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Roman led the way around the building to a rear entrance, stopping in front of the thick metal door and ringing the buzzer that was part of one of those security systems that had a camera and a video feed. “Wallace keeps the front doors locked unless the pantry’s open for pickups. But he’s always here during the day, accepting deliveries and donations or working in the office.”
A few seconds later, the door swung open to reveal a tall, wiry man in his sixties wearing a baseball cap reading STAFF and an ear-to-ear smile. “Roman,” the man said kindly, and Camila liked him right on the spot. “I don’t have you on the books for this afternoon’s shift. Not that I’m complaining,” he added, his eyes widening as they landed on Camila, “especially when you’ve brought reinforcements.”
“Yeah, sorry to sort of barge in. This is my, uh, friend. Camila.”
She extended a hand to Wallace with a smile. “Camila Garza. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Wallace Anderson.” His handshake was warm and firm. “So, what brings you two to my doorstep today?”
“Actually, we were hoping you had some work to keep us busy,” Camila said.
Wallace laughed. “I’ve got enough work to keep ten of you busy. But I’ll gladly take anything I can get.” Looking at Roman, he said, “You know the ropes. I assume you can get Camila, here, up to speed on packing up meal kits? We’ll get plenty of takers tonight. We can always use extra.”
“Sure,” Roman said. “Thanks.”
“I should be saying that to you,” Wallace said, stepping back to usher them both inside. “Don’t let him work youtoohard, now, Camila. All volunteers get breaks when they need ’em, and there are plenty of water bottles in the staff fridge.”
“Oh, no worries,” she said. “I’m the one who asked for something to do to keep my brain busy. I don’t mind the work.”
Wallace chuckled. “Well, then. I suppose that makes you and Roman two peas in a pod. I’ll be in the office if you need me.” He hooked a thumb over one shoulder. “You’ll have the prep room to yourselves. Everyone else will be up front, distributing kits once we open up in a bit.”
“Copy that,” Roman said. “Thanks, Wallace.”
The older man moved down the narrow hallway, disappearing behind a door halfway down. Camila turned to Roman expectantly, and he didn’t disappoint, getting right down to business.
“There are three basic rooms, here. They serve kind of as checkpoints to make things easy.” He started walking in the opposite direction from Wallace’s office, the hallway just wide enough for Camila to fall in step beside him.
“Three checkpoints. Got it. What’s the first one?”
“Sorting.” He pointed to an open space to their right that reminded Camila of one of those warehouse mega-stores, only on a smaller scale, complete with floor-to-ceiling metal shelving and fluorescent lighting. Crates full of canned goods and other non-perishables filled the shelves and the large table in the center of the space.
Roman continued. “Some drop-offs come from local stores and restaurants, others from individual donators. Every once in a while we get a school-sponsored food drive. Wallace uses a portion of the monetary donations to shop twice a week for the most in-demand items, and everything ends up here, to be inspected, sorted by food group, and stored short-term.”
Camila blinked, her thoughts moving as quickly as her feet as she followed Roman farther into the building. “But that’s not where we’re headed.”
“Nope.” Roman took another couple of steps down the hallway, then headed into a large, high-ceilinged room. It was similar to the donation room, with polished, concrete floors and bright overhead lights. But instead of shelving, this space was bisected by four long tables that served as workstations, each one packed with crates containing assorted canned goods, dry goods, and stacks of sturdy paper bags.
“This is the prep room,” he said, moving to the two tables in the back of the space, both of which were loaded with crates. “After everything has been sorted and the expired or unusable items have been weeded out, they come here. The items are divided up by food group. Canned fruit, vegetables. Dry goods, like pasta and rice. Soup, spaghetti sauce.” He gestured to each set of crates. “Everything’s got a place.”
Camila’s gaze snagged on the front table, which held a short, tidy row of brown paper bags, three-quarters of the way full and standing at attention. “What about those?”
“Those are completed meal kits.” Roman picked one up and brought it to the second table, tipping his head in ac’mongesture. He looked so at ease in his T-shirt and jeans, guiding her through the kitchen-like space, that it was hard to believe he was the same man who dodged bullets and bad guys with such razor-sharp intensity.
Heat laddered down her spine, landing right between her hips as she thought of theotherthings he did with intensity. “Right! Meal kits,” she said, clearing her throat and her mind. “That’s what we’re working on, isn’t it?”
His black brows lifted toward his close-cropped hairline, but thankfully, he kept focused on the task in front of them. “Yep. Each kit gets a specific number of items, each from the different food groups. The size of the kit varies, depending on if it’s meant for one person or a family. But the breakdowns of how many items go into each kind of kit are all posted at the end of each workstation.”
Roman tapped a printout that had been laminated and taped to the end of the table in front of him, and Camila paused to read it carefully, then nodded. “Okay. Seems straightforward enough. Anything else I need to know?”
“Ideally, the items will go together to form a meal, like cans of red beans and boxes of rice, or pasta and sauce. Peanut butter and jelly. You get the idea.”
“Ah, that makes sense,” she said. It had to be hard enough to make a meal with random ingredients. Add limited resources to the equation, like not having many, or any, supplemental items, like pasta to put your sauce on? Pairing like ingredients together if they could was a smart plan. “I’m assuming you’ve devised your own personal process for putting the kits together efficiently?”
“You do know what they say about assumptions, right?” Roman asked, but oh no. Not even the way the corner of his mouth had kicked up into a hint of a smile was going to keep her from this one.
“Nice try, Oscar. But I’ve met you. You don’t exactly fly by the seat of your pants. In fact, it’s possible you evenironthe seat of your pants every morning before putting them on. So, yeah, there’s a zero percent chance you haven’t come up with a process.”
The laugh that flew out of him would’ve shocked the hell out of Camila if she weren’t so busy being thoroughly turned on at the sound of it. “Oscar?”
