it was the three transportable wood-fire pizza ovens sitting on their own trailers waiting for the owner to come pick them up. And that was the reason I was still out here pushing my sore muscles to the brink in the cold weather and risking getting a cold.
This morning my workday started at four a.m., keen to get my usual chores done so I could be here in the valley at the same time Farron told my mother last night she would be back to pick up the ovens. I had to admit I felt like a bit of a dick, rushing through my jobs and racing to the site of the reception so that I can get a glimpse of the woman who haunted my every waking moment. Farron Hill was my obsession, there was no other way to describe it. Acting like a man of thirty, as of two months ago, didn’t come into it when it came to the owner of Cattle Ridge’s only pizza joint.
She rendered me speechless every time I got within cooee of her: my mouth dried, my hands shook, and basically, I turned into a randy teenager still not sure how to stop my dick from standing to attention in public.
It was fucking embarrassing, and to tell the truth, I was sick of it. In the last six months, Farron had gone on three dates with local guys. I knew this because I followed her to each date, sat in my car in the dark outside the restaurants she was at, and fumed that it wasn’t me she had been with on the date. Of course, it was completely my fault because I was yet to talk to the woman. All I had managed so far was stuttering and stammering pizza orders, shy nods goodbye and longing, pathetic looks.
“Fucking hell Fenixx, can you get any more tragic?” I asked myself out loud.
“I’d say the chances are pretty high,” a familiar voice said from behind me, startling me.
“Fuck me, Lenoxx! Make some noise will ya,” I grumbled as I turned around to glare at my older triplet. His face identical to mine in every way, smiled back at me, not at all perturbed that he pissed me off, catching me talking to myself.
“Not my fault you didn’t hear me pulling up while you were in the middle of a conversation with yourself, little brother,” Noxx snickered, pissing me off even more.
Ignoring the little brother comment, because he was right, I was the youngest of the three of us. I was born last, born the smallest and born with ASD. My childhood had been riddled with health issues: heart operations, complications like chronic bronchitis, and childhood asthma, which all equalled a weak immune system that followed me into adulthood. Though now, I was the same height as he and Hendrixx and slightly larger in build due to spending every day on the Triple H working the land while Noxx took care of HBC business and Drixx the day to day office work of running the Triple H farm. I wasn’t that small, sickly kid anymore, just a lovesick fool too frightened to speak to a beautiful woman.
Leaning down to pick up a used paper plate, I tossed it into the large rubbish bag then moved a few feet to the next piece of rubbish.
“What are you doing here, Noxx? Don’t you have a wife to keep happy and satisfied?” I queried, hoping to distract him with talk of Makena, his favourite subject other than his two kids.
“I left her at home very satisfied, thanks for asking mate. I thought I might venture over here to help with the clean-up, but Eddy informs me you have been out here for hours doing it yourself after you got up at four this morning.”
I looked over my shoulder at my brother with narrowed eyes and waited for him to finish because this was Noxx after all, and I knew he had more for me.
“Seems you worked like a mad man to get the feeding and chores done then raced your arse here. Eddy said you didn’t want any help, why is that Fenixx?” Humour and sarcasm dripped from his words, and his smirk made me want to punch him in his pretty face.
“None of your fucking business wanker. Go annoy Mum, or find a road to play on, preferably the Hume Highway at peak hour,” I muttered, snatching a plastic cup off the ground and shoving it into