Page 30 of What it Takes
“Hi, Ben. I didn’t hear you coming.” She held up the earbuds. “I guess that was obvious.”
“I didn’t mean to startle you. What are you watching?”
“A sitcom that’s been on for years, I guess, but I just started watching it a few nights ago. It’s ridiculous, but it makes me laugh.”
He loved her laugh and found himself wishing he could watch it with her. “Rosie sent me to find you. It’s almost time to eat.”
“I can smell the burgers.” She stood and wrapped the cord for the earbuds around the tablet. “Does she need help bringing stuff out? Like condiments and stuff?”
“I don’t think so. It looked they have everything on one of the picnic tables.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll go ask her what she needs, then.”
“Laney, she doesn’t need anything. She wants you to go eat. And I hope you’re hungry because there were three grills going. There are alotof burgers. And hot dogs.”
She looked at him for a long moment, indecision written all over her face. It probably wasn’t easy working for people like Rosie and Josh, in what was their home. If she was the kind of person who liked well-defined lines between employers and employee, she was going to have a hard time adjusting.
“I...don’t know what to do,” she blurted out, and then her cheeks turned pink. “Is she just asking because it’s polite, and I should be polite and say thank you, but I have dinner plans?”
He could almost feel her anxiety, and he felt like maybe somebody—like an asshole ex, maybe—had made most of her decisions for her in the past. “You can do whatever you’re comfortable doing. Icantell you Rosie’s not just being polite. You’re part of the Northern Star, so she’s going to take care of you, even though you’re an employee. But she also won’t be offended if it would make you more comfortable if I tell her you already made yourself some supper and are watching TV. What do youwantto do?”
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and Ben had to force himself to focus on her eyes. “Those burgers do smell awfully good.”
“Then let’s go have one. Or maybe five or six.” When she gave him a shocked look, he laughed. “Seriously, you are not going to believe how much food they cooked.”
Ben waited for her to put the tablet inside and then they walked back toward the area near Terry and Evan’s RV where they’d gathered all the picnic tables together. It felt good to have her next to him, as if he wasn’t quite as alone, even though they weren’t a couple. And maybe, in another time and place, it would have been a date.
In this time and place, though, it wasn’t. But at the very least, they’d become friends, and that would have to be enough since Laney had made it very clear she didn’t want more.
