I look toward the doorway. It is Everett. Just Everett.
Crap.
“You’re back earlier than I expected,” I say. “How did things go with Jack?”
After karaoke wound down, Jack Bennett and Everett finally had a chance to talk a little business. Jack has been farming with his dad, Tucker, since he moved back over a year ago. He plansto take over completely at whatever point Tucker decides to retire, but Tucker is bringing Jack in on everything from buying new animals to equipment purchases to who to hire.
I figured he was the perfect one to talk to about converting his farm with IES and IAS, and I’d been right. He’d been open, asked a lot of great questions, and was eager to meet Everett.
Jack isn’t completely new to farming. He earned an agribusiness degree in college, but he worked for a seed company in Iowa before moving back to Sapphire Falls. I don’t think Sapphire Falls had been in his long-term plans, but neither had been losing his wife to cancer and becoming a single dad to three young daughters.
He’d moved home for…help. He’d been grieving. His little girls were grieving. He needed his friends and family, of course.
He's getting better. They’re all getting better. But I think Jack has realized he wants to settle here, close to home, with his girls now.
“Great.” Everett settles at the breakfast bar on a stool next to me. “Of course, he already knew everything about the program because you had explained it. And he was excited, because you sold it perfectly. He’s basically ready to sign on the dotted line.”
Everett reaches past me for a cookie, and I can’t help it, I take a big, deep inhale of his cologne.
“Well, that’s great,” I say. “I’ll expect my Christmas bonus by the twenty-fifth.” I bite into my cookie.
He grins and bites into the reindeer he chose. We both chew quietly for a moment.
I’m not getting a bonus because I’m not officially employed by IES until January first, but I don’t mind. Getting Jack Bennett on board now only benefits IES, and me, down the road. Besides, January first is only a few days away. And I’ll be compensatedverywell when that happens. The contract Graham and Everettoffered me is fantastic. Of course it is. I know they both value me and know I’ll be a great addition to the company.
Of course, that will alsoofficiallymake Everett my boss.
But it will be good. For both of us.
I silently repeat everything I’ve been telling myself for the past month: The job will allow me to use all of my professional skills to their fullest, to be appreciated by both our clients and my employers, and to do something truly meaningful with my work. And I’ll be a huge asset to Everett and Graham, allowing them to expand what IES does, and not only making them more money but helping them do more good in the world. It's a win-win.
And if Everett and I never kiss again, that’s a small price to pay for all of that good.
I take a breath.
With that breath comes another whiff of Everett’s cologne, and I don’t feel any better after all of those words.
So I’ll just keep reminding myself of all of that over and over again until it really sinks in.
“Graham didn’t come home with you?” I ask.
“He and Margot want to spend as much time together as they can. She hasn’t seen him in over a week.”
When Margot and Graham are both in Sapphire Falls, they stay at their respective parents' houses. Separately. I grin, “Poor babies.”
“I was definitely feeling like a third wheel,” he says.
“Well, it’s only fair since Graham’s probably felt that way out in New Mexico,” I say flippantly.
Then I mentally kick myself.
I was not going to mention New Mexico. What the hell? Everett doesn’t need to know that hearing about Sofia bothered me.
It did. But Everett doesn’t need to know that. And it doesn’t matter if it bothers me. I’m the one insisting we can’t have a relationship, and if that’s the case, I can’t expect him not to have any other relationships.
Everett looks at me. “Why would Graham feel like a third wheel in New Mexico?”
Oh my God. He’s going to make me say it. I roll my eyes. “Never mind.”
