She gave me a lingering look before turning away. “I’ll give you my idea of the rotation the next time I see you.”
“Do that,” I said as I set the clipboard down, which held nothing but a blank piece of paper.
Alone finally, I left the room and the building behind. There was always a sense of…longing, when it came to this place. I remembered when I was just like these idiots, bunking with others, living amongst them, being a part of them rather than above them. It was a good time, an annoying one, but good.
Yet, returning to my cabin, there was still that familiar sense of comfort, knowing that space was mine and mine alone. Was it a little lonely? Sure, of course. You didn’t spend that much time on your own without occasionally feeling the familiar twinge of loneliness after all. It was a feeling I had grown used to over the years, which had only intensified as the relationship between my wife and me had deteriorated.
Sure, the guys were always somewhere around if the pang ever became an ache, and of course I was always open to Cait keeping me company when the mood struck. It wasn’t quite the same as having someone else around, though. Not the same as coming home, knowing it was shared with another person. Living with other people meant tripping over them, having them in your personal bubble even when you wanted to be left alone,but you could still count on their presence, feel them in every inch of your home, finding comfort in that.
Shaking off the odd wave of melancholy, I sat at my desk and opened my laptop to go over the remaining emails I had. Most of what was left was the standard boilerplate crap, automated messages and newsletters I wouldn’t read because I’d been doing this long enough to know at a glance when something was important. There was another follow-up letter from my lawyer, thankfully nothing too bad, just a summary of the last court date. There was also a less formal promise at the bottom of the email that it would all be over soon.
“Heard that before, Greg,” I muttered as I shifted the email to a specific folder I kept for the entire divorce disaster. “About five months ago, and here we are, with more to go.”
At least we’d gotten across to Mona that she couldn’t keep messaging me whenever she felt the urge to yell at someone. The judge had wondered if I wanted to make the order for silence more official, and boy, had I been tempted. It would have been perfect to have a legally enforceable reason to shut her up and spare me the pain of dealing with her furious messages filled with targeted barbs and low blows.
I hadn’t done it, though I suppose I hadn’t done a good job at hiding how begrudging I was at holding back. I didn’t know if I hadn’t gone through with it because I was trying to make peace or if I was worried about what blowback I would get if I pissed her off further. She had never been afraid to get what she thought was hers, and when it came to me, she certainly felt she needed to get hers.
So I’d chosen peace, whether out of kindness or fear, I didn’t know. I had never been great at introspection, as Mona would have told anyone who asked. Even as I sat there, quietly mulling over my motivations while I cleaned up the email thatsummarized the meeting with the group, I still couldn’t figure it out.
I was no closer to the answer when I heard a knock on the door. I was so engrossed in trying to edit the minutes of the meeting so my team didn’t look like a bunch of incompetent idiots; I had completely forgotten about everything else. I called out, “Come in,” before I thought about what was going on.
I was annoyed to find I was disappointed when Carter walked in. Which was when I remembered I had technically invited Colin to my cabin, and that brought me slamming back to reality. Which, of course, was when Colin strolled in after Carter, his face giving nothing away as he chuckled at something Carter had muttered.
“Here ya go,” Carter said, holding out a stack of folded papers.
I took them, flipping it open to see handwriting I could actually read. “I see Maverick made you do the writing.”
“Yeah,” Carter said with a snort. “I dunno how he can read his handwriting, let alone expect the rest of us to keep up. Kinda sad when an iPad kid can write neater than him, eh?”
“You’re not wrong,” I admitted as I looked over the assessment I’d asked for. “And?—”
“He’s the one who did the assessing, and he double-checked what I had to say,” Carter said with a sigh. “There’s no trust around here, no trust at all.”
“Hmm,” Colin hummed, but when I shot him a sharp look, he was engrossed in the landscape painting that had come with the cabin. Not that interesting, but he sure knew how to look like it was the most intriguing thing in the room.
“And,” Carter said. “I typed it out in case you need anything to post for the record.”
“Good,” I said. Kid was an idiot like the rest of them, but he had a good grasp of how bureaucracy worked. “Anything off the record I should know?”
“He wants to put down more fox traps,” Carter said with a shrug.
I sighed. “Of course he does. All for some fucking chickens, Jesus. Fine. Just make sure they’re coming out ofhispocket and they aren’t killing the damn things.”
“You know he doesn’t want to kill them,” Carter said with a laugh. “Fucking bleeding heart that he is.”
Sometimes it was hard to tell what was going on in Maverick’s head, just like Trevor, but in this, Carter was spot on. Maverick didn’t want any critters anywhere near his precious chickens, but he wouldn’t want to kill the predators. I was pretty sure the only one here who could give him a run for his money when it came to hugging trees and cooing at random animals was Reno, and he at least had a goddamn degree to justify his softness.
“Just…make sure he talks to Reno before he does shit like that,” I grunted, slapping the papers down on my desk. “I do not want to listen to a fucking speech about the disruption of the ecosystem because of humanity’s selfishness…again.”
“I will.”
“Anything else?”
“Nah, just ran out here to give ya that so we didn’t have to remember tomorrow.”
“God forbid you actually remember something,” I muttered, waving him off. “Get out of my face.”
“It’s kinda wild how this is a good mood for you,” Carter said with a laugh and then winced when I glared at him. “Right, so, good luck, Colin. I…damn, you’re ballsy.”