“It was my job. And the money—well, the money was shit, but I got paid.”
“I guess I’m lucky or privileged or whatever. I’ve never had a bad job. I have had a bad day on a job, though,” he said before he laughed lightly. “I worked at the ice cream parlor in the summers as a teen, and one day the soft serve ice cream machine malfunctioned—”
“Oh, no,” Raven said as she leaned over the tub, already predicting the direction of the story.
“Yeah, my coworker disappeared, there was a growing queue, and here’s the machine that won’t stop running. So I’m there whipping out cones and bowls as fast as I can, trying to catch the ice cream. At some point, I pull out a bucket. And all anyone could see was some chubby kid on the verge of tears and a lot of wasted ice cream.”
Laughter took over, and it was a while before either of them realized the timer had gone off.
* * *
Silas vacated the hallway, leaving Raven to drain the tub and take a proper shower. As he entered the kitchen, he registered the smile still on his lips. He and Raven had addressed the tension, so the pleasant conversation that came afterward was more than he could’ve hoped for.
He could admit it had been hard for him to understand the kind of adult who’d, on a whim, drop their regular life to spend the summer doing a job they’d never been interested in. But in those twenty minutes, Silas gleaned Raven’s love of life. He could appreciate her audacity even if it was still confounding and—honestly—scary. What would it be like to make potentially life-altering decisions without fear?
Listening to Raven speak had also inadvertently given him hope she’d leave; he knew Cedar would never satisfy the wanderer in her.
Silas busied himself creating a simple cheese board for Raven. He wasn’t sure she’d want to eat anything, but it felt like the natural thing to do. Something he’d want.
The sound of running water eventually stopped, and Raven appeared in the kitchen shortly thereafter with her braids wrapped inside a towel, her face bare, and wearing a slightly baggy T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants he’d left for her.
It was striking to see her this pared down. Had her eyes always been that big? He realized he was staring and offered her a seat at his breakfast table.
“Is this for me?” she asked, looking at the board he’d assembled as she settled into her chair.
“You don’t have to eat it. I just threw it together in case,” he said, suddenly feeling sheepish about the effort.
“No, it looks good, thank you,” she said.
“Would you like something to drink? Sparkling water, regular water, iced tea?”
“Sparkling water would be great,” she replied, and Silas grabbed a can from the refrigerator and poured it into a glass with some ice. When he turned to deliver, he found Raven fixing the drooping towel around her hair. Her arm placement caused the shirt to press against her full breasts, revealing the outline of her hardened nipples and the piercing in one of them.
Silas almost dropped the glass he held.
“Careful,” Raven said, reaching for her drink.
And as she delighted in the light pomegranate flavor of her drink, Silas dealt with the heat sweeping across his body by standing against his counter where he could catch a breeze from the open window.
“What type of cheese is this?” Raven asked, lifting a white cheese wedge with a faint dark stripe down the middle. “It’s good.”
“Morbier,” he replied in a thankfully strong and steady voice, then added, “There’s a legend that says that line was created from ash that was blown in while the cheese was being made.”
“Oh, that’s beautiful,” she said, taking another look at the cheese, and he was oddly glad she appreciated that random piece of knowledge.
“Thank you for all of this,” she said.
“Yeah, no problem.”
“I’ll need to check if Hallmark has a greeting card for the occasion when someone lets you soak in their tub after a skunk has sprayed you.”
“If they do, it won’t be in stock at Cedar’s grocery store,” he said, “but if you’re itching to sign something to show your gratitude, I have something in mind.”
A smile lifted her lips. “You’d need to save me from the literal jaw of a bear for me to consider that.”
“Wow, steep price,” he said.
“The best I can do is upgrade you from mortal enemy to asshole. You’d join the ranks of my third-grade teacher, an ex, and people who don’t put shopping carts back.”
