Page 10 of Joy
“You from Eatery?”
“Huh? Y-yeah,” I confirmed, holding up the big bag.
“Ted Emery,” he answered, shaking my hand and damn near dislocating my shoulder. “I’m the foreman. We already squared away payment with George.”
“All right.”
“Go on down there to the boys and hand out the orders, will you?” Ted pointed toward the bridge and a group of guys among equipment. “Don’t let none of them give you a hard time, though.” He slapped my shoulder in that weird way dudes three times your size did, as if they’ve got to prove their manliness.
I stumbled forward, clutching the food because I was afraid of how a group of hungry construction guys would act if I dropped it all. A few of the workers met me halfway and directed me over to a table. One, who had to be younger than me, hungrily looked over my shoulder.
“Two, er—grinders?” I said, reading the neat handwriting on the outside of each wrapper. Looked like it was probably a sub. “Spaghetti. Chicken sandwich….”
The kid was picking up each meal and calling out the worker’s name who ordered it.
I pulled out some bags of chips and piled them to the side before reaching for the next meal. “An avocado panini.”
“Ted!” the guy called out.
“Don’t touch my panini!” Ted barked from somewhere nearby.
I took the last item from the bag and gave it pause. “A… Fluffernutter—?”
“Fluffernutter sandwich!” the kid shouted, laughing. “Silas!”
Silas? Are you kidding me?
I turned around quickly, all but knocking into the man in question.
Silas glanced down at me before averting his gaze.
You know… he actually didn’t look like a ham sandwich. That was mean of me. He wasn’t wearing that beat-up cap from yesterday. His hair was neat-looking now, and the scruff on his face had been trimmed to thatoh you sexy piece of manstage.
He was actually kind of hot. And definitely still huge. His chest was easily two of me across, and he wasn’t wearing a long-sleeve shirt to hide his arms. Be still my heart, the muscles on that man. I’d be happy to watch him pick up heavy things all day.
I swallowed, but my throat was dry.
He pointed at the sandwich in my hand.
I glanced down. “Oh! Yours.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s a Fluffernutter sandwich?”
Silas was staring at the food. “Fluff and peanut butter,” he answered quietly.
“Fluff? Like marshmallow?”
He nodded and immediately walked away.
I frowned, watching Silas’s back. What was up with him? He couldn’t even pretend to be pleasant? There was apparently no getting on his good side, if the lack of eye contact and one-word responses weren’t enough indication that Silas didn’t want to be friends.
Not that Iwantedto be friends.
Buff, hot guy or not.
Jerk.
