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“Yeah. I mean… They must like it, right? They keep ordering, and my team keeps shipping them stuff.”
“So, you don’t really get to talk to the people who make the products or the people who use them? And you don’t know if you like the stuff you’re moving around or if the people who get the stuff are happy? You just deal with the problems in the middle?” He wrinkled his nose. “And you… like that?”
He didn’t sound judgmental so much as bewildered, but I felt judged all the same… maybe because his honest appraisal of my job knocked down the little wall of justifications I’d been building in my mind.
“Yes, I do.” I scrambled to my knees. “I mean, would I like to have face time with actual clients? Yeah. And to feel like I wasn’t just a… a cog in a machine? Sure. But you know what else I like? Affording rent, and food, and 401k contributions, and supplementing my mother’s spa habit. My dad gave me school money, but I’m not independently wealthy. I live in the real world, and not every job is perfect, okay?”
“Whoa, whoa, what are you getting angry for?” Hunter demanded, pushing to his feet. “It’s just… back when I knew you, you were all about making connections with people. First kid on the volunteer list when Old Mr. Dixon’s yard needed mowed the summer we were twelve, the kid who spent his whole recess comforting Petey Van Sant after Ms. Wolf teased him for not being able to pronounce Newfoundland in fourth grade. That was why I liked you so—” He caught himself and broke off with a fierce frown. “I mean, that was why it pissed me off when you betrayed me!”
The sigh I emitted sounded more like a feral growl, and I jumped to my feet too, needing to put us on equal footing. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, not this again—”
“But I guess you weren’t that person to begin with, were you?” Hunter pushed on, as heated as I was. “You wanted to leave the Thicket and be a big success, right? Well, congratulations. You got what you wanted.” He folded his arms across his chest and added in a mutter, “Though it sounds hella boring, not gonna lie.”
I sucked in a deep, angry breath. Why was I letting this man get in my head and make me question things? I had a stable career I enjoyed and a job at a company I… didn’t hate. I was making a name for myself, supporting myself, which was more than my father had ever done, damn it. And if Hunter didn’t understand that, then fuck him.
I should have taken the out he’d offered me earlier and gone home, if only to avoid his incessant judging. What did I care if he thought I was lazy? No niceness bet was worth this.
I stepped closer to him and leaned in his face. “Well, I don’t care what you think. I graduated with honors from U of I in Logistics and Supply Chain Management. I was recruited into one of the top logistics programs in Chicago. I worked my ass off to get promoted to vice president, and yes, I’m proud of it. I move billions of tiny pieces around a giant game board in my mind to make sure things get where they need to be when they need to be there, and without people like me and my team, business owners like you wouldn’t be able to share their products with the world. It’s important work. And I don’t need a fucking nursery owner making me feel like I work the graveyard shift at a… a… a daylight factory!”
I broke off to stare at Hunter, my breath heaving. I played back my own words and was pretty sure I wasn’t making sense anymore, if I ever had been.
Sweat-drenched with turkey-hat hair and coated in sawdust, I probably looked like a homicidal powdered donut, deranged and out of control. Hell, I felt out of control, like I was riding the Hunter roller coaster again, but this time, the ride was on fire. It was curiously freeing, though, letting myself feel my feelings without holding back.
“I’m here on my damned hands and knees, sanding a barn floor for you,” I went on because I was on a roll. “And you…”
My voice trailed off as I realized that while I was speaking, Hunter’s gaze had glued itself to my lips. The temperature in the room ratcheted up several degrees, and my skin blazed with heat that had nothing to do with hard work or even anger…
And everything to do with his hot stare.
“Y-you…” I licked my lips and tried again. “You…”
Hunter’s eyes bored into me until I couldn’t stand it anymore—which, admittedly, probably took all of half a second. Like earlier, he didn’t move, didn’t try to touch me, yet my lips felt like they were being branded. My head swam with an intense combination of anger, confusion, and base desire until the sole focus of my being became the movement of his lips just inches from mine and that ever-present heat in his gaze… and the moment I stopped trying to convince myself that frustrating, provoking, stubborn-as-fuck Hunter Jackson was the last person I should want, I was lost.
