Chapter 2 #2
“Good morning, Joe!” I greeted like I always did. Madison rolled her eyes and wandered into the back without having to be told. Joe watched her go, and for the first time since we’d repeated this little pattern, he looked relieved.
Which was odd.
On top of the apples.
Already, I could feel excitement buzzing beneath my skin as he headed directly toward me for the first time since we’d met.
His eyebrows twitched. He set the apples down in front of me.
Their glossy red surfaces were lumpy and misshapen, a byproduct of the farm being abandoned for a year or so before he and Patrick had gotten it up and running again, probably.
I didn’t know much about farming, but I assumed lack of maintenance was a bad thing.
The apples didn’t look bad, though.
In fact, they looked delicious.
“These are for you,” Joe said, tone clipped and wary.
I was puzzled but pleased. “For the store?” I said, already eager to get this show on the road.
“What?” Joe blinked. “No.”
“No?” I echoed, equally confused. “Sorry—what?”
“These are to thank you. For…” Joe’s cheeks went pink.
“Putting in a good word for me.” My heart skipped a beat.
“I was the one who did the heavy lifting,” he was quick to reiterate.
“But…when I talked to Mr. Peterson, he told me you’d already sold him on me—and that…
made it…easier.” Joe looked nearly pained, like this sorta social interaction was quite literally bleeding him out.
I was doing victory laps in my head. Strutting around like a goddamn rooster. Celebrating. This was progress. This was major progress. Maybe Joe was just a slow-burn kind of guy? Maybe he—
“You’re very welcome,” I said, putting him out of his misery.
I grabbed an apple, tossing it in the air and catching it.
The light glinted off its surface, and I couldn’t help the little thrill I felt at the thought that this was a gift from Joe.
“Like I said before, I love helping, and if you ever need—”
“I’m good.” Joe took a step back like he was about to leave.
“Wait—” I held a hand out. “What about…” I bent over, digging around in my drawer for the paperwork I had all the new vendors fill out.
“While I appreciate the present, and believe me, I do—these apples are gorgeous.” Joe shuffled his big feet, a pleased little twitch to his lips that he quickly schooled into a flat line before it could form a smile.
“Why don’t you let me sell them? I’m the last one on your list.”
Apparently, there was a list, because Joe gave me that look again—like he thought I was a fucking wizard. Reading his mind.
He was a list maker. I could relate. I loved lists. Ha! See?! We had another thing in common already.
“Let me sell these,” I offered. “That’s the best way to thank me.”
He gave me that baffled look again, like he didn’t understand me in the slightest.
And now it was time for me to bullshit again. Though…it didn’t really feel like bullshit.
“My goal in life is to help as many of my fellow Bellevillians as possible,” I informed him.
“I actively hunt out contracts with local vendors, including farmers such as yourself. I would be genuinely so much happier if everything in this store came from someone who lived here. Which…I know is not plausible. But—”
Joe wavered, his hackles falling away. “That’s…nice of you.” He said this, like it was only now occurring to him that everything I did, I did to be nice.
A little voice in the back of my head reminded me that that wasn’t the only reason I did nice things.
You’re just like your parents, it warned me.
I shook away the unpleasant thought.
“You’d be doing me a favor,” I promised him, pushing the paper toward him. “Then I don’t have to buy from some random dude I don’t know—and instead, I can upsell ‘Joe’s Delicious Galas’.”
He mulled things over for a moment, but apparently what I’d said worked. Because Joe signed the contract, just like that.
And I was officially one of his vendors.
“Pleasure doing business with you!” I called at his back as he headed out the door and to his pickup truck. It was full of apples. The first of the season, and I had no doubt he was making his rounds dropping them off. Judging by how full it was, I could only assume he’d stopped here first.
That should not have made me as happy as it did.
I was just trying to help him.
And now I had.
Not that he’d outright accepted it, but still.
I hoped that in time, I’d be able to get Joe to actually like me. But until then, my bushel of apples and the contract I’d fought tooth and nail for were a pretty good start.
September came with a vengeance. The chill crept up on us, dotted between days of relentless sun.
I never knew if it was a jacket day or a tank-top day.
Not that I ever wore tank tops. Madison did, though.
And any time she predicted the weather wrong, she’d swear up a storm and huff at me like it was my fault.
Joe didn’t run from me the way he had before.
He was wary, yes. But we’d made some progress.
And each week he came by with more apples for me to restock, and I bit my tongue—trying out actual patience for once to see if it served me better than pushing had.
I wanted another glimpse of that gentle, soft man I’d seen that day in the alley so badly I ached.
Thus far…the closest I’d gotten was Joe with the Scouts and their cookies.
It wasn’t enough.
I found myself hungrier with every day that passed.
Hunting for glimpses of Joe wherever I went.
But he mostly kept to himself. Didn’t integrate into our way of life.
Didn’t participate in the picnic-fair, a delightful pop-up hosted in the town square.
Didn’t mingle with the townspeople. Stayed for days and days out on his farm, only ever coming into town to drop off apples, or refill his fridge with more cardboard-food.
Always with that serious look on his face.
Still prickly, but slightly less so.
His guard up.
Every time I thought of Joe, this…protective instinct welled up inside me, so strong I could hardly ignore it.
I tried. But…to no avail. I asked about him everywhere.
I learned nothing. Wore my heart on my sleeve like an idiot.
Told everyone it was because I wanted to care for our newest transplant, when in reality I just…
I just wanted.
At the end of September, things changed.
The tripping happened.
Tripping over my tongue when Joe walked through the front door. Tripping over my own heartbeat when I realized he was wearing those overalls again, sweaty this time—the ones he’d been wearing that day in the sun when I’d seen a piece of his bare heart without his permission.
They hugged his ass and made his pecs look especially, ah, nice.
Nice.
Just like I wanted him to think I was.
Because nice came first.
And as a few more weeks passed, gorgeous.
And a few more days?
Fucking bitable.
In a totally platonic, outside perspective kinda way.
Good for him. Being catnip for the ladies like that.
Hell, if I’d been twenty years younger, I would’ve wished I looked like that. All brawny, sun-soaked muscle. I told myself it was jealousy. Me, looking at a young stud and thinking, ah if only.
But as my tripping-fluttering-sputtering continued, the denial in my mind began to ebb. Summer morphed into fall quicker than I could blink. I knew, not because of the changing of the leaves, but because Joe started wearing flannel. A dusty pale blue most days, that made his eyes look like oceans.
My eyes lingered on his in a totally-not-at-all-gay-way. Lingered as he headed to the back of the store to the produce stand to restock his apples. Lingered on his shoulders, on his hips, on the way he walked, all quiet confidence.
Lingered on his ass.
Because damn.
It was just curiosity.
Just knot unpicking.
Just wanting him to look back at me.
Desperate not to experience another Chauncey. Another person who didn’t want to be my friend.
Nothing more.
Definitely not.
“God, you’re down bad,” Madison said after liberally slurping up another cup of coffee. She was on her third tumbler of the day. That couldn’t be healthy—but I didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t listen, even if I did. Her comment startled me out of yet another Joe Milton-induced space-out session.
Tearing my eyes away from his ass, I eloquently said, “Huh?”
Madison’s voice was quiet. Quiet enough, there was no way we’d be overheard. And still, my cheeks went hot as her words actually processed. Hot because denial, of course. What the hell was she talking about? Down bad? For Joe? Ha!
He was my little duckling. My newest, youngest, cutest little duckling. I was trying to…to guide him. To be his friend. To prove to him that I wasn’t the evil gremlin he thought I was. Not—
“You’re down bad for Joe,” Madison clarified.
“And by down bad you mean—” I wheedled, attempting to buy myself time to figure out how to politely tell her that she was way off base. “That I am mentoring the heck out of him? Helping him? Showing him the ways of our tiny little oasis—”
“No.” Madison said the word no like it was a paragraph, not a word.
“By down bad I mean that you’re down bad.
” She rolled her eyes at me like I was a total idiot.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what that means,” she pointed out before she stomped off to the stock room to refill her tumbler for a fourth time.
Her coffee station was seriously pimped out now. I’d purchased her everything she’d asked for in exchange for her aid and silence.
Apparently, I hadn’t bought her enough.
But…I had to be careful not to expose myself or my true financial situation. Money changed people. That was the lesson my childhood friend, Chauncey, had taught me. It changed people. Its lack, its surplus. It didn't matter.
The last thing I needed was people in town treating me differently because they found out that I was loaded.
I used my secret hoard of wealth to assist where I could, but always anonymously. Always through the guise of charities I’d “discovered.” Never as me.
Never.
As much as my dad’s words about “worth” had affected me, I didn't want to be like them. Didn’t want thank-yous or accolades. I wasn’t performing. Didn’t help people because I wanted to be praised for it. Maybe I just…maybe I just wanted to matter.
There was a ringing in my ears as I processed what Madison had been implying. Her words should not have made as much sense as they did.
Because they were wrong.
She was wrong.
Obviously.
For so many reasons. Number one being: I had never ever ever been interested in a man before. Never once looked at another guy and thought, “hell yeah, that’s the ticket.”
And yet…
No.
No!
That wasn’t what this was. Madison was wrong. She had to be wrong. I mean? Joe was…Joe.
No.
…No.
If I were into men, I would’ve noticed by now.
Wouldn’t I?
A little voice in the back of my mind reminded me that I hadn’t ever been interested in anyone before. Not really. So finding Joe’s ass interesting was…a bit revolutionary. And even more unlikely.
I glared at the break room where Madison had disappeared, annoyed she’d managed to get into my head. I resolved myself not to spoil her anymore, black mail or not. But even I knew that was bound to last no time at all.
Her dad had walked out on her when she was sixteen. I’d caught her shoplifting a few months later. I offered her a job, and the rest was history.
Ever since, I’d made it my mission to support her and her mother wherever I could. There was no way I was going to deny her anything. Not when I got the feeling she saw me as somewhat of an annoying surrogate father-figure.
Which also meant I wasn’t going to freak out on her after what she’d said, no matter how wrong it was.
Still in denial, I tapped my fingers on the counter, mind a million miles away.
Liking a man’s biceps did not make a person gay.
Look at all the men who enjoyed watching superhero movies!
Totally straight men.
Muscles were pretty. Everyone liked them. Okay, maybe that wasn’t true. I backtracked. At least a good portion of people liked muscles. I just so happened to be one of them. That didn’t mean I wanted to fuck every person who had them.
Maybe I did stare at Joe more than was normal, but—in my defense—Joe was hot!
That was a fact.
I’d have to be blind not to ogle him a little. Eye candy was eye candy.
I mean…okay. Yes. Maybe I ogled him a bit more than a little. I was allowed to ogle people if I wanted to. It wasn’t like it was a crime.
And it didn’t mean anything deeper than having an appreciation for things that were beautiful.
Screw Madison.
Joe had apparently finished stocking his apples because he came over to the register and interrupted me mid-mental rant. He paused, eyeing me with what I could only describe as wary curiosity. That was a new look on him.
“Are you o—” he started, but I cut him off. Today was not the day for him to exercise empathy. Nope. Not when I was trying to tell myself I’d only been ogling his ass because it was aesthetically pleasing.
“Here’s your check,” I said—totally normally. I slapped said check onto the register. I didn’t even put it in his hand like I wanted to, because then our skin would touch, and even though I usually lived for those little touches, at that moment, I couldn’t handle it.
Not because I was into him.
But because…well…whatever.
It didn’t matter why.
Joe was paid.
Joe could go now.
I was not “down bad” for Joe.
“Bye!” I said, maybe a little less friendly than usual. Joe blinked. He cocked his head to the side, watching me like he always did. Like I was unpredictable, and he didn’t know what to do with me.
As if I’d be attracted to that.
And his…many…extremes.
I definitely did not find all of said emotions fascinating. Or want to memorize each one of the faces he made. Or desperately want him to drop his guard so I could see more. Nope.
I ignored the part of me that thought having a crush on Joe would explain why I couldn’t seem to leave him alone.
“See you next week?” Joe asked, surprising me again when he didn’t immediately duck out the door like I was bubonic. Of course, today of all days, he decided to look at me. I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“Same time next week should be great.”
He nodded, still hovering, big body held perfectly still. And then he left, like he always did. And this time, I didn’t even look at his ass once.
Okay.
Maybe I did.
But Madison wasn’t around to shame me for it.
God, this was a nightmare.