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My jaw drops as I stare at this psychopath trying to force-feed me breakfast every day. “Wyatt, none of this was in our contract.”
“I know, but we’re friends now.” He states it like that’s the most obvious answer in the world.
I slice my hands through my hair, feeling completely out of control, which is a rare thing for me, and another thought occurs to me. “Did you fill my gas tank up last night?”
“I had extra gasoline for the mower, so…”
“Wyatt!”
“What?”
“You’re like…dad bombing me!”
“I’m what?”
“Like love bombing but in the weird mountain-man surrogate-dad sort of way. You have to stop. I’m feeling better now, and I have everything I need. Can you be a little less friendly for a hot minute? I actually like taking care of Reginald.”
“I know, but I’m already doing chores for Millie,” he says, swinging the sharp edge of his ax into the log so his hands are free to pickup the loose pieces of wood and toss them over to his wheelbarrow. “I’m just being practical.”
I open my mouth to argue but am distracted by his ass in those faded jeans as he bends over. Coming up here was a bad idea. I should have just called him. Watching him do this makes it hard to remember that I’m mad at him. But I am mad at him.
I tear my eyes off his biceps, which are stretching his flannel sleeves, and force a deep, cleansing breath before I add, “I’m not some weak thing that needs to be taken care of. And I don’t like feeling indebted to people. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“These are gifts, Trista.” Wyatt stares back at me, looking mortally wounded. “You’re not indebted to me in any way. I hate that you’d think that.”
His words should make me feel better, but they don’t. They make me feel worse. Like I’m broken because I can’t accept someone doing something nice for me.
And truth be told, I love everything he’s given me. The groceries, the baked goods…I’m sure that thousand-plus-dollar bed is going to feel like heaven. God, I love it all. But I know what getting comfortable with people means. What counting on those you love means.
It means it hurts ten times worse when they leave.
“Can you just try to back off a little bit on the helping?” I ask, swallowing the knot in my throat to add, “It’s important for me to be independent.”
He nods slowly as he watches me. The furrow in his brow clearly indicates he doesn’t fully understand me, and frankly, I don’t even understand myself. I don’t even hang out with my coworkers or Avery when they ask. I just like my independence. It’s natural for Wyatt to be helpful and involved, but it’s foreign to me. I’ve been on my own for so long that I don’t know what it’s like to be part of a team.
Deciding to change the subject and lighten the mood so I don’t spiral into a depressive, self-loathing episode, I gesture to his pile of logs. “What is it you’re even doing here?”
Wyatt frowns at the obvious display. “Chopping wood.”
“What for, though?” I ask, realizing I’ve always wonderedwhy those hot guys on TikTok do all that wood chopping. “Like where’s all that wood going? Is it for an actual purpose, or is it just a mountain-man-aesthetic thing?”
“Mountain-man-aesthetic thing?” He scowls, clearly not liking my suggestion that he would chop wood for anything other than some meaningful purpose. “I chop for wildfire mitigation. I have to constantly keep a clear zone around my house to prevent it from igniting in the event of a catastrophic fire. Because I have to chop so much, I built a masonry heater in my home. It burns wood and traps the heat in the brick chambers to distribute slowly. Goes through way less wood than a wood-burning furnace and causes a lot less pollution, which makes for improved air quality up here.”
My mood shifts as I feel oddly proud of this overbearing, overgenerous, eco-savvy guy I let knock me up with his ranch cup sperm. “Definitely not for TikTok, then.”
“I don’t even have TikTok,” Wyatt huffs. He sounds funny when he says “TikTok.” He sounds funny when he says anything outside of grunts and basic conversation he’s forced into by me. “Chopping wood is kind of like my therapy. It’s meditative. My mind stops racing when I’m here.”
“Does your mind race a lot?” I watch him carefully because I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface on this guy yet, and I’m curious about what makes him tick. What causes that nearly permanent glower on his face most days? And how did us becoming friends turn into him going nuts and dad bombing me?
“I guess so.” He pulls his ax out of the stump as he sets a fresh log up on his chopping station. “My dad always called me a ‘five minutes from now’ person. Always stressing about the future and what’s to come.”
“Sounds exhausting.”
“It is…which is why I love chopping wood.” He takes a swing, and a satisfying snap of wood draws my eyes to the log he split with just one cut. He frowns and juts his bearded chin toward me. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you a now person or a ‘five minutes from now’ person?”
