set off, but because I don’t exactly have my hands clean in this situation. If I called HR, what would Ethan do? Call the police? At this point, it’s his word against mine.
With a tight smile, I step back and shake my head. “You know, maybe I’ll try to handle this by myself first. Who knows, maybe we just have a few growing pains we need to work through.”
He’s smiling again, happy to see I’m going to be a team player. This guy is Ethan’s loyal pet, through and through. Noted.
I scratch through that part of my plan and move on to the next important step: finding somewhere else to sleep. Obviously, I can’t stay in the cabin with Ethan.
So, before night falls, I set up a pallet on the floor in Jeremy’s bunkhouse. I even thought ahead and brought a spare blanket and pillow from back home. I have all sorts of fantasies about how well it will go, how soundly I’ll sleep until morning. Unfortunately, Jeremy’s spot is in the middle of the bunkhouse, therefore I have to set up my pallet in the middle of the bunkhouse. He caves and offers to let me have his bed, but I insist that’s not fair. I’m all for equality. He doesn’t have to sleep on the floor just because Ethan and I don’t get along. A few other nice guys offer their beds too—some try to insist upon it—but I turn them all down and continue setting up my pallet.
“It’s nice! Homey, even!” I say, pointing down to it.
It’s a bald-faced lie. It’s a thin blanket on top of dusty wooden floorboards. After I lie down, half of me is sticking out into the walkway. In the middle of the night, while I’m up listening to God-knows-what scuttling across the floor near my head, someone gets up to use the bathroom and steps on my foot. It feels as though they break all my bones and my barely muffled shriek wakes up half the bunkhouse.
“Sorry! Sorry,” the guy whispers, feeling bad for accidentally stepping on me.
“It’s my fault,” I whisper back, and then for the remainder of the night, I lie awake with my legs tucked up against my chest in the fetal position and my hand outstretched over my head, ready to swat away any creepy-crawly bugs that want to come near me.
Admittedly, it’s not the best night of sleep I’ve ever had, and I’m not my best self on Monday morning. Limping softly and yawning often, I’m wholly unprepared for round two with Ethan. But, I’m not quite ready to make nice either. So, I settle on being cordial as I step past the open door of the trailer.
He’s inside meeting with Robert and Hudson. Robert’s by far the oldest member of the crew with white-gray hair and tan, wrinkled skin. His face gives him the appearance of being open and honest, probably owing to his light blue eyes. Something about him makes me wish he could guide me through life. It’s probably the smile he’s aiming my way. The gentlemen flanking him have very different reactions.
Hudson stands there with wide eyes and mouth gaping, still not quite over the fact that I’m a full-fledged woman.
Ethan is doing some kind of unsmiling facial expression, I’m sure, but I’m too chicken to look his way.
“Oh sorry,” I say with a tip of my head, looking right at Robert. “I didn’t realize you guys were meeting in here.” I step back toward the door. “I’ll just wait outsi—”
“Take a seat,” Ethan says, tone hard as stone. He really lives up to that surname of his.
The seat he’s referring to is right beside the door, and I don’t wait for him to offer it up to me a second time. I leap into that chair and stay perfectly silent while the three of them finish up their meeting. They’re going over the schedule for the week, what equipment will be used on what day, which of the dumpsters are full and need to be replaced, what torture techniques Ethan will employ on me first. Okay, that last one is just in my head.
I listen to them carefully. Ethan is the highest ranked among them and yet he speaks the least. When he does, my body hums with energy like I’m hooked up to an electrical current.
“The site needs to be cleared by next Friday so we can start leveling,” he tells Robert. “I have concrete trucks scheduled in three weeks.”