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Chapter 8
He shouldn’t have brought her here. What was he thinking? He should have taken her to the new house that he just closed on. It had every comfort known to man, big windows overlooking the lake, heat, electricity, internet, and several spare bedrooms. A big chef’s kitchen, and tons of space. It almost screamed wealth and luxury.
He’d bought it...but maybe he shouldn’t have. It was the first thing he’d bought since he came to Strawberry Sands. He’d been allowing his investments to accumulate wealth and putting a little bit of his money aside every month. He didn’t make much at the diner, but he didn’t really need much. The small apartment over the diner was included with his job. All he had to pay was electricity and the internet and his phone bill.
He lived simply and hadn’t touched any of his savings. It felt good to pay for things in cash. No one who knew him when he was a kid would have thought that he would be where he was at this point in his life.
Maybe he liked it that way. Maybe he liked not living the way he could but living the way he wanted to.
Regardless, he had brought Chi here, and he wasn’t sure why.
She was going to be roughing it in the worst way. No electricity, uncertain heat, water she had to warm on the stove, and just one bedroom.
Of course she could have it, and he would be sleeping right outside on the rather hard couch.
It wasn’t long enough for him, and it wasn’t comfortable either, from the little bit of time he’d spent on it.
Typically, he sat on the rocking chairs on the porch.
He didn’t spend much time here in the winter.
Regardless, it was what it was.
And he knew, even if he didn’t want to admit it, most likely the reason he was here and not at his bigger house was because he wanted Chi to be stuck with him. He didn’t want to drop her off at her house and then go home to his.
She hadn’t even questioned him. But she probably would, sooner rather than later. After all, why couldn’t he have just dropped her off at her house?
He told her he was taking her here, and she hadn’t thought to argue. But she’d just been through a very big shock, and her brain probably wasn’t working correctly.
As soon as it kicked into gear again, she was going to demand to know what was going on with him. Why had he wanted her here?
And he had no idea what he was going to say. He could hardly tell her that he just wanted to spend time with her. Just wanted to be with her. Just wanted...her to see that he was more than her cook and all-around general helper at the diner.
Of course, he wasn’t sure how he thought them being here together would show her any of that. If she hadn’t seen it in the last few years they worked together, there was certainly no guarantee that she was going to see it now.
He went to the small shed and grabbed the ax from where he had stored it.
He hadn’t cut any firewood since he’d used it all in the spring.
He meant to make it out all summer long, but they’d been busy at the diner, and he hadn’t been too inspired to do much of anything, because he’d been moping about the fact that Chi seemed more and more infatuated with that lawyer.
The labor felt good, the rhythm that he fell into as he split the billets he’d cut last winter giving his mind a break from all the things he was thinking about. Just setting up the piece of wood, splitting it neatly in half, picking up the pieces and stacking them. Good, honest labor that, as he had told Chi, warmed him up in no time.
