Page 98 of Spicy Ever After
Cool air hits my skin as Beck shuts the door behind us. “Oh, I like this a lot better.” It’s damp and chilly. “It feels like… like the boat rides at Disney. It’s a Small World… Pirates of the Caribbean… Frozen Ever After. I mean, if Elsa’s ice palace smelled like Thanksgiving.”
Beck cracks up again beside me, and even though I shouldn’t waste such a beautiful sight, I can’t take my eyes off the towers of crates. It’s just like the cure shed, stacked shelves line both sides. So many, it’s hard to wrap my head around all the work that goes into this operation.
At the far end of the warehouse is a sort of station with a conveyor counter—kind of like a grocery store checkout—with empty crates and sacks stored nearby.
I point to it. “Is that where you, like, package your deliveries?”
Beck nods. “Yeah, we can measure out fifteen-pound sacks or fifty-pound crates.”
In here, a second garage door is cut into the back wall. My mind plays a little time-lapse video of the forklift transferring crates from the cure shed to the storehouse, nightfall leading to daybreak into nightfall again and again, and then yams tumbling down the conveyor belt into burlap sacks, onto a truck and then out the back.
“Headed to a grocery store near you,” I murmur.
“Or the cannery in Opelousas and then—” Beck shrugs. “All over the country.”
I choke. “You feed the goddamn country?!”
It’s an outburst. I’ve pretty much shouted in Beck’s face.
He blinks, startled. Then he narrows his eyes. “Not quite.”
But my heart is already racing.
"You grow like a million sweet potatoes. You could keep a whole—I don't know—village alive—" Pretty sure I'm shouting now. "Did you know humans can live on nothing but sweet potatoes? I looked it up. That's how healthy they are."
Beck's eyes are wide. "I did, but?—"
"And, so, you could just… do it—" I tug out of his grasp and throw my hands up because he doesn't seem to get what this means. "You. You could keep thousands of people alive in a global crisis."
Beck's brows pinch, and I can't tell if he looks confused or concerned. Maybe both. "And that's... bad?"
"Gah!" I throw my head back. "No! It's amazing!"
Still wearing that look of worried overwhelm, Beck opens his mouth. Then closes it. Then opens it again. "Then why are you shouting?"
And the way he asks is so gentle it almost wrecks me.
I exhale through my nose in defeat. Maybe it's just surrender. But either way, I'm doomed.
"You can feed a small town." I shrug, that defeated doom weighing down my shoulders. "I can't even go to the grocery store."
Then Beck is right in front of me, hands gripping my upper arms tight. "Hattie."
He says my name like it's an answer.
Not a question.
Not a command.
"What did you say to me on Saturday?” he asks gently. “About feeling inferior?"
I press my lips together, remembering. "I was cute and naive back then." I shake my head and try to step out of Beck's grip, but he holds on.
"Nothing about you is inferior." Smiling an almost painful smile, Beck shakes his head. "Not to me. Not to anyone."
I should let him know what he’s up against. The man runs an entire farm. He takes care of his dad. He’s starting a micro distillery. He’s got the world on his shoulders.
This may just be our second date, but I like him so much already. And he likes me too. I can feel it. He needs to know that… that…
