“Oh, now that you have me half naked, you want to put me to work?”
“Yep.”
Garrett laughed and seemed to go with the flow rather easily. I gave him some space while he put his tent up and I put my own up. I tried not to look at him, but I couldn’t help but take a few quick glances at the rock-hard member he was sporting in his boxers. Garrett certainly was swinging with a big boy bat.
“Let me at least save my manhood by making the dinner,” Garrett offered.
“Oh, I didn’t know your manhood was lost.”
“I think it’s somewhere up on that mountain,” he laughed.
“Buckjoy and you did great. I bet even my father would be proud of you for making that ride happen without falling off the trail. It’s harder going down than going up, that’s for sure. And yes, you can make dinner. My mother packed a cooler with plenty of food; have a go at it and see what you’d like to cook.”
Garrett lifted the cooler from under the tree and carried it over to the fire pit we had made. Unfortunately, I had the water plug open to drain some of the water out and it poured all over Garrett. His boxers were already wet, but then his shirt got soaked as well. It wouldn’t have been nearly as funny if Garrett was already dry, but since he had already had such a wet evening, the moment was beyond funny to me.
I couldn’t help laughing, but I stopped briefly when I saw the serious look on his face. Then without hesitating, Garrett pulled his shirt off and set it next to his jeans by the fire.
“I’m not taking my boxers off,” he said matter-of-factly as he sat down and started to look through the cooler.
Garrett had the body of a man I had always dreamed of being with. His chiseled chest and abs were something I had only fantasized about in a man I slept with. Normally the men I ended up with were nerdy businessmen who were slightly overweight with pasty white skin. But Garrett was none of those things. Garrett was tanned, toned, and ripped like a body builder. I couldn’t help but stare at him as he went to work on the dinner. Each muscle flexed and relaxed with his movements and my mind drifted to imagining what he would feel like hovering over me.
“You sure you don’t want to take those wet boxers off? You don’t want to catch a cold.” I joked. “Didn’t you bring other clothes with you?”
“Nope; I didn’t figure I’d need them.”
“So what’s in your bag?”
“A book and my journal.”
I couldn’t have heard him correctly. Did Garrett really just tell me he had a journal? All I could think about were the frilly, pink journals I used to write in when I was a kid. I stopped writing in my journal when I was a teenager and I hadn’t ever met a man who kept a journal.
“Journal?” I questioned with a raised eyebrow.
“Don’t start judging me, young lady. I’m just writing down interesting things that happen along my journey so I can remember them. Maybe someday even write a book.”
His response made me feel stupid for judging him. Of course, journals weren’t just for teenage girls. In fact, I was pretty impressed with his plans to write a book someday. It took a lot of hard work to write a book and Garrett had proved he was more than willing to work hard; I had seen it for myself on the farm over the last few months.
I knew there was more to Garrett than met the eye. He was handsome and well spoken. He was kind and hard working. Garrett Reynolds seemed to be an almost perfect representation of a man and I needed to figure out his flaws. Certainly, he had some deep dark secret that he was running away from or he was hiding something that he didn’t want me to know.
“I’m sorry, that’s really cool. I’ve thought about writing a non-fiction book for women in business, but I just never get around to it. I probably won’t ever do it. I think writing a book is a lot like dreaming of running my own business; I’ll never do either one of those things.”
“What would it be about?”
“I was thinking it would be something about how to manage the climb without losing yourself. I felt like I lost myself. It wasn’t fun for me when I finally got fired. It was actually a relief when they gave me a severance package and said my position was being downsized. I probably never would have left my job. I would have diligently worked there and climbed up the ladder and then moved onto the next ladder to climb; even though I wasn’t very happy at all.”
“It’s good you left then. And why don’t you start writing your book tonight? What do you want your readers to feel when they read your book?” Garrett asked as he ripped a piece of paper out of his journal and started to write down what I was saying.
At first I didn’t want to answer him. I was content to just move on with our conversation and wait for the dinner to be done. But the way he looked at me had me realizing that he wasn’t about to just let me move on with the conversation. Garrett was waiting for me to give him an answer and he looked like he would have waited for hours if I had made him.
“I want them to feel more confident in their skin. Maybe inspired to lead the way they want to lead, instead of feeling like they have to lead the same way men do.”
“This is good stuff. What will your first chapter be about?” Garrett asked enthusiastically.
“I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”
“Well, we are thinking about it right now. What do you want the first words your readers see of yours to be about?”
“Um, maybe about job interviews. I think many women believe you have to dress like a man or dress like a slut and there is so much more to what to wear. And there’s so much more to what to say and do when you’re in the interview. Did you know that most women don’t ask questions of their prospective employer? How do you really know if you want to work at a company without asking them questions?”