Joe held out his hand. “Let me charge that for you.”
“Thanks. You’re a useful guy to have around.” I surrendered my phone, my brain drifting back to something Kelsey had said. “Joe, why did you take the job this weekend?”
He plugged in my phone without answering.
I puffed out a breath. “You don’t give away much, do you? I noticed it at dinner. You don’t like to talk about yourself.”
He ran a hand through his thick hair, still matted from wearing a hard hat all day. “I don’t have that much to say.”
“Unlike me. I talk all the time.”
His mouth twitched in acknowledgment. “Makes it easier for me.”
“Because I don’t let you get a word in edgewise?”
“Because you ask questions. It’s easier for me to respondthan to come up with stuff myself. Besides, I like listening to you. Seeing the way your mind works.”
His words sank into me, as warm as the sound of my name in his voice. I snorted. “Great. I have entertainment value.”
“You do. But also, you’re interesting. Smart.”
“So are you.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, as if there was a tension there. “I never went to college.”
It was another card laid down in this not-a-game we were playing, another opening into Joe. He’d always seemed so sure of himself, of his choices.
“Education doesn’t have anything to do with intelligence,” I said. Trying to ease the tension, to erase the furrow in his brow. “Did you…Do you want to go to college?”
He shook his head. “Makes no difference to me. Not now. But I guess it does for some people.”
“Who?” I demanded. “Not anyone whose opinion matters. Your friends like you. They respect you.”
“Because we work well together. But we don’t…I don’t open up with them. It’s all pretty much about the job. Surface-level stuff.”
My heart contracted and then swelled. Because this was not surface level. Joe—self-sufficient, self-assured—was in some ways as isolated as I was. But he’d opened up with me.
I swayed closer, mesmerized by the grains of sawdust caught in his beard. By his lips. By his eyes. “You know you have the power to change that, right? If you want to. Your friends would probably love to know you better.”I would love to know you better.
He gave me another of those near smiles, but there was noamusement in it, more of a wry self-recognition. “I figure the less people know, the less they can…” He hesitated.
“What? Tell me.”
“Be disappointed.”
My mouth jarred open. “That is a load of horse manure,” I said when my jaw was working again. “You’ve never disappointed anybody in your life. Everyone relies on you. Your sister. Your mother. Heck,mymother.Andmy dad.”
He shrugged. Unconvinced. And maybe using my words wasn’t enough, I thought, searching his face.
“Joe…” I set my palm against his cheek, learning his texture, and his gaze darkened. His jaw flexed.
He took a step back. “I should shower.”
The words dashed over me like cold water. “Okay.”
He cleared his throat. “It’s been a long day. For both of us.”
My brain scrambled. “Yeah, for sure.”
