31. Monday
CHAPTER 31
MONDAY
B ecker beat her to the top of Whippoorwill Hill again on Monday. Maggie wouldn’t pretend to be happy about it, but she tried to appreciate that she felt stronger in the final sprint than she had the day before, and that her muscles were much looser on their warm-down jog than they’d been when she’d pep-dragged herself out of bed that morning.
When Daniel told her to wait for him by the Blue Harbor sign and headed toward his truck, she thought maybe he’d brought her another Agatha Christie. She was making quick work of the Poirot backlist now that she was spending most evenings reading in the crafts room while Miss Lucille prepped for the next day. Instead, he returned carrying a plastic travel cooler like the ones her paddling staff took on day trips. (Except theirs were blue, obviously. Always Be Branding.)
“BYOB,” he said by way of explanation when she raised an eyebrow in the cooler’s direction.
“Do I need to stage an intervention? I can go get Chuck, but you’ll have to give me Drew’s number.”
“Breakfast, McArthur. BYO Breakfast. I’m making French toast. The Hendersonville Harris Teeter didn’t have challah, which is a travesty because it’s far and away the best French toast base, but a good workman doesn’t blame his tools, so we’re going with grocery store brioche, and it’s going to be great.”
Daniel Becker had brought, not breakfast, but the ingredients to cook her breakfast. And, more than that, he’d driven into town to go to an actual grocery store instead of stealing food from the Oak Ridge kitchen. Maggie had no idea how to feel about any of that, so she went with her battle-tested strategy of feeling absolutely no way about it at all. She stuck to the practicalities instead.
“I don’t even know if I have a pan.”
Daniel lifted the arm that wasn’t holding the cooler, and, lo and behold, he had also Brought His Own Pan.
“Spatula’s in the cooler.”
“Well, I do respect adequate preparation.”
Daniel smirked like he could see right through her. “You’re very welcome.”
Parton was already off wandering the grounds by the time they made it back to the cottage, so Daniel unpacked and got right to cooking. Maggie, whose father had given up on teaching her how to bake when, at the age of ten, she’d presented him with a cost/benefit analysis of simply buying a pie from the grocery store that included a breakdown of his salary into an hourly wage, got right to hovering.
“This is going to be fifteen minutes or so. You should go shower,” Daniel said, whisking a bowl of eggs with a fork.
“It feels a little rude.”
He pulled a jar of cinnamon out of the cooler, uncapped it, and began to shake it into the bowl. Maggie took a step back to avoid being elbowed in the ribs. Daniel recapped the cinnamon and turned to face her. “Let me rephrase. Please go shower. You’re making me nervous.”
“Nervous?” Maggie repeated, dragging out the vowels.
“Yeah, I’m worried you’ll somehow start a fire.”
“You know what? That’s fair.” And she headed for the bathroom.
A quarter of an hour later, hair still wet and loose around her scrubbed clean shoulders, Maggie returned to the kitchen to find the table set with two mugs of coffee, two heaping plates of French toast topped with powdered sugar and strawberries, a bottle of syrup, and a can of whipped cream. She had to admit, it looked Instagrammable. Not that she posted anything to social media other than race photos. But if she did.
Daniel was sitting in what had become, without her realizing it, His Chair.
“Better dig in before it gets cold,” he said. His tone was casual, but she thought she saw just a flicker of something else behind his eyes. She pulled out her seat.
Maggie, as a rule, never offered undeserved praise. Not even about something as seemingly unimportant as a coworker’s new blouse. People lied all the time thinking they were being kind, but, ultimately, it was a disservice to the recipient of the false compliment. They couldn’t fix what they didn’t know was broken. If this French toast was bad, she wasn’t going to lie about it.
She glanced up at Daniel’s hopeful face as she cut a perfectly crisped corner off the bottom slice.
On the other hand, if the toast sucked, it probably wouldn’t really do any harm to just find something specific about it that she did like and leave it at that. It’s not like he was trying to become a professional chef.
Fortunately, in the end, she wasn’t required to compromise her principles.
“This is fucking delicious,” she said, still chewing.
Daniel absolutely beamed.
They ate in silence for a while. Maggie was wolfing down her second piece of toast like she was in a timed competition (which, if she were, she would obviously win). Daniel seemed happy enough to eat at a reasonable pace, although Maggie caught him watching her demolish his home cooking when he thought she wasn’t paying attention.
The food really was fantastic, but Maggie was also using the time to work up to saying some words about her feelings. Sincerely. Bleh.
When, finally, there was no more toast to employ as a subtle delaying tactic, she picked up her mug and addressed the coffee that remained near the bottom.
“So, thanks for…you know…” She trailed off into an uncomfortable silence. Great work, Margaret.
“Breakfast?”
“Well, yes, but?—”
“The books? I want those back, by the way. Those were lent from my private collection, not gifted.”
“Also the books.” Maggie looked up, finally, to find his brown eyes looking particularly soft, framed by laugh lines at the edges. How was she supposed to say anything to his stupid perfect face. She dropped her head into her hands. “Jesus I’m just going to send you flowers.”
“Please don’t. It makes me sad when they die.”
She looked up at him over her fingertips. “You’re impossible.”
Daniel reached for his own mug and took a sip. Then his eyes found hers, and she knew, in her bones, that he understood. “You’re welcome.”
Her hands found her mug again.
“I don’t want kids.” She hadn’t meant to say it. It wasn’t relevant. This is what happened when she tried to be emotionally available. She tipped right into oversharing.
“Me either.”
Well.
That was unexpected.
“I mean, like, ever,” Maggie clarified.
“Yeah, I mean, like, ever, too.”
“But you run a summer camp,” Maggie argued. Why was she arguing with him?
Daniel just raised his eyebrows.
“I only run a summer camp temporarily.”
“Are you about to tell me that I’ll change my mind? Because, as you’ve noted, I have a significant amount of experience with children.”
“No I—” Maggie stopped. “I’m doing to you the thing that everyone does to me, aren’t I?”
Daniel tipped his head in acknowledgement, and then stood and grabbed both of their mugs. “More coffee?”
Once Daniel had left, Maggie texted her brother to ask him to give her a call on his lunch break. She’d looked over the plans he’d sent her, and they were…surprisingly thorough. She had questions, of course, but she had to acknowledge that he had exceeded her expectations. And Maggie’s expectations were famously high, with no adjustment for doofy younger brothers.
Their call lasted an efficient 32 minutes. (Apparently tracking billable hours was a hard habit to break.) By the end, they’d cobbled together a third, middle-of-the-road plan from the two proposals Teddy had sent over, and Maggie informally hired Teddy’s new company to oversee the project beginning in September. Her action items were to get a job posting together for an Events Coordinator and to start working her contacts for applicants. Teddy’s were to quit his job, move to Asheville, and start talking to subcontractors. Possibly not in that order. She didn’t want to micromanage. She did consider sending out meeting minutes, but she didn’t want her brother to quit before he’d started.
Regardless, as she headed to the Dining Hall for her own lunch, she was feeling pretty satisfied with her morning’s accomplishments, and she hadn’t even cornered Jordan yet to ask them about taking over as Camp Director when Maggie headed back to London.