“Food,” he said without turning around. Eeee, he’d heard her from that far away? Otters had very good hearing.
“See you soon, honey!” she called, waving at his back. Why was she like this?
“Don’t wreck my truck,” he called back.
Aw, so sweet.
She began to skip toward the truck, but her front foot slipped in the mud so that her legs spread out into an almost splits as she made a braying noise in her throat. So she righted herself and just walked like a normal person to his truck parked beside several others near the office.
“Is she okay?” one of the lumber workers asked loudly, but she ignored him and all the not-kind muttered answers from the others. Men were just grumpy when they were hungry. Or when they were awake in general.
She managed to start the truck, figure out the heater, and drive it slowly two miles down the mountain road to the food truck. She waited in the warmth of the heated rig while they made the giant order she put in and made it all the way back to the sawmill without sliding off the road. She was basically killing it at life today.
Feeling confident as fuck, she turned off the engine, sniffed the new car-scented air freshener that hung from the rearview mirror, put on some Chapstick, zipped up Kieran’s jacket around her, and made her way to the boys, her hands full of plastic bags of food, napkins, hot sauce containers, and forks.
Kieran was on his cell phone in a heated argument with one of their tree vendors, so she dropped his food off with the others and pointed to it when he turned to look at her. “That’s yours,” she murmured.
He nodded and gestured toward the office.
She tried not to have her feelings hurt at being banished to the office, but everything was okay. He had work to do, and she’d brought her laptop to update her website. At least he’d let her come here today. Not all men would do that. Not everyone would be okay with meeting a person in the morning and then showing them their jobsite a few minutes later, so she had to remember the good parts.
She set up her little eating station in the office on a futon that sat against the back wall. She took her first bite of burrito and, oh dear goodness, it was still warm and tasted so good.
The door blew open so hard it knocked against the wall, and in came Kieran with his blazing gold eyes and red cheeks, looking pissed. Instantly, the air in the office became impossible to breathe.
“H-hi,” she said around a bite as he set his bag of food on the futon next to hers.
“I swear, every fuckin’ year we have a problem with this company. It’s the same goddamn phone call every year, and then two months of us trying to get our money back, but your fuckin’ dad won’t let us cut ties with them. I’m gonna drive up there my damn self and fix this.”
“Your voice is very snarly.”
“It’s a three-hour drive, and the boys are fine with covering for me tomorrow. If my hands are tied on firing those motherfuckers, I’ll make it to where they never want me to come up there again.”
She believed him. He looked and sounded terrifying right now.
She held up a tiny container of green sauce. “Salsa Verde?” she asked.
He frowned. “Fine.” Kieran stood and grabbed a couple of bottled waters from a mini-fridge in the corner.
“I thought you wanted to eat with the boys. That’s why I left your food out there. You gestured for me to come in here.”
“No, I was saying take our food in the office. I can’t handle one more sarcastic remark from those assholes today. I’m gonna lose it.”
“Remarks about me?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“Um, thank you for bringing me here. You probably knew they would give you hell and you still brought me.”
He shrugged up a shoulder and sat on the floor. “Why aren’t you eating at the table?”
She glanced at the four-seater table near the desk and shrugged. Around a bite of food, she explained, “I don’t have a table in my tiny house. I’m used to eating on the bench, I guess.”
“Huh. Fair enough.” He ate in silence for a couple minutes and then told her, “I’ve seen your house before.”
“I know. You barged into it this morning. It wasn’t that long ago. I still remember.”
“No, I mean the house you grew up in. I had to bring some paperwork to your dad one night a few years ago. He invited me in for some fancy-ass bourbon. It’s a mansion.”
“Yeah, I was really lucky.”
“And here you are, slummin’ it with me.”
“Ha! You aren’t ‘slummin’ it.’ You’re actually the nicest pretend-boyfriend I’ve ever had.”
“I’m hoping I’m the only pretend-boyfriend you’ve ever had.”
“Jealous?”
“No, it’s just weird having pretend boyfriends.”
“Oh. Well, yes, before you, I was a virgin. To all of this. Not a virgin in real life. Obviously.” She forced a laugh. “I have sex all the time. I’m very experienced.”
“Sex addict?” Why was he smiling like that?
“Oh, yes. Definitely a sex addict. I should probably go to meetings. You know…to work on my issues…with all of the boys I’m sleeping with.”
“In your tiny house?”
“Yes. You know what they say. If the tiny house is a-rockin’…”
“Don’t come a-knockin’?”
She giggled and took another bite.
“I should probably know some shit about you before we go to the family party tonight.”
“Oh, yeah, you should. Okay, favorite color is burgundy, favorite holiday is Thanksgiving—”
“Why?”
“Because all you do is eat. I have a pet cat named Turtle, but she’s wild and only comes around because I feed her. She’s never actually let me pet her, and I think she might hate me because she hisses at me when I say, ‘Here turtle, turtle, turtle.’”
“Because you gave her a shitty name.”
“I have three sisters, all married. You’ll meet their perfect lawyer, doctor, and stock investor husbands tonight. Favorite liquor is vodka, favorite movies are romantic comedies, I like bright colors, and I’m in my mid-thirties and still don’t know what to do with my curls.” She pointed her finger to the floofy ball of hair on top of her head. “My family always jokes my real father is the milkman. No one else has these staggeringly superior genetics.”
He gulped a bite down and said, “Let me see your hair down.”
She yanked out the hair tie, then struck a few poses so he could see all angles of the mess.
“You have Rockstar hair. It’s fucking awesome.”
“I think this is the best way to meet.”
He took a drink of his water and asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you see me in my pajamas, not ready for the day, no makeup on, my hair a mess, and zero percent of my shit together. I’ve set the bar very low, so if I, say, put some makeup on…or some real clothes…your opinion of me has nowhere to go but up.”
“You look fine without makeup on.”
“Really?”
Kieran shrugged his shoulders and crumbled up his wrappers, cleaning up. “Doesn’t matter to me either way if you fix yourself up or not. This is all pretend.”