“It’s not just the meatloaf. That’s awesome—don’t tell my mom, but it’s better than hers—but this sandwich … it’s perfectly assembled. A real pro at work here.”
Lia gave his knee a sharp nudge for his teasing, and he gave her a smirk before he took another huge bite.
“Can I ask something?” she asked as she nibbled at her sandwich. She was trying to let herself eat a little bit more, so people would shut up about it, without gaining any weight. There were still ten pounds she wanted to lose, but she’d hold off on going for that goal until she wasn’t under the family microscope anymore. Assuming she was ever not.
She really had had it better when she’d been invisible. Who’d’ve thought?
“Sure,” he said, and took a swig of his orange soda.
“How does this all work?” She waved at the warehouse.
Alex’s attention became oddly wary, and he swallowed before he said, “What do you mean?”
“I mean … this is a shipping company, right? Nothing gets made here. You just move things other people make. So why is the warehouse full?”
His visible relief surprised her for a second—until she understood that he’d been worried she was asking about the other stuff that got done around here.
“Well, it’s not even close to full right now, but yeah, we just ship. But those trucks are big, and not every customer has a shipment that will fill an eighteen-wheeler. Not every job is a rush job, either. What happens then is we pick up their freight, bring it to the warehouse, pallet it up, hold it here until we’ve got a full truck’s freight headed the same direction, and then load it all up. We load the shipping containers at the harbor, too, and sometimes shit gets held up for a while before that paperwork is ready.”
“Huh. That sounds both really interesting and deadly dull.”
Alex laughed. “It is. But I like it okay. I like it better than …” He didn’t finish the sentence, but she thought she could fill it in: he liked this better than the other work he did.
Lia turned and studied his beautiful dark eyes. This wasn’t the place to ask, but she wanted to know why he’d chosen this life—not the warehouse life, but the other one, in that ‘other world’ of her father’s. She’d seen the side of him capable of violence and danger, she’d seen the menace in his eyes when that guy had tried to take a photo of them, or that night at the frat, when he’d grabbed her and taken her away from terrible danger.
But he was sweet and kind, truly. That darker part of him almost didn’t feel real.
As if it were a part he played.
Curiosity overwhelmed her, but she couldn’t ask. Not here. Without any room in her head to think of something else to talk about, Lia leaned close for a kiss.
He set his sandwich aside and met her halfway. When she hooked her hand over the back of his neck, he rolled them both until he lay over her, their lunch forgotten. They made out on a pallet of boxes in a shadowy corner of her father’s shipping warehouse, until her hard hat fell off and clattered to the floor below.
Alex lifted up and smiled down at her. “Oops. That’s an OSHA violation.”
“I guess I’m a rebel.”
“Looks that way.”
Humor left his eyes as they delved into hers. A deeper emotion, one that set Lia’s heart fluttering, rose up instead. “You’re birthday’s tomorrow,” he murmured.
“Is it?” she gasped broadly, teasing him. “Oh my God! Nobody told me!”
He acknowledged her sarcasm with a small smirk, but his voice was serious. “Can I see you?”
She brushed her fingertips over the dark scruff covering his jaw. “Birthdays are a thing at my house. There’s a dinner. But family only.” When they were little, there’d been a party, too, if the birthday kid wanted one, but not on the actual birthday. Her parents insisted that birthdays were for family only. Most people she’d told thought that was weird, but Lia liked it. The days their children were born were so important, her parents celebrated them like holy days.
And the fact that she and Elisa were not, in fact, twins meant at least one day that was only hers.
“Okay. Can I see you after?” He bent low again to leave a trail of tiny, nibbling kisses across her bottom lip
Lia found it difficult to think around all the flashing lights