She did salute this time, and he paused, turning to face her, trying to ignore the churning fire in his gut.
“I have a feeling that was insubordination.”
“Well, and I have a feeling this isn’t the actual military.”
“Good for you.” He scowled. “You know, you’re much sweeter in your bakery.”
“That is true. I’m usually much sweeter in general. Because I don’t have a lot of opportunity to be anything else.”
He turned and kept on walking. “No?”
He was fascinated by that. Because he had assumed that very nice people didn’t need a break from being very nice people, but he wondered if that was a little bit naïve.
He would never characterize himself as naïve in most ways. He was flat-out overly familiar withhow terrible life could be. But he would be the first to admit that he didn’t necessarily understand the complexities of people who didn’t work like him.
Who weren’t stripped down to the basics in quite the same way.
“Well, I took care of my mom for a long time. I just had to practice being really patient. Anytime I felt frustrated or unhappy about what I was doing, I would just set it aside for a while. I would imagine it in my mind, like I was cleaning the house, and I came across something I didn’t quite know what to do with. I would envision myself setting it aside. Moving it out of view. But the trouble is, that really is all you’ve done. All you’ve done is move it out of view. Eventually, there’s a whole big pile of frustration that you’ve never dealt with, that you’ve never felt. When my brother cheated on Marlowe, I let some of it out. I yelled at him. I told him exactly what I thought about him.”
She grimaced. “It wasn’t all about Marlowe. Some of it was about me. Because he let me take care of our mother. He didn’t do anything to help. I thought it was okay. The whole time I was doing it, I thought it was okay. But it really wasn’t okay.”
She shrugged before she continued. “Part of moving out here was supposed to be me being free of all that. Needing to be sort of relentlessly up for anything and taking care of other people before I took care of myself. But I haven’t really done a whole lot for myself. Except apparently it’s easy enough for me to give you a hard time.”
“Well, glad I’m helping you realize your goals.”
“It’s surprising, actually.”
“Surprising that I’m useful in any way?”
“Oh no. I figure you have to be useful. That’s why they keep you around, right?”
“Because it can’t be for my personality.”
She squinted. “You said it. Not me.”
He jumped when she touched him. Her gentle hand on his elbow a total and complete shock. So much so, he quit walking. “What?”
“I’m kidding,” she said, her voice so sincere it threatened to crack something hard and cynical inside him.
“What?”
“I feel bad. That was too mean.”
He shook his head. “Do you think I’mtryingto win Mr. Congeniality?”
“Well, just in case you are, I feel bad, because that was too mean.”
“It was not too mean. If I cared about being the most popular guy around, I might make an effort.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, fuck my personality. I want to win based on my looks.”
“You could definitely do that.”
He looked back at her, his stomach tightening just a bit.
All the better to eat you with.
She’d said the flirty thing. He hadn’t.
Her face went red, and she looked away from him. “Why don’t you? Care about…people liking you or observing the basic social rules the rest of us do?”
