Page 32 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

So much the antithesis of what Jake did, working with living things. Backbreaking work that followed a rhythm only the bodyneeded to keep track of. Looking up at the stars when the work was done.

I did get some sleep, but only a bit. Sure enough, Cameron and Dillon came in, giggling like they were drunk, and I only got a few hours’ sleep right before dawn.

I didn’t shower again, but smoothed my hair, dressed, and headed to the dining hall for some black coffee, eyeing the pancakes in the warming pan before getting some eggs and a fruit cup. When I sat down, Cameron and Dillon were there to bug me.

“Mr. Dalton, Mr. Dalton!” The greeting was shrill in my ears.

They’d found out that Jake and I had gone to Dairy Queen and now wanted to go. And would I take them.

“I don’t have time today, guys,” I said with a shake of my head. I wanted to get into the files and see how much work the audit would be. “Maybe this weekend.”

“We can ask Mr. Jake,” Cameron said. “Here he comes.”

And there he was, sitting across from me like I’d asked him to join me. Maybe I had mentally.

His tray held many plates, some just about to skitter off the edge. The plates were piled high. Pancakes with butter and syrup, sliding down the stack. Biscuits and gravy. Hash browns, the crispy kind. Coffee, pale with milk and probably sweet. A glass of milk. A glass of orange juice.

My mouth watered. I wanted to have what he was having. I wanted—him.

“Morning,” he said. He was hatless. Freshly showered. Curls of damp, dark hair behind his ears. A small cut from shaving, and a spot that he’d missed. And the scent of drugstore aftershave that furled in the air like he’d tossed a soft lariat at me, the lasso settling around my shoulders.

“Good morning,” I said.

I watched him dive into his enormous breakfast. He looked up at me, fork halfway to his mouth. “They have sweet rolls, but I didn’t have room.”

The comment might have been meant to be self-deprecating, perhaps waiting for me to judge, but I took him at his word. “I’ll be right back,” I said, getting up, imagining that he’d think I was getting dry toast or something.

Instead, I fetched two of the prettiest sweet rolls, the crackled white glaze dripping small icicles onto the white plates, telling me they were 100 percent homemade. I grabbed four squares of cold butter wrapped in white-and-blue foil and headed back, hoping I’d gotten enough.

When I placed this assortment in front of him and sat back down, I didn’t miss his gaze on me. Slow. Careful. A slow blink, the way cats kiss.

“Thank you,” he said. He touched one of the plates with his forefinger and pushed it in my direction.

“They’re both for you,” I said.

He looked at my tray of food, sparse, and raised his eyes to me as though I was a foolish calf who didn’t know better. Who should eat more. “That going to take you through the day?” he asked.

“That and coffee,” I said, feeling like I wanted to explain that where I was from, everyone ate the way I was eating.

“Mr. Jake. Mr. Jake!”

I sighed and hung my head as the boys asked Jake what they’d asked me.

“Afraid not,” he said. “I’ve got fence lines to check. We’re still working on stacking hay. Maybe you could help with that. Maybe someone could take you into town on the weekend.”

That seemed to settle them. They focused on their breakfasts, and I drank my coffee and ate my now-cold eggs and pretended,as hard as I could, that my eyes didn’t want to stare and my body didn’t want to leap up and grab Jake by the hand.

Maybe I’d ask him to teach me not to be afraid of horses. Or how to walk in the dark with the flashlight turned off so we could look up and see the Milky Way. Maybe I could get him to kiss me. To proposition me the way only a cowboy could, in the moonlight, in the shadow of the barn, the scent of warm hay in the cooling night air.

But I didn’t say anything. I finished up and bused my place and headed out, sensing his attention on me the whole while. Though surely I was mistaken about that. Surely.

The main office was in the staff building. A sterile room with file cabinets of different colors. An old teacher’s desk that held printers and reams of paper, and other office supplies.

Lucas and I went over my plan of attack, and when I sat down, he leaned against the main desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “Look,” he said, “you’re doing me a favor. So, before you really get started, why don’t you do me another favor and go home and get what you need. More clothes, for one.”

“Are you saying I smell?” I asked, trying not to laugh as I sniffed under my own armpits.

“In a word, yes,” he said, smiling in a way that asked me to join him in the small joke, like he always did. “I’ll give you ten dollars, right now, for coffee, if you’ll drive home today and get some fresh clothes.”