He shrugged at Gabe’s raised eyebrows of surprise, and added, “Just clumsy, I guess.”
The suspicion on Gabe’s face raised Galen’s level of worry that someone would find out about their encounter on the path and come down hard on Bede about it. By the time he was able to grab some breakfast and slide into the seat across from Bede, who looked at him with wary, dark eyes, Galen felt almost desperate to assure Bede.
Bede’s hands were around a white china mug that was only half filled with very black coffee, which also looked like it had gone cold, from sitting there and being mostly undrunk. Hiseyes looked like he’d rubbed them raw, with half-rings of faded purple beneath.
“Hey,” said Galen as he lifted a fork to dive into his stack of pancakes, a food soft enough to be chewed with a sore head. “You look like you ran into a bear in the woods last night. And lost.”
“A what?” His hands tightened around the mug, his expression bleak as he looked at Galen.
Reassuring Bede wasn’t going to be easy because it looked like Bede didn’t want to talk about it.
At any other time, Galen would have picked up his tray and gone to sit elsewhere.
But Bede winced as he looked down, his hands flexing around the mug, and Galen knew there was a whole lot more going on than them having taken jabs at each other the night before. With purple scoops of shadows beneath his eyes, Bede looked like he’d not slept at all.
So Galen leaned forward, resting on his elbows on either side of his plate, and said, “As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t meet anyone on my way back to my tent last night.”
Bede blinked at him, and a moment later, Owen and Toby sauntered by them, trays in hand as they bussed their places, and the moment was taken by silent hands.
“Guess we better get to work,” said Galen, shoving his pancakes into his mouth with large forkfuls.
“Okay,” said Bede. Then he paused, took a sip of his coffee, and shrugged. A shrug that was so slight, it was hard to discern theI-don’t-give-a-shitfrom theSure-I-don’t-mind-I’m-up-for-whatever.
But before Galen could respond to that, Bede got up from the table and stormed out, almost throwing his coffee mug in the bussing tub. Leaving Galen on his own, running behind his team when he was supposed to be out front, leading it.
The task that day was to follow the yellow flags they’d placed and dig up the knapweed. Which was simple enough and left Galen hoping that the day would go well, without any problems or fights.
They grabbed shovels and pickaxes from the shed by the paddock and started digging up knapweed along the road on the other side of the team leads’ tents. But, in spite of the fact that they all wore their matching straw hats andlookedlike a team, it didn’t go smoothly. Partly because Toby and Owen started off the day by competing to see who could dig the slowest and complain the loudest, as each clump of knapweed was trenched out of the ground.
Galen went over to them, shovel in hand, and opened his mouth to either encourage them, or enforce a more effective work ethic, when Bede stepped around him. Stepped infrontof him, like he was the boss of everything.
“Get to work, you losers,” Bede said, a low growl beneath each word. Which made Toby and Owen shut up and start digging.
Bede had stepped in, probably trying to help, but it made Galen feel inadequate as a team lead.
Galen opened his mouth, not sure whether he wanted to thank Bede or tell him to step back because he, Galen, was in charge of this particular team. A huge chunk of his earlier sympathy for Bede vanished beneath the hot sun, though he made himself shake it off, made himself focus on the work.
Because it was so hot, one of the cooks brought out a cooler full of ice and bottled iced tea and water. Galen knew he should have thought of this.
Feeling like the worst team lead ever, he made a point of keeping an eye on the time, encouraging breaks once an hour or so. He was feeling pretty good when he picked up the cooler,along with his shovel, and led the team along the path around the lake to another long stretch where they’d flagged knapweed.
This area was a little way out from where the path went into the deep woods, where the temperature felt around five degrees cooler. It was also quite near the spot where Galen had encountered Bede the night before, when Galen had been dressed in only his briefs, and the unsnapped shirt, which had danced about and not covered very much.
Making himself concentrate, Galen decided they would work on the exposed part of the path and then move into the shaded area when it got really hot, and get a good bit of work done before lunch.
Toby and Owen must have had other plans as they charged past him into the shade.
Galen was just about to open his mouth and say something about it, when Bede reached out and grabbed both of them, dropping his shovel in the process, and drew them back into the bright sunshine.
“There’s plenty here to dig out here, assholes,” he said, baring his teeth at them.
Galen had no idea why Bede was stepping into the team lead role yet again, but he didn’t relish the idea that Gabe or anyone would find out that Galen sucked at it.
“Knock it off, Bede,” he said. “This is the second time you’ve done this. I’ve had enough. It’s not your job to tell them what to do, it’s mine.”
“Then why don’t youdoit then,” said Bede, stepping close, chest out. “You can’t let these knuckleheads slack, or they’ll just keep slacking.”
“If you’ll let me do my job, Iwill,” said Galen, loudly, very nearly giving in to shaking his finger in Bede’s face.
