Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Sheridan
I might’ve kissed Jasper in my office last Monday, but we’d been nothing more than boss and employee since then.
One of the families who had stayed over the weekend had checked out of a room that suddenly had a hole in the wall, dog pee in the corner, and vomit on the carpet.
To keep Landon from quitting on the spot, Jasper helped with the physical cleaning while I took care of the legal side.
The family claimed the room was in normal condition when they checked out, and that Landon must’ve thrown up, let the dog he doesn’t own piss away, and that he must’ve punched the wall.
So that had given me a headache for two days.
After that, another guest had a toddler throw the remote into the window.
Jasper was a miracle worker for that repair.
Then there was the normal maintenance, and it had kept us apart for the week.
It was Saturday, and he’d decided to mow the lawn again, thanks to the rain we’d gotten Wednesday.
I stayed home. Better not to tempt fate. It was hard to be in his orbit. I had kissed him and told him that nothing had changed and that I understood. And I did. He was in a tough position. I couldn’t escape the sense of being convenient, and that was my issue to deal with.
I wanted more. He couldn’t give more. That was what I understood.
Boxes surrounded me. This task was bigger than I anticipated. I tackled it today to bring back a sense of control. I was in charge of my surroundings. Not Jasper. Not some investment group.
Mom had worked so much that she’d hardly sorted through her things.
It was like she left me this amount of work because she knew I’d need the distraction.
I opened closets and linen cabinets and found my dad’s stuff shoved in the nooks and crannies.
My weekend would be a giant trip down memory lane.
I was prepared to cry, and thanks to another run to the resort, I was also ready with more boxes.
I started in the kitchen. That was where I’d keep the most stuff, having gotten rid of my own when I moved.
I cranked some country party music loud.
An hour ticked by. Then another. I had two boxes half full, and I’d stopped for one crying session, allowing that grief I’d been shoving away to wash through me.
Each thing I put in the box was freeing yet scary.
Look at me. Doing this on my own too.
The doorbell rang and I jumped. A scream ripped from me.
Putting my hand on my chest, I rolled my eyes.
That was what I got for blasting music my mom hated.
I turned it off and went to the door. I couldn’t get a peek outside to see who was here.
Was everything okay at the resort? Was this also what I got for taking another weekend mostly off?
A familiar ball cap was visible through the high window.
Jasper?
The sight brought back all the same butterflies from before. Was he here to check on me? How did that make me feel? Excited? Panicked? Treasured?
With no answer, I opened the door to him holding a six-pack in one hand and his other shoved in his pocket.
“Hey.”
“I heard you picked up more boxes.” His eyes were shaded by the brim of his hat, like he was afraid to lift his chin and face me. Or because he was irresistible with the slightly mysterious air it created. A rugged guy on my porch. How could I say no? Especially when I didn’t want to.
“Yeah.” I stepped back to let him in. “Come inside. You can help me wrap valuables.”
“I brought more boxes too.” He glanced to where he was likely parked. “You don’t have to fill them all tonight.”
His thoughtfulness comforted me. I might be all up in my feels, but he was still a good guy. “Where did you have boxes?”
“I just moved too.”
He ran home? When he walked past me, the cedar and pine smell of his shampoo stroked across my nose. He must’ve showered.
I couldn’t look too far into it, or I’d be back in the confused cloud from last weekend. “I’m working in the kitchen.”
He followed me and set the six-pack on the table. It was from Reservoir Barrel. “You liked their pale ale.”
“Would it surprise you that I remember?”
He laughed. “You weren’t that drunk.”
I pushed my hair behind my ears. “I only got through two boxes so far, and I cried. I’m warning you now there will probably be more tears.”
A furrow crossed his brow. “You already cried?”
“Yep.” He sounded like he’d wanted to be there for it, but today was about learning to deal with something myself. And I had. I crossed to the cupboard I was working on. “That was before I had to sort containers and lids.”
“The math never maths.”
“No.” I dropped to the floor to finish trying to match tops and bottoms. At least I had no memories attached to these.
He settled next to me, crossing his long legs and handing me a beer. “Tell me where to start.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I know.” He opened the cupboard in front of him.
Pots and pans. I’d like to keep most of those, but I didn’t want him to move farther away from me.
That would be the better idea, but he was here.
What did it hurt to have him stay? I knew where I stood, and I should embrace the freedom in that.
“I need one of each type of pan. Anything else can go.”
“Got it, boss.”
I smiled at the moniker. I had missed it. Before, I had clung to it as the reminder it should be. But Jasper would move on. Hell, I might have to too.
“What were you partying to when I arrived?”
I took a drink of the ale. “Whatever was upbeat and summery.”
“No depressing winter music, got it.” He took out his phone, linked to my speaker, and “Beach Cowboy” filled the air.
“That’ll do it.” On impulse, I held my beer out. He tinked his can against mine and we kept cleaning.
Jasper
I climbed down from the counter. Since I was tall, I had cleaned out all the upper cabinets after I was sure Sheridan wasn’t going to drive me off.
When my feet hit the floor, my stomach rumbled.
She had moved to the pantry, cleaning out the expired food and preparing a box to donate of everything she refused to eat that was still good.
I nudged the trash bag out of the way of the fridge. “Hungry?”
“Starving.” She was holding a box of macaroni and cheese. “It expired six months ago. Want to try it?”
“In my college days, that would’ve been a resounding yes.” I stretched my back after being cramped between the counter and ceiling to clean above the fridge. “My tastes are more refined now. What do you have in the freezer?”
“I haven’t bought one thing to put in there.”
I opened the fridge and checked out the dismal offerings. Only a pack of opened lunch meat looked appetizing. “Sheridan, have you been living off sandwiches?”
“I lose half my paycheck to the restaurant.”
To her own restaurant. She didn’t even give herself a discount. The woman was hardcore about that place. I admired it.
And I could’ve married her.
The sudden weight on my chest made drawing a breath a struggle. To cover my discomfort, I opened the freezer. There was a bag of shrimp and a package of chicken thighs. The fridge had butter, and I had just combed through the seasoning cupboard. “I’ll save the pasta from that box.”
“You don’t have to cook.”
“We have four beers left.” I took out the ingredients I planned to use. She was on the other side of the island, still holding the box of mac ’n’ cheese.
She scrutinized my finds. “Shrimp and chicken? And pasta?”
“I told you I can cook.”
She chewed her bottom lip. “I actually can’t.”
“What? Cook?”
She bit down on her lower lip, sheepish. “Why do you think the restaurant is so important to me?”
Suppressing a laugh, I grinned. “You do favor it.”
“Because I can’t boil water.”
“Betcha you can.” I spun around and grabbed a pan from the first cupboard I went through. I handed her a pot big enough to boil the macaroni in. “Fill that, please.”
“Are you giving me lessons?”
“Looks like it.”
She didn’t move, her earlier self-deprecation now more like embarrassment. “Mom and Dad were always working. We grew up eating whatever was fast and easy. If it didn’t have to do with the resort, they didn’t have the patience to teach us.”
That explained a lot, but she didn’t have to justify it to me. Finally, she picked up the pot, scowled at me, and came around to my side.
I talked her through thawing the shrimp and chicken, then I got her to do everything.
She followed directions, and I kept the music playing.
I’d never thought twice about cooking. I’d been a bachelor for too long not to make food for myself, but this was nice.
Her company always was. When dinner was ready, we filled our plates and took them to the table that had all our loaded boxes sitting on the floor beside it.
“I can’t believe you made me cook.” She sat, but there was a lightness surrounding her that wasn’t there when I first arrived.
I didn’t want to quit making this woman feel good about herself. I put my plate down and grabbed another beer for each of us. “What would you have eaten if I wasn’t here? Never mind. Ham sandwich.”
“I have some roast beef left, so I might’ve made it a club.”
I grinned. “Fancy.” This time I held my beer up. “To new beginnings and dominating the local lakeside resort life.”
“Hear, hear.” She lightly touched her can to mine, then we cracked them open and took a drink.
After she took a bite of shrimp with some pasta, her eyelids drifted shut a heartbeat before opening onto me.
“Oh my god. So much better than I imagined.” She speared another shrimp.
“But how? You didn’t use that many ingredients. ”
“Butter and salt, boss. You can ask Paola to back me up on that.”
She smiled, and we ate in easy silence for several minutes until she sighed and set her fork down. “I don’t contribute much to this…whatever we’re doing. It’s one-sided.” Her mouth was a tight line. “You’re always building me up and cheering me on. Isn’t that tiring?”
Frustration was ripe in her tone, and my surprise took me aback. Our dynamic bothered her, so instead of brushing off her feelings, I thought about my answer. I liked cheering her on. I didn’t hold her hand, but that was how she’d described it. How did I look at it from her point of view?
I scratched the side of my face, fingers scraping against my scruff. My ex dumped me, claiming she had wanted a partner. I had wanted support. For Sheridan, she had wanted a partner who supported her. From the way she had made it sound, she’d had neither.
“The ex I told you about…” I took a drink before I finished answering. “She felt like she was in the same place as you and your ex when she broke up with me, and it took me a long time to figure out why that bothered me.” I huffed out a laugh. “I mean, other than getting dumped.”
She shook her head. “You’re nothing like my exes.”
“I’d like to think so, but it’s how I act that determines whether I am or not. At the time, I was jobless, but I wasn’t helpless. I wanted time to figure my shit out, and she didn’t think I should need to.”
“Right.” She spun the beer can in her hand. Was she nervous about my answer? That I would tell her I didn’t like needy women and that was why I didn’t propose marriage as a way to get her the land. “I have a job, but I’m helpless?”
“No. Dammit.” All that time to consider my wording, and I had still fucked up.
“You’ve been in her place. You felt like you were mothering them, and now you’re worried I’m mothering you.
” Her brows ticked sky high, and my blood pressure skyrocketed.
I could not jack this up. I forged ahead.
“What you’re experiencing is all the support you should’ve had.
You need more time, and that’s what I wanted to give you.
Because I know how shitty it can be not to get it when you’re at your lowest.”
Her lower lip puffed out. “Oh.” She gnawed on her cheek. What I wouldn’t give to lean over and nibble along that pink line of her mouth, but this conversation was too important.
“Don’t mistake my meaning,” I insisted. “Support or not, you’re out there doing shit. You’re in here doing shit.”
A smile played over her mouth. “Is that the technical term?”
“Hell yes. You’re gettin’ it done. Run the resort? You dove all in. Clean up your mom’s house? Here you are. Putting up with a slacker who lost his job and is dragging his feet at finding another one? I’m here too.”
“You’re anything but a slacker.”
“To be fair, you didn’t see me for the last six months.”
“What were you doing?”
“Uncle duty. For free.”
She laughed, and her eyes danced. “That can’t be easy.”
“It’s not. Those buggers don’t sleep half the time. I told myself I was too tired to job hunt.”
“You just need time,” she said quietly, her smile still in place.
“You could say that. Then a beautiful woman took me in like a stray. She pays me, and sometimes she crawls on my lap and kisses me.”
A flush crept up her neck to her cheeks.
I leaned forward. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten that I know exactly where that blush started on your body.”
Her pupils dilated. “Do you want to see it now?”