“Yeah sure, I’ll be out in a few.”
When I got to the yard with my lunch, all the seats at the picnic table were filled except for one on the end – right next to Olivia. I scooted in next to her, ignoring the sweet scent of her perfume or shampoo or whatever it was that made her smell like some exotic flower even after an entire morning sweating over the plaster walls.
“Cupcake?”
Livi slid over a large rectangular container and when I opened it, I found a variety of perfectly decorated cupcakes inside.
“Where did you get these?” I asked curiously as I took one with chocolate frosting. I loved cupcakes.
“Marta made them for the crew.”
“Who’s Marta?” I asked.
“My family’s cook.”
I bit my lip to keep from making a sarcastic comment. “Tell Marta I said thanks.”
Lunch passed like it usually did – with the guys consuming enormous amounts of food with very little manners, a discussion about baseball, and a fair amount of trash talking. This particular crew had been working together for a while, even though others came and went depending on the size of the project.
What surprised me was how seamlessly Livi fit in now. While I’d been hiding out avoiding her and my inconvenient crush on her, Livi had become buddies with these guys. She kept up with the baseball talk, took their good natured teasing in stride, and gave them a little bit of sass right back.
It made me like her more.
I didn’t understand how this woman who’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, who’d only worked in a formal office in her family business, who’d gotten in trouble for throwing a temper tantrum and vandalizing her ex-boyfriend’s car was the same woman laughing with my crew and eating a peanut butter sandwich. That she’d clearly brought from home.
“Did Marta make your sandwich?” I couldn’t resist asking.
Livi nodded. “Yeah, she’s always been my secret food dealer.”
“Food dealer? What do you mean?”
The guys were engrossed in another conversation, not paying attention to us, and she turned a little in her seat to face me.
“My mother’s never met a carb that she likes,” Livi said lightly. “And she’d certainly never eat anything so mundane as a sandwich. But Marta likes to take care of me. When I was a kid she’d sneak me sweets and I didn’t even have to ask her to make these cupcakes. I talked to her about the crew and she just made them for us.”
I picked one up and took a bite. Soft yellow cake was covered with rich chocolate frosting and a design made out of little swirls of white chocolate. It was very artistic. The cupcake itself was moist and delicious, definitely not the kind that came from a box.
“Damn, this is good.”
“Right?”
Livi turned back to her lunch, opening a small container that held carrots and hummus. She wrinkled her nose and closed it again, rooting around until she found a second sandwich.
A woman after my own heart. Then again, this work was hard. We needed to get enough calories to do it.
“What did you do this weekend?” she asked me.
“Me? Nothing. Grocery shopping. Chores. Oh, and I went to visit my dad.”
“Does he live close by?” she asked.
“Yeah, he lives down in Tacoma. He hates driving on the freeway, so I usually try to go see him instead.”
“Was your dad in the trades as well?”
I laughed, thinking of my dad trying to do… well, anything involving tools. The poor guy was a nerd through and through.
“No, he was an accountant. My mom was a carpenter though. She got me interested in the trades.”
