“So what do you suggest I plant here? Keep in mind your recommendation might doom them all by my hand.”
“Oh, you’ll be fine. If you want, I could go to your local garden center and pick some out for you. It’s good to have someone in the know with these things. Some plants look nice all arranged at the store, but then they don’t do so well once planted in different soils.”
“So…in the next few days?” Her voice fell a little flat.
He paused as if remembering they had less than a week before he left. “Yeah. That, or maybe in the spring. In time for spring planting.”
Silence descended on them like a heavy fog. He continued to check out a few plants, but the conversation had hit a brick wall. She walked back to the chairs and sipped her lemonade until he’d looked at her plants to his satisfaction. It was endearing, but one thing dominated her thoughts at the moment.
The wind picked back up, so they moved everything inside, but the small talk didn’t last long before he excused himself. It was time both of them started getting ready for work, anyway. She closed the toilet seat lid and lifted the compact mirror up to her face. She began the clipped strokes of the mascara brush, all the while thinking about how that could have gone differently. In all likelihood, it had gone about the best it could have, under the circumstances.
As she shut the door behind her and turned over the lock, the knot in the pit of her stomach continued to gnaw at her. She had more thinking to do.
Chapter Ten
“Wow, look at your new ride.” Sophie’s eyes were wide with mock excitement.
Chelsea rolled to a stop next to where Sophie stood. It was a good thing the window was down, otherwise Chelsea probably wouldn’t have been able to hear Sophie over the rumble of the engine. It felt like a monster truck compared to what Chelsea was used to. When she climbed into it, she definitely had to use the metal side step for assistance. The people who got into the truck without it were purely showing off.
“Hardly. Although, don’t I look good in it?”
“Definitely. For that reason and your driving skills, I wouldn’t want to be in your way.”
Chelsea whipped her head around. “Hey. I’m a good driver.”
“You betcha. So who did you borrow it from, anyway?”
“Lynn.” Chelsea hopped out of the truck, and her running shoes smacked onto the concrete. “She was nice enough to arrange for me to use it for the day. It’s her dad’s, but she used it while she was helping him renovate that small house on their property. You should see her drive this thing. She has it down to a science. She could throw it in reverse and do figure eights around a traffic cone.”
“Why would someone want to do that?”
Chelsea jammed the key into the lock on the storage locker. “To be awesome. Who knows? People have their fun in weird ways out here. We are in the middle of the desert, after all.”
“True. So how many boxes do you have left here?”
Chelsea lined up a different key to the lock and winced. “All of it.”
“Really? You haven’t moved anything out of here yet?”
“I know. I’m sorry. I really should’ve, but I’ve been distracted lately.”
“Yeah, with Nate,” Sophie said with a wink.
Chelsea froze for a moment, then turned the key. “Something like that.”
That key worked, and soon Chelsea had the sliding door up, revealing their chore for the afternoon. How there was dust floating around inside, she had no idea. All she did was open the door and already it kicked all that up. She was just glad nothing was scurrying around inside. Or at least not where they could see.
Chelsea walked up to a desk and wiped her hand across it, leaving a smear of dust. “Thanks for coming out here and helping me. I know I only made it harder by putting it off for so long, but I still appreciate it. Really, I should’ve been taking over four or five boxes a day since I moved, just taking it easy, but I didn’t.”
“Of course. What are friends for? I was actually a bit bored today, anyway. Brandon’s out of town visiting his folks and Dad’s away at a doctor’s appointment. His new fishing buddy offered to take him, so that freed me up.”
“I’m glad to hear he’s doing better.”
“Thanks. Slowly but surely.” Sophie stuck a toe into one of those reusable grocery bags, one that apparently had pairs of shoes in it. Old pairs of shoes. She really needed to purge a lot of this stuff. Right there on the spot, she dedicated herself to donating a good chunk of it. Whether that actually happened or not, she wasn’t sure, but it was a good thought.
“So where should we start?” Sophie asked.
“Hmm. Why don’t we grab some of these loose boxes and put them on the ground next to the truck? That’ll free up the big items, like the desk. I think it’ll be better if we put in the big items first, then fit loose boxes around it.”
“Good idea,” Sophie said. “You’ve put some thought into this.”
“You could say that. A girl’s got to do something, even when she’s being lazy about moving.”
“Oh, stop beating yourself up. We’ll be done here in no time.”
For a few minutes, they worked in silence, dragging out one box after another. Chelsea found more spiders in that time than she ever wanted to. She almost jumped out of her skin at one of them until she realized it was just one of their skins they’d left behind. Even that was creepy. One of these days, she’d find some far-flung island where people have never heard of spiders. If so, she’d probably have to get used to snow year-round, but it might be worth it.
“Speaking of which,” Sophie started, even though nothing had been said for a little while, “where is that big, strong man of yours? He could put a serious dent in all this.”
The answer rolled off Chelsea’s tongue easily. He’d been on her mind all morning, or more accurately, the situation about him. “He’s working. He offered to try to get out of his shift in order to help, but I told him it wasn’t necessary.”
“That was nice of you. Would I be a lesser person if I admitted that I would’ve let him? I mean, look at that desk.”
“We’ll be fine.” Chelsea braced her legs as she picked up a particularly heavy box. It could’ve been packed with rocks with how heavy it was. “Actually, we’ve only seen each other once in the past few days.”
Sophie’s head popped up from where she was in the back of the storage unit. “Really? Why? Isn’t the carnival moving on soon?”
“Yeah. It is.” She brushed off her hands on her jeans. “That’s the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
Chelsea sighed. She didn’t mean to have all this come up, but she supposed it was inevitable. Sophie had a nose for these kinds of things.
“When I visited him a few days ago, I chatted with another one of the employees there, and he mentioned how they’ll be leaving soon and going out of state. It spooked me, and I’ve been distant ever since.”
Sophie pointed at the desk, and Chelsea nodded. “On three. One…two…three.” They lifted either end of the desk and edged their way to the truck.
“Isn’t it a little early to worry about something that hasn’t happened yet?” Sophie asked. “He’s still here. He hasn’t left yet. It sounds like you should be spending time with him instead of with me. I mean, I know what you said—he’s at work right now. But you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Okay, let’s grab each end, lift it up, and feed it longways into the bed of the truck. Ready?”
“Ready,” Chelsea said.
They both grunted like tennis players as they managed to get it over the lip of the truck. They fed it in just enough to balance the weight, while Sophie hopped up into the truck to bring it in the rest of the way.
“So, let’s say the carnival travels away and him with it,” Sophie said, “and you two aren’t in the same state for a while. And assuming you two are still making it work. What do you think will happen?”
“And lift.” While they lifted, Sophie got the desk further back, until it was completely on and Chelsea could hop up as well. They settled it into the back corner, leaving plenty of room for smaller items.
“Okay,” Sophie said. “Not ideal, but not the end of the world either. What out of that are you most nervous about?”
Back on the ground, Chelsea leaned against the truck. “That we go through all that, fighting for every inch of our relationship while not being able to hold each other, and him not wanting to settle down afterward. What if, when he’s done with this tour in a few months, he doesn’t want to stop? Maybe he’ll start the next tour, going to who knows where, likely not here, and start an endless cycle of more and more traveling.”
Sophie nodded. “Okay, valid concern.”
“What if he likes the idea of us more than the actual us?”
“Why do you think he would go to all that trouble to not follow through with it?”
“I don’t know,” Chelsea said. “Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time, but things can change.”
Sophie picked up a hanging travel bag of clothes and slung it over her arm. “So do you think this has happened before? Maybe that he does this every few towns with a new girl?”
“No…I’m not saying that. I believe he’s being genuine when he tells me the things he does.”
“If you feel he’s being genuine, why are you questioning it so much?”
Chelsea paused to catch her breath. “I guess I’m not sure. I’m just trying to be cautious. I don’t want to invest too much in something that may not happen.”
“We all feel like that, sometimes. Relationships take a step of faith. Nothing truly happens until we’re vulnerable first. That can be a scary thing.”
“Tell me about it.”
They were making good time. Perhaps the conversation was helping to pass the time better than she thought. Sophie grabbed the next box. “When Brandon and I started dating…again, I still had some demons to overcome. He’d messed up and left before, but he recognized how that wasn’t the right way to go. I had to learn to take him at his word and not wait for it to happen all over again.”
“Was that hard?”
“For a little while, it was. My main takeaway is that if someone is worried about something happening enough, she can bring it about, even if it wasn’t there in the first place. People eventually find what they’re looking for, and I had to learn not to find something negative in our future.”
Chelsea gestured to a long, rectangular box. “Can you grab the other end of this? I just remember it being really heavy. Thanks. So, the thing I’m looking for too much is the fear that we won’t work out long distance. Is that what you’re getting at?”
“Only you can really answer that. It seems that way to me, but what matters is what you think. Of course, you could be dead on and right about everything, but you never know unless you try.”
“I hope I’m wrong about it. I really like Nate, and I’d like to make it work.”
Sophie slid the box in farther once they got it up on the truck. “You should see the way he looks at you. He adores you. He has that nice balance of being really into you but not being all puppy-like about it.”
“I do see it. He is looking at me, after all.”
“Well, there you go! Then you should know better than anyone.”
“I wish it was that easy sometimes.”
“Trust your gut, Chelsea. Deep down, you know what the right answer is. Just go with that, even if it’s the least popular choice.”
Chelsea glanced down and ran her fingers through her hair. “I have feelings for him. I’m in pretty deep.”
“Well, of course you do, silly. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be so worried. You’d be strolling along without a care in the world. You want things to work out—you’re just not sure how to move forward.”
“Yes. You’re right.”
“See? I’m so smart. And insightful. I should have an advice column in a newspaper somewhere.”
Chelsea rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t go that far. But you are pretty insightful.” The laughter felt good, a pleasant release after all the tension of the past few days.
“Yeah, I’m pretty awesome. So, are you going to give it a shot?”
“I am. He’s worth it. I think we’re worth it, too.”
“You two are adorable. I’m sure everything will be fine.”
Chelsea grabbed a broom and swept all the dust outside, careful to gather up the debris into a piece of cardboard serving as a dustpan so she could discard it in a nearby trash can. She coughed twice as the breeze kicked up and swirled around.
“Well, that looks like everything. Do you have time to come back to my place to unload?”
“Of course I do,” Sophie said. “I’m not going to leave you to unload the desk yourself. What kind of friend would I be if I did that?”
“All right. I’ll drive the truck over and meet you there. We can always move the boxes off to the side and get the desk first, just in case you don’t want to spend all day doing this. I wouldn’t blame you.”
“I don’t mind. We got this afternoon done pretty quickly.”
“You know what? We did.”
Sophie smiled. “We make a good team.”
“Thanks for everything, Sophie.”
“Don’t mention it.”
As she pulled out onto the road, Chelsea rolled the window down and felt the wind blow through her hair. There was nothing before her but open road.
Chapter Eleven
Nate crossed his arms. He had a pretty good idea what this was about. Barry didn’t have these one-on-one meetings very often, and he usually didn’t summon people in public. Nate wouldn’t be surprised if Barry had waited until Nate was in a group of people. Barry wanted to be in charge like he wanted to be tall, and at a full head shorter than Nate, Barry had a long way to go.
Barry sat down first and gestured to the chair across from him. “I appreciate you taking the time to see me today.”
The guy sure had a way with words. He was the one who had said they needed to talk right then. His chest was puffed out in a way he likely thought looked intimidating.
“Yeah, sure, Barry. What’s going on?”
“What’s the thing we talk about most, Nate?”
“Come on. Do we really need to do this?”
“What’s the thing?”
“You mean the fact that I don’t scam people.”
Barry sighed. “We don’t scam people, Nate. I’ve told you that a hundred times. We just don’t offer them an opportunity to win as often as they would naturally.”
Nate said. “You’re so full of it, Barry.”
“Watch it. I’m being serious. You think we have room to play the moralist here? Every carnival does it.”
“That doesn’t mean we should.”
Barry waved his hand in the air. “I suppose you have barrels of cash lying around. That would be great, because I have countless employees who all want paychecks. I have to provide for those people, you know.”
“Listen, if you want to talk finances, that part’s easy. With the price of the tickets, and considering how many we collect for our games, it easily pays for the prizes. None of them are terribly expensive. After it’s all said and done, even without the tricks, there’s still a tidy profit. I know, because I hand the moneybox in to you after every shift.”
“There’s a lot more to buy than just prizes. There’s insurance, payroll, travel expenses, meals, vehicle repair, and the list goes on and on. Do you think I’d be taking the high ground if I lost enough profit so that the whole thing shuts down? Where will those people and their families be? No better off, I tell you.”
Nate shook his head. “I
can’t do it. The other employees can do what they want, but I’m not going to swindle people out of their money. Why is it a big deal now?”
“I’ve been overlooking things because you’re such a hard worker, Nate, but I can’t any longer. People who take their shift after you have to take the time to add the weights, and it’s difficult when there are people around. It’s much easier to do it in the morning. We could just keep them in there if you’d stop taking them out.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. That’s where I stand on it.”
Barry popped his thumbs under his suspenders. “You do know I’ve written you up three times for this.”
“I know.”
“I can’t let this go on. If I exclude one person from our practices, then everyone else will want to.”
“If everyone else doesn’t want to do it either, then don’t you think that’s a sign that you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place?”
Barry rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’m a little tired of you telling me how to do my job. It isn’t glamorous, and it certainly won’t get any awards, but it’s what we do. This carnival has been in my family for generations. Times are tough for outfits like us these days, and I’m not going to let it all go for your soapbox pitch.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying…you can pack up your stuff. You can work the rest of the week, but after that, we’re leaving and you’re staying here.”
Nate ran his thumb along his jaw. “You’re just going to ditch me here? You know I’m not from this area. My car is hundreds of miles away.”
Barry held up his hands. “Look, I’m no monster. I’ll leave you with enough to buy a bus ticket to get back to your car and storage locker. Then you can get on with your life with whatever it is you’re going to do. But it won’t be with us.”
Carnival Ride: A Sweet Romance (Red Canyon Series Book 2) Page 8