Chapter Six #2
Suddenly, an idea strikes me. An idea that sends a thrill shooting down my spine, but before I propose it, I want to make sure it’s okay with Colton. “If I promise to keep your dad out of your hair, would you be okay if I offered him a maintenance job here?”
“You want to hire… my dad… to stay here all summer and fix shit?” Colton asks, grimacing slightly. “Like, he’d be here… all summer?”
“I mean, only if it’s okay with you,” I assure him with a grin.
“I’m allowed to make up bogus policies about being an overprotective parent to one of my camp counselors, if need be.
You’re the boss though. If you don’t want me to extend an offer to him, I won’t.
It’d give him some time away from doing a job he clearly doesn’t want to do. Would that be okay?”
He picks at his cuticles again, clearly mulling it over. “He’d be helping you out?”
I nod. “He’s already fixed a bunch of things that have been on my to-do list for years. And he’s keeping Kai out of my hair by making him actually put in some work here, which I find endlessly amusing.”
Colton chuckles with me, and his expression lightens visibly. “It’s okay, I guess, but please don’t let him get all up in my shit.”
I grin. “I promise you, Colton, I will not allow him to get all up in your shit.”
One more idea strikes me as Colton pushes to a stand. One that Kai would reprimand me for, if he knew I was about to offer this for free.
“Oh, hey, and one more thing,” I tell him, before he steps out of my office. “If you do want someone to talk to, but don’t feel comfortable initiating that with your dad, come see me. My door is always open. Whatever you wanna talk about, it’ll all be confidential.”
Confidential and maybe a little self-serving, honestly.
In helping Colton work through his issues, I can satisfy that inner nag that I’m somehow repaying the self-imposed debt on the internal tab I’m keeping of all Evan’s help around here.
I have my doubts he’ll even accept the position, so I have to repay him somehow.
I don’t expect him to do all this for free, but he hasn’t accepted a dime from me, though I’ve offered many times.
No, in fact, all he’s asked for in return is to use my personal washing machine for his clothes, all while he repaired the leaking gasket on the camp’s industrial one.
A flitting expression of appreciation graces Colton’s face. “Thank you, that’d be awesome,” he says, before turning and leaving.
I manage to catch Evan right as he’s about to head out. As in, leave to go back to the coast, all without saying a word. As quietly as he came, he was about to slip out. Just like that.
That hurts, because I felt like we had a bit of a friendship forming between us. But I guess that was all one-sided. Sigh.
It’s almost obnoxious how much I want to pick him for details—any scrap of information—to get to know him. I don’t know if it’s the mystery surrounding him or what, but it’s not doing anything to help tamp down this simmering attraction I feel for him. In fact, it’s fanning the embers.
Maybe Ma’s right, I’m drawn to project men like a moth is to a flame. Kai, for example.
Despite how infuriatingly intriguing and handsome the man is, however, Evan is my forbidden fruit.
As with everything else, I simply don’t have time to chase an attraction.
Probably one that’s dead in the water, anyway.
Either I’m wrong, and he wears that ring because he’s already spoken for; or I’m right, and he wears it as a visual representation that he’s emotionally unavailable.
Both ways, however, don’t take into consideration that he may not even be attracted to men.
In fact, I’m quite certain he’s not. The almost pained look he gave me yesterday—while he was doing his laundry and I had just gotten out of the shower with only my towel wrapped around my waist—is probably a pretty good indicator that he’s not interested.
Could be that or the fluff I’ve put on over the last few years. I could probably stand to get back in the water and swim more. If only there were more hours in a day.
But Kai, an objectively very good-looking man, has been trying to work his magic on Evan, and has gotten the cold shoulder from him every time. That’s per Kai, though, so it’s debatable if it’s distaste for men in general or just distaste for Kai’s flamboyancy. Either is plausible.
What’s not plausible, however, is my ability to feed into this attraction anymore, which leads me to why I’m currently throwing myself behind Evan’s truck before he has a chance to back out of here.
I’m about to see if Evan wants to be my employee.
If he’s officially on the payroll, I can’t go mingling work with pleasure, but I can repay the IOU.
Purely transactional. Right.
His giant tires skid to a quick stop. “What the hell, Brooks? I almost just backed into you!”
I step up to his open driver’s side window, feeling tiny next to his giant truck, and am met with an even scowlier scowl than his usual. “Well, a couple things,” I tell him, “First, are you really just taking off without saying goodbye?”
He arcs an eyebrow up. “Bye. Happy now?”
I snort. “No. I also wanted to say thank you to you before you left. What you’ve done, you’ve helped me tremendously.”
He shrugs. “It’s fine. Kept me busy this weekend; seemed better than going back to an empty apartment.”
Alright, now that’s sad. I’m a hermit because I don’t have time for social outings. He’s, what… purposely secluded himself? No friends or anything? I shake away those thoughts, because I still have to ask him what I threw myself in front of his monster truck for.
“Well, so that brings me to my next thing,” I explain. “I caught up with Colton earlier. He mentioned something about how he got you fired from your job. Are you still looking for one?”
“I’ve got something for now,” he furnishes.
“Colton mentioned that too. He told me you don’t really like going out lobstering…”
Evan scrubs his hand down his face. “No, I don’t, but if I don’t get on the road soon, I’ll be back late and dragging ass tomorrow.”
“Would you be interested in a seasonal position here, instead? Clearly, we need a handyman around here…”
His gaze lifts from me to stare out the windshield. With his arm slung casually over the steering wheel, he taps his finger on the dash a couple of times. He pulls his bottom lip in between his teeth, clearly stewing on my offer.
“Can’t. Colt would shit a brick thinking I’m keeping tabs on him,” he finally replies, shaking his head.
“What if I told you he and I already talked about that too, and he agreed to me asking you if you wanted a position here, only if you promise not to engage with him?”
His brows furrow. “You want me to work here, but pretend he’s a stranger?”
“Not a stranger. A coworker. A peer.”
“You have enough stuff to get done here that I’d be out of his hair?”
“So much stuff is falling by the wayside. I spend most of my day having one on one sessions with the campers, so much so that I could use two of myself to do that job alone. Plus, Morgan still has softball and stuff for now. I don’t have the energy to tackle many projects.”
For a minute, I think he’s considering blowing off my offer and heading back to what he clearly has no passion for. Which is why it comes as a shock when he replies, “I think I can do that, then.”
I can’t even, nor do I try to, contain the broad smile that splits my face.
“So, yeah? You don’t even want to negotiate pay either?
Shoot, this has got to be the easiest interview ever.
” I huff out a breathy chuckle. “Don’t tell me, you won’t pass a background check…
That glimmer of hope just—poof!—evaporates. ”
His lips tip into an almost smile, but he bites his cheek to staunch it from spreading. “I’d pass. We can work something out. Anything’s got to be better than putting up with the old man barking orders at me all day.”
I shrug. “I can be bossy when I want to be.”
He snorts, eyeing me up-and-down. “Doubtful. Hardly known you all of a weekend, and I can already tell that’s complete bullshit.”
I mock offense at first, but then concede with a chuckle. “You’re probably right.”
“I know I am,” he says matter-of-factly, popping his cheek with his tongue. “Anyway, yeah, I’ll let you try to boss me around.”
Another grin works its way to my face. His cheeks get a little pink, odd, but he quickly glances out the windshield again, averting the way our eyes just met.
“I still need to go back and get more than just what I have on for clothes, though. That way, I’m not barging into your house all the time, until I can get the right gasket. ”
“I don’t mind you coming into the house, but yeah—wearing that one outfit all summer might get a little awkward.” I chuckle. “Maybe not as awkward as you trying to wear my sweatpants, though…” I tease.
He shoots me a withering look. He may not have appreciated the way the britches he borrowed from me, while his were in the wash, were a couple sizes too small for him, but I sure did. Talk about a barely obstructed view of his very manly manhood.
No, nope. I’m his boss now. I can stop engaging in this flirtatious banter anytime. I purposely drew this line in the sand to help extinguish these feelings. Time to be a boss, Brooks.
“Don’t jump out in front of me again,” he warns, tugging at the gear-shift, putting his truck back in reverse. “I’ll tie up some loose ends with the old man and be back in a couple days.”
Later in the evening, Kai snags a baby carrot from me and crunches it between his teeth, before I get a chance to chop it for the salad. He gives me a sardonic look. “Don’t we pay people to do this?” he asks, gesturing to the food prep splayed out in front of me.
Yes, the kitchen staff is here now, but since they’re prepping for the campers to arrive tomorrow, I’m working on something for everyone else tonight.
I had a little free time on my hands, now that I’m reassured that I’ve hired a handyman for the other things.
And besides, it’s not like it’s a huge deal, it’s just a couple pots of spaghetti, some garlic toast, and a couple of green salads.
I huff out a beleaguered breath. “Are you seriously going to audit every expenditure here this summer?”
He nabs another carrot and crunches that one just as obnoxiously. “Probably.” He swallows, helping himself to a swig from my water bottle. “Where’s the eye-candy? Finally get sick of me being a brat and leave?”
I set down my knife and spin to face him, crossing my arms over my chest. “You’re not allowed to give me any guff about this either,” I warn him.
“Guff,” he echoes with a chuckle. “You’re such an old fart. What am I not allowed to give you guff about?” he mocks.
“I hired him on as our new handyman,” I explain. “He’s gone to pack some clothes, and he’ll be back in a day or two.”
Kai’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “I’ve not a single guff to give about this expenditure. I rather like having something nice to look at while I toil away rehabbing this pigsty with him.”
“I get the sense that the feeling is not mutual. Please don’t keep needling him. He’ll be on the payroll now. Technically that’s sexual harassment.”
“Pfft.” Kai waves me off. “I’ll put money on him begging me for some D before we board up for the fall.”
A wave of sudden-onset nausea, roiling jealousy or carrot-induced IBS—I can’t tell which—slams into me.
I immediately bottle that up, however, and press a hand to Kai’s chest. I look him dead in his eyes, like it’ll help me summon a backbone. “Please don’t, Kai. I mean it.”
He snorts. “What, not like you claimed dibs on him… or did you, and I just missed it? Either way, there’s no reason why we can’t share like adults. Get a little humpy train chugga-luggin’,” he says, before cackling.
“Can you not?” I swipe my palm down my face. “Jeezum Criminey…”
He points at me, still laughing, as he starts backing out of the kitchen. “See? What’d I tell ya, you’re an old fart! Threesomes, I hear they’re a blessed thing,” he teases on his way across the empty dining hall.
“Then find two other guys and stop—” I start, but my words die off, because he’s already out the door.