He finally manages to pry the cart from my grip and put it back with its buddies in the little cart pen.
I just stare at him.“I can’t believe this is my life.”
“It’s pretty wild,” he agrees, draping an arm over my shoulder and gently guiding me to the passenger seat.
“Two weeks ago I was just fired from my job, and then I checked the mail and my whole life changed,” I tell him, apparently now unable to shut up.
He laughs gently, then grabs the seatbelt, clicking it over my lap like it’s the most normal thing in the world to buckle me into his car.
“Two weeks isn’t very long to get used to a big change like this,” he says agreeably.
Before I get a chance to retort, he’s closed the door on me.
“I promise I’m not usually this…” I start again as he gets into the driver’s seat.I wave my hand at myself.“Discombobulated.”
“Discombobulated?”he repeats, shaking his head.“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that out loud.”
“Well, it’s just a banner day for new things then, I guess.”
He laughs, starting the car, and the sound of it sets me at ease, slightly.
“You don’t think I’m crazy, right?”
“What?Why?For starting a business?Moving to a small town to do it?After it fell in your lap and you’d lost your job?”
I nod emphatically and he pulls out carefully, putting one big hand on my seat as he looks out the back window.
His forearms are muscled and tanned, and I should certainly not be looking at his forearms with any interest.
Discombobulated, indeed.
“I mean, yeah, it definitely is a weird set of things to happen all at once, but honestly, I think it would be worse if you hadn’t come here.”
“You do?”I ask, and the relief that floods me is outsized.I shouldn’t care what this man I just met thinks, or any stranger—and I don’t, not really—but it’s nice to hear it all the same.
“Yeah.I mean, the timing was perfect, right?Weirdly perfect.Then you have, you know, the ability to make the business happen?—”
“The funds, you mean.”
“Yes, that is exactly what I was politely trying to dance around.”He laughs.“Plus, it’s in your wheelhouse.Books.That’s your wheelhouse, you said so yourself.So now, it’s just learning the business components while you go.And you met me, which is also perfect.”
“You’re perfect for me?”I ask, confused.
He pauses, blinking, and I quickly backtrack.“You mean meeting you was perfect… because you’re going to help me with the business stuff.”
“Something like that,” he agrees, and I squint at him, sure I’m missing some social cue or something important here.I glance him over, trying to pinpoint his body language, but my face turns hot immediately and I pivot to looking outside the window as fast as I can.
I stay quiet the rest of the ride, content to look over the to-do lists in my notes app, and by the time we’ve arrived at the feed store, which is also brimming with pumpkins and corn stalks and hay bales, I’ve mostly recovered my equilibrium.
“Jack bought a raccoon trap here once,” he says as he pulls into the place.“I don’t have pets, so I only come here if I need fishing tackle.”
“Random,” I tell him.“A raccoon trap?”I shake my head.“I’m almost afraid to ask what happened to the raccoon.”
“Oh, it wasn’t the raccoon they needed to worry about,” Aiden replies.
Which clears nothing up at all.“What?”
“Oh, it’s such a good story.”
