16. Jack #2
“That’s what’s going to happen if I don’t get out of here.”
I sighed, resigned. I wasn’t mad at her.
This was a product of circumstance. I had to remember that.
“Look, I’m doing my best. I haven’t been able to get any of my crew to work on the cabin with me, and I keep running into supply issues.
But someone just reached out, so I’ll follow up and see what we can do.
It would make things go a lot faster, and I’ll have more energy to do… all of this.”
“Okay.” Her hackles lowered. “But why can’t I help?”
“At this juncture, the shit I have to do over there would take more time to explain than it would just to do it myself. Plus, there’s electrical work that even I can’t do.” I contemplated all the jobs I could give her, but it wasn’t the right time. “I’m sorry, Nat. I get that it’s frustrating.”
She let out a long breath. “It’s okay. I know that you’re doing a lot.” For once, it felt like she was getting it. “But you’ll let me know if I can help, right?”
Her optimistic gaze had me nearly crumbling. And she wanted us to spend more time together? That was a recipe for disaster, much like my cake during the baking competition.
“Yeah, I’ll let you know.”
The next day had me rushing. It was the final day for this session of campers, so I went through my typical last-day routine, followed by getting some time in at Nat’s cabin.
I’d even given Autumn an excuse for why I needed to go to the hardware store later, so she didn’t ask questions about why I was gone while I accepted Jamie’s ring delivery.
The only thing I needed were my keys, and I’d be good to go.
My phone vibrated, and I pulled it from my pocket as I power walked on the trail to my cabin. As soon as I saw Gia’s name, asking if we could please talk, I stopped dead in my tracks.
Talk? What did she need to talk about?
The week she cheated on me, Gia had been a visiting camper for the final camp session.
After I’d confronted her about making out with someone else, she’d made her teary exit.
I’d told her to ship the stuff I’d left at her apartment back to me, and I’d done the same for her.
We’d had no contact in almost a year. Maybe she was trying to explain herself beyond I was drunk. But why now?
Maybe she’d learned Nat was here and wanted to see her? Then they could fuck each other in my cabin and really put the nail in the coffin.
Okay, that was a stretch. Sometimes I hated my brain.
I stared at the text for too long before I noticed the time. I had to get my ass in gear. I started into a light jog, grateful to see my cabin in the clearing, but nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to walk in on.
It was like Cinderella’s rodent friends had visited. Everything was different. The balloons were gone. There was not a single project material or tool in view. The mail was separated into neat piles on my coffee table.
I walked into the kitchen, where the counters literally sparkled.
The last place I remembered throwing my car keys was on the counter, but they weren’t there.
I went into my room and found an equally clean place, except for a basket of laundry I’d been meaning to get to sitting at the end of my bed.
The winter clothes I’d been ignoring were placed in the bins at the end of my bed, all of them labeled. Where did she get a label maker?
I searched my nightstand, and they weren’t there either.
I rushed out to find Nat with a new pile of mail she’d obviously picked up at the office.
She was playing “Home,” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, an indie song she’d been obsessed with, on her phone’s speaker. The song made my hackles rise. It was okay the first dozen times I’d heard it, but now, it contaminated this place. That and the smell of lemon cleaner.
“Nat,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Jack.” Her voice was equally gritty, directly mocking my tone.
“What did you do?”
She walked into the living room and put the mail into the sorted piles, holding three envelopes as the song repeated itself. She whistled the opening to the song as she opened one letter and focused on it instead of looking me in the eye. “I can’t live in chaos, Jack.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” Maybe I was blowing this out of proportion, but all I could think about was that nothing was where it should be, and it would be a pain in the ass to find anything.
“If you can’t get there with context clues, I guess I’ll spell it out. This place was a mess, and you told me you don’t have time to do anything about it. I was going out of my mind, so I fixed it.”
“You fixed it.” My cheeks heated. Why was this bothering me so much? Oh yeah, because she was overbearing.
“I couldn’t live like that. My ADHD won’t allow it.”
That had me shrinking just a bit, but only enough to prevent me from blowing my top.
“Where is everything?” I sifted through a basket of miscellany that was sitting in my entryway, sifting for my keys. How did I have so many loose batteries and pushpins? I definitely hadn’t bought those. It put things into perspective when they were gathered together like this.
She scoffed, leaning over the little entry table to place everything back in the basket. “In the place it belongs.”
I lifted my chin, glaring at her with the fire of a thousand suns. “I don’t have time for this. Where are my keys?”
“Where they should be.” Why was she making this so difficult? “On the hook. Near the door.” She pointed at the hooks I’d clearly forgotten about.
I reached for them, right beside that damn frog keychain, muttered, “Thanks a lot,” and burst through the door, which slammed into the siding. I really needed to fix that.
She rushed around me, blocking my exit down the porch. “If you think you’re going to be pissed at me for helping, you’re out of your mind.”
“You’d deserve it,” I barked. “Get out of my way.”
This angered her even further. She was about to blow a fuse, I could see the signs as clear as day. Her breaths came in short, rapid-fire bursts, and she was practically vibrating. “No,” she spat back.
I picked her up by her biceps and lifted her to the side of me, while she looked on in shock. That didn’t stop her, though. She kept pace as she followed alongside me.
“I can’t believe you just did that.”
“You’ll get over it. Or you can yell at me on the way. Your choice.”
And man, did she yell.
I drove down the highway and learned that I was a slob. A bad roommate. A general drain on society. She was obviously tired from doing all that work, because her insults were not as impressive as usual. Honestly, I expected more from her.
She was annoyed at me for not being grateful and for, in her words, throwing a fit. She worked up a sweat and squared her shoulders as if prepared to go into battle. But I seemed to surprise her, because I didn’t fight back. I let her get it all out.
Nat tilted her head at me as I parallel parked next to Jamie’s office. “What are we even doing?”
I didn’t answer. It was none of her business.
I glanced at Jamie’s empty office and opted not to get out until this was over.
Then I turned to her and gave her the fight she was looking for.
“If you’re so dead set on attacking me for all my flaws, how about we go over yours?
” She looked shocked for a moment, and I pushed on, ticking each offense off my fingers in front of her face.
“You’re invasive. Exhausting. Petty. You knew I had too much on my plate—we’d just talked about that—”
“That’s why I was helping—” She pulled my hand down, trying to meet my eyes, but this wasn’t done.
I cut her off. “You did that for you. You did that to get a one-up on me. And you did it because you’re self-satisfied, impatient, and annoying.”
Nat was stunned silent for a moment, but that didn’t last long. Her eyes flared with irritation. We stared each other down. She was so stubborn.
“You know what, Jack? If that’s how you really feel, then you can go ahead and shove it up your—”
I placed my hand over her mouth. “Wait.”
She blew a raspberry into my palm. I fought everything in me not to look at her, but I was focused on something much more jarring.
A little yellow paper on the office door fluttered in the breeze. I jumped out of the car, and surprise, surprise, so did she. We’d just missed the delivery.
How had we missed it? I took in my surroundings and saw a brown delivery truck right down the street.
I chased after it, but it went past the stop sign, a little too fast for this small town’s liking, and pulled onto the road.
I made it halfway down the street before realizing that was pointless and rushed back to my car.
She stood by the passenger side door, staring at me, dumbfounded.
I ripped the door open and jumped in. She clearly got her shit together because she did the same.
We chased the vehicle for thirty minutes, but we never got the opportunity to talk with the driver.
Once I explained the situation to Nat, she immediately jumped into action, calling around, but was left on hold.
It didn’t matter. You couldn’t drive a delivery vehicle off the road, especially when they were going sixty miles per hour, and you were low on gas.
I pulled over at a gas station and banged my head against the wheel. Nat had the decency not to fight with me anymore when she realized this was bigger than both of us.
Jamie was never going to trust me again. I’d failed, and I was fucked.