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Crap. For all my mental smirking about communing at the moon, there was a reason I was out of the trailer and working this late at night (why I did thiseverynight). It was my slice of peace and quiet. It was getting me out from my office and that lumpy couch and doing it after everyone else went home.
So, I’dhavethat peace and quiet.
Footsteps meant that was going to disappear.
I couldn’t pack up and rush inside, not with my music playing softly and my camp lantern illuminating my planners, my laptop shining brightly.
I had to grit my teeth and stick it out.
My superpower.
Stickers, spreadsheets, and sticking it out.
Cute.
My mental spiraling meant that the footsteps came closer, echoing across the empty parking lot, growing louder and louder until I knew they were right in front of me.
I looked up.
Wished immediately that I’d brought out earbuds so I could pretend not to hear him. Wished I’d never emerged from my working cave to do my communing (planning) under the moon.
“Hi, harpy,” Joel said softly.
A quiet jab through my midsection.
“Hi,” I replied and went back to planning.
Joel didn’t seem bothered when I glanced back down at my lap, summarily dismissing him. In fact, he just stood there and said, “Practice went well. Thanks for asking.”
I didn’t give him a dismissal this time.
I just straight up ignored him—something that was pretty fucking difficult to do when he was shoving one of the camping tables down to the side and sinking down onto the steps next to me.
Steps that barely fit my own ass.
Steps that meant he was now pressed against me from shoulder to thigh.
“Glitter, huh?” He reached over me, ran a big,thickfinger over the strip of washi tape I’d put along the border of tomorrow’s page.
Bright and cheery. A fresh, positive start.
Something that made me smile when I looked at it.
Something I didn’t want to explain to Joel Marshall. No matter how good he smelled.
I snapped my planner shut, probably wrinkling the page I’d been working on and cringing inwardly. I still didn’t open to check, though. I’d jump into recovery mode once I got him to back off, salvage anything that was damaged.
But step one was to get him to leave.
“What do you want, Marshall?”
He was quiet for a heartbeat, and I braced for him to lash out at me. He’d never failed to match my snark withhissnark.
Today he didn’t, though.
He just asked, “How many nights have you worked this late out here?”
A question I didn’t want to answer.
