thought about it.
“Probably.”
“Then you'd build something.”
“Obviously.”
“Then there'd be trucks.”
“Maybe.”
“Employees.”
“Potentially.”
“Then you'd buy the house across the street because somebody needed temporary housing.”
“That actually makes sense.”
“Hawk.”
“What?”
Piper laughed.
“Exactly.”
They both laughed.
Then it faded.
Because underneath the joke was the truth.
Hawk wouldn't mean to take over Piper's life.
He simply expanded into spaces.
That's what he did.
Businesses.
Projects.
Places.
Problems.
Piper had spent years doing the opposite.
She'd been trying to carve out one little corner of the world that fit her exactly.
She didn't want Hawk arriving with his momentum and turning it into something else.
And she didn't want to follow him into his world either.
Hawk looked at her.
“So what does that make us?”
Piper thought about it.
“Friends with terrible timing?”
“That's depressing.”
“Accurate, though.”
He smiled faintly.
Piper looked down.
“We aren't a real couple, Hawk.”
“We never really tried.”
“I know.”
“You don't know that it wouldn't work.”
“No.”
Piper met his eyes.
“But I know what it would cost.”
Hawk's expression changed.
Piper continued.
“If I went with you, I'd spend my life trying to keep up with something I don't even want.”
He didn't argue.
“And if you came with me…”
Piper looked toward the empty highway.
“You'd get restless.”
“I could slow down.”
“For how long?”
Hawk didn't answer.
That was the answer.
Piper smiled sadly.
“You love what you built.”
“Most days.”
“You love your kids.”
Hawk nodded.
“You have people who depend on you.”
“So do you.”
“Exactly.”
There it was.
They finally understood each other.
Not perfectly.
Enough.
Hawk had built a life around expansion.
Piper was building hers around belonging.
Neither was lesser.
Neither was wrong.
But one of them would have to surrender too much for the other.
Piper reached over and rested her hand on his shoulder.
“I think I finally understand why we never worked.”
Hawk looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because every time we found each other, one of us thought the other one needed rescuing.”
Hawk absorbed that.
Piper smiled.
“I don't need rescuing anymore.”
“I know.”
“And you don't either.”
Hawk looked away.
After a moment, he nodded.
“No.”
Piper squeezed his shoulder.
“We both have to go home.”
Hawk let out a quiet laugh.
Not uncomfortable.
Sad.
“I guess this is it.”
Piper felt something tighten in her chest.
She'd imagined this moment before.
In some versions, Hawk kissed her.
In others, he finally said exactly the right thing.
Sometimes Piper abandoned everything and went with him.
Sometimes Hawk abandoned everything and stayed.
Real life was considerably less cinematic.
Piper nodded.
“Yeah.”
“This is it.”
Hawk drove her several miles off the freeway to a rental-car office.
He paid for the car.
Piper protested.
“You drove me halfway across the country in formal clothes after I fled my sister's wedding.”
“Exactly. You've suffered enough.”
“I can pay.”
“I know.”
That was different too.
He wasn't paying because he thought she couldn't.
He was paying because he'd brought her here.
Piper let him.
They stood beside the rental car.
Neither moved.
Finally, Hawk opened his arms.
Piper stepped into them.
He hugged her.
Not desperately.
Not romantically.
Just tightly.
Piper closed her eyes.
There he was.
The Hawk she'd met all those years ago.
Funny.
Kind.
Complicated.
A little ridiculous.
The man she'd spent years wishing would come back.
And now that he had, Piper finally understood why she couldn't keep him.
She pulled away.
Hawk looked at her.
“You would've hated Nevada.”
Piper laughed.
“You would've hated my town.”
“Probably.”
“I know.”
“You'd make me go to children's birthday parties.”
“Constantly.”
“You'd know all your neighbors.”
“By name.”
“Horrifying.”
“You'd turn my backyard into a staging yard.”
“It would be a very efficient staging yard.”
Piper laughed.
Then her eyes unexpectedly filled.
Hawk's did too.
Neither mentioned it.
“I'll always care about you,” Piper said.
Hawk nodded.
“Same.”
That was enough.
It had to be.
Piper got into the rental car.
Hawk stepped back.
She started the engine.
For years, Piper had thought Hawk was the one who got away because circumstances had kept stealing him from her.
Distance.
The Marines.
Jobs.
Bad timing.
Other relationships.
Adulthood.
Now she understood something harder.
Hawk hadn't gotten away.
Neither of them had failed to catch the other.
They had simply grown into lives that couldn't be combined without diminishing one of them.
Hawk had found his way back to himself through a life Piper could never have given him.
His wife.
His children.
The business.
The people who depended on him.
Even the mistakes.
All of it had shaped the man standing in the parking lot.
Piper had found herself too.
Not through ambition on Hawk's scale.
Through family.
Work.
Survival.
Little responsibilities that had slowly become a life.
Hawk probably did think she was small-town.
Maybe she was.
For years, Piper would have heard that as an insult.
Now she didn't.
She wanted Dena nearby.
She wanted Sofie's children bursting through her door.
She wanted Benny borrowing things and forgetting to return them.
She wanted familiar roads.
A business small enough that she knew the people working for it.
A home that didn't need to impress anybody.
She wanted roots.
Hawk wanted horizons.
Neither needed to apologize.
Piper rolled down the window.
“Hawk.”
He leaned toward her.
“What?”
“If you ever decide to move to my town—”
He smiled.
“Yeah?”
“Don't.”
Hawk burst out laughing.
Piper did too.
“Got it.”
“I'm serious. You'll ruin the property values.”
“Your town could use some development.”
“See? This is exactly what I'm talking about.”
Hawk stepped away from the car.
Piper put it into reverse.
She looked at him one last time.
The one who got away.
The phrase finally made sense.
Sometimes the person who got away wasn't the person you were supposed to chase.
Sometimes they were simply the person you would always love enough to let remain themselves.
Hawk raised one hand.
Piper raised hers.
Then she pulled out of the parking lot.
She didn't look back.
Not because she didn't care.
Because she finally knew where she was going.
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