Suddenly Cameron turned his head and caught me looking at him. I didn’t remove my gaze and matched his stare.
“If she’ll let me,” he replied.
My heart tripped. He was confusing me. Every time I was ready to leave, he’d say something to bring me back again. But I didn’t want to. Not anymore. Not like before. I’d show him…
“Well, make it so that she does! Get your ass out of here. Some of us gotta work.”
Cameron was silent as he got inside the vehicle, as he started the truck and stepped on the gas. I stared straight ahead, pretending to be interested in what I was seeing, but the truth was…I was so aware of him beside me, that I…ached.
“We refer to this place as The Yard.”
I jumped when I heard his voice, but he just kept going.
“The office downtown is called The Necktie.”
I would have laughed if my heart didn’t feel heavy. If he could act nonchalant about everything, so could I. “How come?”
“The downtown office is where we meet clients, do presentations. Mostly.”
I’d heard this before from Rick. “So?”
“So you have to wear a tie,” he answered. I could hear a smile in his voice. “Rick’s rules.”
I smirked.
“You’ll get calls from clients asking to set up an appointment with Rick, or if he’s not available, with me or Elijah. He’s one of our foremen. You’ll meet him eventually.”
The three buildings, he explained, had different purposes. The first building where I went was the office. The second was for the workers—lunchroom, washroom, a place where they could cool down when the heat gets too extreme in the summer, basically a big locker room. The third was storage.
He pointed out places as we drove around The Yard, the machines and what they do, the process of sifting debris from the soil, the types of soil and stones customers usually ordered.
“You won’t be taking order calls from customers wanting stones,” he explained. “That’s the job of the other three women. You’ll be taking care mostly of the construction side. Deb will explain it to you.”
“Is Rick your dad?”
Where the hell did that come from?
“I wish he were,” he answered after a moment.
He didn’t offer anything after that. It was a skill, the way he dodged questions and answered them without giving away anything.
I knew he was like this with everyone, not just me, but it was still frustrating. And if I let the drama queen in me take control, I’d feel hurt because I was like everyone else. I was no one special.
Where the hell were you? What did you do? Why didn’t you text?
Am I still important to you?
Was I ever?
But I didn’t ask any of that. Every one of those questions sounded pathetic. And needy. And I didn’t want to be. Pride kept me in check.
When he parked the vehicle back in the same spot, I shot out of it and headed for my car.
I had to get the hell out of there right now. Being with him was playing with my emotions. And then I realized I still had to talk to Deb.
“Shit.”
I felt his eyes following me as I walked back to the office. I waited until Deb was done on the phone. She apologized and said she was too busy today to brief me, but she handed me a folder and asked me to come back in a couple of days and we’d work out everything then. She’d phone and let me know when she wasn’t swamped this week, and we could work out the days when I could start my training. The folder she handed me contained most of the information I needed.