Page 12 of Pick Me
“No.” I shook my head. “Nope. Seriously, Webb—"
“—and there are a lot of relaxation and breathing techniques, and I know you know them, but taking care of your overall physical and mental health is an incredibly important component. And a part of that, I think, is just… getting out a little. Making friends. Having fun. Having a purpose. And maybe… love.”
“Oh. Dear. God.” I lifted an eyebrow. “You look at me and think, ‘There’s a man starving for romance,’ do you? No, thanks. You remember what happened to Dad after Mom died, right? And how Dad and Porter and Hawk and Em just fell to pieces when Cara walked out? And how Amanda tried to take you for a ride? Romantic love is like a whirlpool, Webb. It doesn’t just hurt the people involved, it sucks everyone around them into the vortex of bullshit, too.”
Webb flushed a bit. “Not love, then, but… companionship. A relationship. Sexual intimacy. Whatever you wanna call it.”
“Fucking?” I suggested, as saccharine-sweet as Goodman ever had been.
I’d been trying to make Webb uncomfortable, but thinking of Goodman and fucking at the same time backfired wildly on me. Suddenly that was all Icouldthink about, and I had to grab my water and chug a little.
Goodman was an employee.
He was a child.
He was a pain in the ass.
He was…
“Permanence,” Webb corrected firmly. “A home.”
I nearly choked on my water. I did not want to have a conversation about making a permanent home in Little Pippin Hollow. I didn’t want to lie.
“Look, I donotneed you to find me a date, Webb Sunday. So you take all those well-intentioned matchmaking instincts of yours, fold them up really tiny, and then crush them under your big fucking boot heel like one of those beetles you pick off the apple trees. If I wanted a date, I could get one. I wasn’t living like a monk in Boston. I had many a hookup. Plenty of friends with benefits when I needed to scratch an itch, too. And I likeit that way.”
“But—”
I held up a hand. “And if I ever felt a need to make something permanent…” I blinked, trying to envision such a scenario. “Well, first I’d take my temperature. Then, I’d google ‘Have I been brainwashed question mark.’ Then, if after reading six WebMD articles about how eating too much kale can mimic the effects of brainwashing, I was still convinced that the urge didn’t stem from a disease but from a genuine desire, I’d pick from one of the people I’ve already fucked—a man or woman who’s sexually compatible and understands what I can and cannot offer. But under no circumstances—and this is crucial, Webb, so please hear me—undernocircumstances would I ask my brother to be the Lumberjack Yenta of Little Pippin Hollow and make me a match. Do you understand?”
Webb sighed. “You’re annoying.”
“That doesn’t sound like agreement.”
“Doesn’t it? Hmm. Anyway, I was also thinking that taking care of the orchard’s finances isn’t gonna be a full-time job for you,” Webb went on—correctly, because he wasn’t an idiot. “It’s probably disorienting to go from being a high-powered… financial person—”
“Investment auditor?” I supplied, amused.
“Exactly… To being your family’s bookkeeper.”
That was the damn truth.
“But people around here invest in shit, too,” he went on. “And Drew can take the bookkeeping back once he’s healed, especially if we move stuff online—”
“Good luck with that,” I murmured. “I offered to tutor Drew on the software myself, and he won’t hear of it. I guess he enjoys toiling over his ledgers with his feather quill by the light of a single candle.”
Webb snickered. “He’s notthatbad. But my point is, once you’ve caught up on the backlog, you’ll have time to do other stuff. Maybe open some kind of financial consulting place here?”
I shook my head. Everything in me flinched at the idea. It would be like serving myself a steaming plate of failure. It would be shrinking my life down to meaninglessness. My job was who Iwas.“Let’s just see how things go, okay?”
In other words, let’s see how fast Drew got better, and how fastIgot better, and how quickly I could escape back to the city.
He coughed. “In the meantime, maybe you could help us set up retirement accounts for our employees? Gage mentioned the idea offhandedly the other day. I thought—”
“Ofcourseit was his idea,” I said flatly. I finally flipped open the menu, though I couldn’t make myself concentrate on the words.
Webb threw up his hands. “I don’t get why you dislike him. It’s… there’s no logic to it, Knox. He’s a nice guy. Areallynice guy.”
“I don’t dislike him… exactly. He’s just annoying. He’s got a brain like a demented chipmunk, and he chirps at me constantly. No one should be that cheerful. I lived alone for a long time, you know? And now he’s… in my space.” Wearing nothing but ramen-printed boxer shorts slung low over his hips as he walked through the living room on his way to the bathroom in the mornings, so I could almost feel the warmth and sleepiness coming off him. I cleared my throat. “And? Not to be Debbie Downer, but he’s fucking expensive, too. My buy-in money paid off all the orchard’s debts, and you’ll be turning a decent profit, but if you want to do those irrigation updates and regrade the roads up to the back of the property, you can’t go crazy.”
