Page 30 of Mixed Signals
“I work here,” I reply calmly.
“Not on Saturday mornings.”
I take another long pull of coffee out of my mug. Beckett squirms in the silence.
I take my time when I say, “Good to know this was premeditated.”
“The chickens need somewhere to go, okay? I don’t want to be at the grocery store and wonder if Delilah is in the poultry aisle.”
“Delilah?”
He glares at me. “That’s her name.”
Of course it is. “Why don’t you build Delilah a new home in your backyard?”
He mumbles something.
“What was that?”
He rolls his eyes skyward, up to the big, fluffy white clouds sinking low across the sky. It’s hot already, the heat pressing at the bare skin of my arms, inching up over my neck. Beckett scratches at the back of his head and adjusts his baseball cap until it faces backwards.
“Evelyn cut me off,” he explains. “After Clarabelle.”
That’s right. The cow he rescued from that dilapidated farm down in Virginia. They were keeping her in a concrete pen, blisters all over her belly and back. She lives in the pasture behind Beckett’s house now, grazing to her heart’s content. He makes her flower crowns, I’m pretty sure.
He hesitates. “And Zelma.”
Another duck. In addition to the four cats he previously adopted and the duck that already lives in his greenhouse. It’s a good thing his house is so big over on the far edge of the Lovelight land. He’s running his own animal sanctuary over there.
“When does Evelyn come back?”
“Tomorrow.”
Good. Maybe he’ll stop sneaking around the grounds then. I push off the edge of the door and beckon him inside. “Come on. I made zucchini bread.”
He follows after me without another word, leaving his pile of wood and wire and god knows what else in a heap on the ground. Maybe I can get Luka to hide it while Beckett is occupied with baked goods. Though Luka is probably under forty-seven comforters over at Stella’s place, snoring happily through his Saturday morning.
Beckett collapses on a bar stool at the opposite edge of my work table, his chin in his hand, the tattoos twisting up and down his arms on full display in the early morning light. His eyes bounce around the kitchen, looking for the zucchini bread I tempted him in here with.
Part of me wants to withhold it until I can get him to agree to stop trying to build a chicken coop in my backyard, but the bigger part of me wants to clear out some of these leftovers for the new batch of stuff I’ll be baking this morning. I’ve always valued practicality over retribution.
“In there.” I gesture towards a small metal tin covered in foil at the edge of the counter, dancing trees printed along the sides. “No chocolate chips this time. Sorry.”
Beckett would do just about anything for a slice of zucchini bread. Once when Stella smugly declared she had the second-to-last slice, he pushed Luka headfirst into an overgrown tree to make it up the steps before him.
We sit in silence, Beckett with his bread, me with the donut batter I was working on before I heard him in the back. I don’t usually come in on Saturday mornings, that’s true, but I was feeling restless. I woke up and immediately thought of Caleb. His blush-stained cheeks and his wide smile. That damned dimple in his cheek. I was pouring my coffee and kept picturing him after his last fall, starfished out on the floor of the roller rink, a long arm slung over his eyes.
Images kept flickering like the ends of a film strip. The line of his jaw. His thumb at his bottom lip and a glob of salsa on the front of his t-shirt. Long legs spread out in the grass. He is nothing like I expected him to be.
It was the most fun I’ve ever had on a date.
“Why are you making that face?”
I go back to mixing my batter. “What face?”
Beckett narrows his eyes at me. “That weird smile thing.” He tries to mimic a grin, zucchini bread bulging in his cheeks. He looks absurd. “I’ve never seen that look on your face before.”
“Well, I can’t see my own face, can I?” I snap.
