“I thought you were coming in to holler at me about dating Rebecca,” I said.
Lauren’s face went from laughing and silly to deadly serious in an instant.
“About that,” she said.
“Ah, great. I set myself up for that one, didn’t I?”
She nodded. “Look, I am happy about you dating her. I really am. I know you’re a good guy, and you’ve been wonderful to me and my family.”
“But?”
“But if you hurt Rebecca, I will be forced to chop you up into tiny little pieces and bury you in my garden,” she said. “I hope you know that I still love you. But don’t hurt her. Also, Carter wants to know when you want to go hunting again.”
“That…was a lot,” I said, trying to hold my laughter in. There was something extra hilarious about diminutive, little Lauren threatening to chop me up like an axe murderer. “But message received. And whenever he wants.”
“Good,” she said, nodding. “Now, I have a contract to scan.”
She walked past me, her nose in the air as I went back into the office, stifling laughter. She would be able to hear me through the thin walls. I only wished Everett had been there to see it.
Speaking of Everett, I had only spoken with him once, right before I left to head to the tattoo parlor. I had told him that I might not be back that night. He hadn’t said much but seemed happy for me and for himself to have the place alone for a night again. Still, I didn’t want my buddy to think I was tossing him away, so I picked up my phone.
Since when do you text? came a message about five minutes later.
Since now, I typed back. Does the crew need me on site?
No, we’re good. Crew should be filtering into the office soon. Pay day.
So, it was. I hadn’t even noticed it was the middle of the month. Some of the crew members were on a monthly contract, paying them regardless of how much work we had for them. It was the only way to make sure we had the best of the best working for us, and Carter made the call that it was worth it when I crunched the numbers for him.
As they filtered in, coming by Lauren’s desk and picking up their biweekly checks, I could hear them talk. That was the thing about small towns. People talked. And people listened.
What they were talking about, when their voices lowered and their tones were hushed, thinking no one could hear them, was me. Guys who would have scoffed at the idea of being a gossip gleefully chatted with Lauren about why I wasn’t on-site. If I had taken the week off to be with my “college girl.”
A few of them seemed to know Rebecca, or at least knew her enough to know she had gotten an apprenticeship. Most of them called her Becky, though, so I assumed they got the news from Gus. They whispered about how much older than her I was, and if she was still technically single. Some of the guys apparently thought they had a shot, even though she had turned them down before. That old jealousy tried to make itself known again, and I tamped it down with some coffee.
“I heard she was going to go out with Ronnie, but she canceled on him because she said she had tattoo practice. Whatever that means,” one voice said. “Now she’s dating boss-man Deacon? Sounds like Ronnie just wasn’t her type.”
“To be fair,” another voice said from the kitchen area, just on the other side of my office wall, “I’m not sure Ronnie is anyone’s type.”
They both laughed.
“I mean, I’m sure there’s someone out there for poor old Ronnie,” the first voice said. “Why he thought he could bag a girl like Becky, I don’t know.”
“She is a looker,” the second voice said. “Damn fine.”
“Damn fine,” the first voice agreed.
There was a sudden silence and then a whispered and rather concerned voice from the area of Lauren’s desk.
“Hey, he isn’t in there, is he?” the second voice asked.
“Yes, he is,” Lauren said, deadpan.
“Shit,” the first voice said. “Uh, I have to go.”
“Me too,” the second voice said. “Bye, Lauren.”
“Bye, Tamar. Bye, Freddy,” Lauren said in a singsong voice.
“Lauren!” one of them said, and the door swung shut.
I leaned back in my chair, grinning. She didn’t have to say their names, but she did because she knew I was listening. Maybe she was on my side after all.
I didn’t care all that much if they were gossiping. Frankly, I found it probably a good thing. The word would get around that Rebecca was off the market. That meant I had her all to myself and didn’t have to worry that every guy she met was trying to get her number. Not that I would blame them. She was stupidly hot.