The little boy had glue on his fingers and no father to hold up in front of the class, and the man sitting in the tiny plastic chair beside him was worth twelve billion dollars / Chapter 3 / 20

Chapter 3 - THE COTTAGE ON WILLOWThe front porch of 114 Willow Lane creaked under Adrien's boots.

It was 4:00 PM. School was out, and Toby was sitting on the top step, his small legs dangling over the edge, holding a bottle of wood glue and a handful of broken popsicle sticks. Nora stood three feet away, a clipboard in her hand, squinting at the rusted iron hinges of the front door.

"The frame is warped," she said, tapping her pen against the wood. "Water damage from the gutter leak on the south side. You'll need a carpenter who knows how to handle seventy-year-old oak, or the whole entryway will drop half an inch by winter."

Adrien stood beside her, his hands tucked into his pockets. He knew precisely how much the repair would cost down to the cent—his primary holding company owned three of the largest commercial construction firms on the East Coast. But he nodded as if learning it for the first time.

"Who do you recommend?" he asked.

"Old Man Miller down on 4th Street," Nora said without hesitation. "He’s slow, but he’s honest, and he won't charge you rich-guy prices."

Adrien smiled faintly. "Do I look like a rich guy?"

Nora turned her head, her grey eyes scanning him from his polished leather boots to his neat haircut. "You don't wear dirt well, Adrien. You look like a guy who’s never had to fix anything himself."

"I'm learning," he said.

Behind them, Toby let out a groan. "Look!"

Adrien turned. Toby held up his creation: two popsicle sticks glued together in a lopsided 'T', his small fingers covered in a milky film of half-dried craft glue.

"It's an airplane," Toby declared. "Like the one at the airport where Mom works."

"It's very... aerodynamic," Adrien said, walking over and sitting down on the dusty porch step beside the boy. He didn't care about the sawdust or the damp wood staining his jeans.

Toby looked at Adrien's hands. "You got big fingers. Can you hold this part while it dries?"

Adrien looked at the sticky, glue-covered piece of wood, then at his hands—hands that usually signed multi-million-dollar wire transfers and held crystal glasses at charity galas. He sat down completely, crossing his legs, and pinched the tiny piece of wood between his thumb and index finger.

"Like this?"

"Yeah," Toby said, breathing heavily with concentration as he applied another dab of glue. "Hold it real still. If you move, it breaks."

Nora watched them from the doorway. Her clipboard hung loose at her side. Her eyes were cautious, filled with a deep, lingering wariness that Adrien recognised all too well. It was the look of a woman who had built her life out of broken pieces and was terrified of anyone stepping on them.

"You don't have to do that," Nora said quietly. "He's making a mess."