"You're not heading out to town? If you want, I can take you right now," she offered.
"No, you go ahead. I know you didn't come up here to do any of that." I looked her up and down again. She was a beautiful girl. I still didn't know how tall she was since she was always in heels. About a head shorter than me maybe. Yeah, with her hair and makeup like that, roughing it in the mountains was likely the last thing she wanted to do. She sighed.
"You're really bent on this whole thing, huh?"
"Do you and Brett have a bet on when I finally give up?"
"It's just," she trailed off then looked around the cabin again. It was tidy. There wasn't much furniture, and the wood was in a neat pile near the fireplace. Was this it? She was stalling. I wanted her to spit it out. It wasn’t just the kindness of her heart that had brought her up here, and she had already told me about the snowstorm. Come on, spit it out, I thought. I need you to come back with me because things are bad at the company. You need to get behind that desk and do your job. That was what she had come up here to say to me. No, scratch that. That had been what she had been sent up here to say.
"Take care of yourself," she said, finally. I walked her back out to her car. I waited until she had backed out and disappeared onto the road before going back to finish what I had been doing before she had shown up.
A storm was coming, huh? I kept my woodpile on the porch where it didn't get covered with snow. If she was right, I'd need to have enough to keep me going at least a few days. I had a tarp to cover my car, so I wasn't worried about that. Food? If I skipped breakfast each day, I had enough for three, maybe four days. I had had suspicions seeing Natalie, but now that she was gone, I found myself thinking about whether she'd actually take me up on that offer to come back for another visit.
She wouldn't. I mean, the trip was bad enough, add the cold and the isolation, and I wasn't sure it was most people's idea of a good time. Too bad, I thought. It had been nice having her for the short time she'd stayed. She wasn't a bad person to talk to. Seemed smart and today actually had something useful to tell me. I looked up at the sky. It was overcast, but it didn't particularly look like there was a storm coming.
She had been easy to talk to, too, strangely. She hadn't been hard to talk to in the past, but here, like this, I had expected her to be uncomfortable, and I don't know, pushier, I guess. Sh
e had listened to me in the end instead of trying to change my mind, and she had even offered to drive me to the nearest town to stock up on stuff. I had a good feeling I'd be alright, but it had been good of her to offer. Shit, she had made the trip all the way out here just for me to not take her advice. She probably knew what she was talking about, but she didn't need to worry.
Too bad, I thought. If anyone of those awkward elevator rides had turned into conversations, maybe something could have happened. It wasn't going to happen now. You meet a beautiful, smart girl right when there's no chance of anything actually happening, I thought. Well done. Obviously, if anything had been supposed to happen already, it would have. There would always be more, right? Too bad. Too fucking bad. I picked up my ax and got back to work.
Chapter Fourteen
Natalie
"This color would look nice on you. What do you think of this?" Kasey asked me, holding out a lipstick.
"I think it's over thirty dollars. I'm not spending that on a single lipstick," I said, taking it from her and putting it back on the display. Kasey had had makeup returns to make, and we had gotten distracted wandering out of the store. Makeup was one of those things you didn't know you didn't need until you had too much of it. I had only started wearing the stuff after leaving for college, so I liked to think I was making up for lost time.
"You should splurge," she said. "What else are you spending the money on?"
"You want to get it for me, go right ahead," I said.
"What's the matter with you?" she asked, looking up at me from an eye-shadow display. "You've been grumpy all morning.”
"I'm not grumpy," I grumbled.
"What happened yesterday?" she asked. I shrugged as we wandered the store. We had met for breakfast earlier, and both had the rest of the morning before Kasey had to go into the salon for her first appointment. "You said you'd tell me how your little visit to your boyfriend's new house went."
"He isn't my boyfriend," I said, rolling my eyes.
"So, not good?" she asked.
"Stop," I said, picking up a mascara then putting it back down. I wasn’t here to get anything. Most mascara was a scam anyway. There was only one way to get longer lashes, and that was eyelash extensions. Mascara wasn’t the problem here. I was irritated. Had been since having to drive three hours back home from seeing Cameron the day before. "It was... He was fine. He was just there. The cabin's nice. It's beautiful up there. It was cold, but he seemed fine. He was alright."
"Why are you saying all this like it's a bad thing?"
"I don't know how to feel about any of it. He's doing okay, I guess, but he's never done any of that shit before. He's never lived that far away from emergency services and resources. I went up there to talk to him about what was happening at work, but I choked. I couldn't do it."
"So he doesn't know his company is crumbling?" she asked. Crumbling was a strong word, but it wasn't exactly thriving at the moment.
"Everything that happened at the last meeting with the stockholders, I just couldn't say it."
"Why?"
"Because he finally seemed peaceful, Kase. Something about him was different. He seemed happier. I feel like he needed this.”
“Whether he needed it or not, don’t you guys need him?”