I shrugged my shoulders. “I was supposed to be breaking in my brand-spanking-new production room. I filled all of my current orders. This was supposed to be my chance to get ahead and create a surplus. Instead, I’m standing here, overthinking where I should start.”
“You don’t know where to start? What does that even mean?”
“Right?” I widened my eyes. “I’ve been waiting all this time for the production room to finally be ready. Now it’s ready, and here’s me, . . . frozen.”
He watched me for a second or two before taking off his jacket. I watched him stuff it on one of the empty shelves, where I one day hoped to house surplus inventory. “What were you planning on working on?”
“What? Why?”
“I’ma help you break in your production room. I’m here. It’s raining hard as hell, and we ain’t got shit else to do. What we making tonight?”
“Um, my Apple Mask.”
“We got all the ingredients, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So how do we start?”
I took a deep breath. “At the stove with the Jamaican Black Castor Oil and the honey.”
Lightning flashed outside again, followed by a loud bang of thunder. The intensity of the raindrops hitting the roof seemed to pick up. “You ready?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Let’s do this.”
After washing our hands, we started working. It didn’t take long for the two of us to fall into an easy rhythm. Jones was a quick study. By hour number two, he and I were moving almost as efficiently as Mari and me.
“Wow.” I placed the last jar of hair mask on the formerly empty shelf. Then I turned and grinned big at him. “I can’t believe we got all this done. Thirty-two jars. That’s a full case and eight extra bottles.”
Jones returned my grin with a large grin of his own. And once again, I was forced to acknowledge just how handsome he was.
“We make a good team,” I told him.
“The dynamic duo.”
We held each other’s gazes way too long. Finally, I broke it. “So.” I huffed out a breath. “Will you accept food as payment?”
“Hell yeah!”
I chuckled. “Don’t get too excited. It’s only turkey burgers and fries.”
“But it’s homemade, right?”
“Yeah.” I had to giggle. “You craving home-cooked meals?”
“Yeah. The only time I really got to eat something home-cooked was those few times I came through your mom’s for Sunday dinner.”
“Why’d you stop coming?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I ain’t wanna impose.”
I sucked my teeth. “You weren’t. Come this Sunday.”
The two of us moved into the kitchen. We both washed our hands again, then he took a seat at the island. I moved over to the counter and started preparing the food. Once the food was ready, Jones and I moved to my dining table.
I watched him rub his hand across the wood. “This is a nice table.”