Jackson frowned. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“Not at all. We wouldn’t have to break my lease or pay to get out of it, and we could get a bigger place quickly.”
“That sounds good, then.”
They stopped where they were. “We can get lunch while we’re out too. I’m assuming you don’t want toast?”
“And I’m not up for making empanadas either. Yes, we need to have lunch out.”
“Sounds good. I can take you to the best Mexican place in town, and we can lament over the awful choices we have for Mexican food here.”
“That sounds ideal.” He grinned, taking her hand as they walked across the parking lot to the apartment office.
There was someone in who immediately took them to see the larger apartments. “We have two and three bedrooms here,” the woman said, taking them into a first-floor apartment. “This one is open now, and you could move in this week.”
They wandered around it, noting all the differences and the larger size. “I like this,” Sydney said looking over at him.
“Let’s see the three-bedroom before we make any decisions,” Jackson said.
“We won’t have a three-bedroom available for at least three weeks,” the woman said, taking them to a model apartment on the third floor. “These go quickly and we don’t have as many.”
He nodded. “I’ll be working from home, so a third bedroom would have been nice, but we can make do with two, I think.” They went in and looked around, comparing the three-bedroom to the two. “I think I actually like the two-bedroom better.”
“So do I!” Sydney said with a grin. “It’s nice to be on the same wavelength.”
“Do you two want to think about it?” the leasing agent asked.
Sydney looked at Jackson and shrugged. “We can talk about it, or we can do it now. I think it would be easier to just do it and get it done.”
He nodded decisively. “Absolutely. Let’s sign papers.”
“All right!”
An hour later, they had the keys to the new place. “That was a lot easier than it should have been,” Sydney said as they walked to the car.
“Yeah, she said that the people who had signed the lease for this place backed out at the last minute. So we got it.”
“Works for me.” She shook her head. “I’m not looking forward to moving, but it’ll be easier than settling you in and then packing everything up all over again. It makes more sense to do it now when we’re both planning to take a week off anyway.”
“I agree. Now let’s go get some crummy Mexican food.”
“Yay, my favorite!” He led her to his car, and they got in. “The name of the place is The Alamo. I won’t even try to give you directions.”
“Good. I don’t want another headache.” He grinned at her as he started driving, following the directions on his phone.
After they’d eaten, he shrugged. “You’re right. Nothing to write home about.”
“But not terrible.”
“Eventually, I’m going to have to take you to Texas to meet my mother, and while we’re there, we’ll gorge on good Mexican food. We’ll eat so much we won’t fit on the plane to come back.”
She grinned. “You like Mexican food as much as I do!”
“Texas boy, born and raised. I have eaten Mexican food at least twice a week my entire life. Well, until I moved to New York, and then I couldn’t find anything good. I had a friend’s mother teach me to make empanadas when I went home to Texas so I could have something good. I love to make bean and meat empanadas. Or chicken. I like all the fruity ones too, but it was the savory ones I missed most.”
“As soon as we’re settled into the new place, you’re making me empanadas. You have no choice in the matter.” She loved empanadas, and she knew if he was bragging about being able to make them, his brags were not empty.
“I will if that’s what you want!”
They stopped at a grocery store for boxes on their way back to the apartment. “It’ll feel more like our place if we move now too. I think my apartment would always feel like my apartment.”
“I can agree with that. It’ll be nice to have our place.”
As soon as they got back, she went to work packing books. “I’ll get these first, and then start on the kitchen.”
“What should I do?” he asked.
“You start on the bathroom.”
They worked in silence, each of them concentrating on the task at hand. Within a couple of hours, they were ready to take a load to the new place. “I figure we’ll take a few boxes, unpack them, then do the same again. That way the task won’t seem as overwhelming.”
“That works for me,” he said. “Sounds like you’ve moved before.”
“Mainly just college moves, but we switched dorm rooms a few times, always making sure to keep the same suitemates.”
“Well, you certainly seem to have it down.” He lifted one of the boxes full of books while she took one of the boxes from the kitchen, and they carried them down to her truck. The new apartment was on the other side of the apartment complex.
They worked in the same manner all afternoon and into the evening. Finally, he stretched. “I’m going to die if we don’t eat soon.”
“Well, look who’s being all dramatic.”
He rolled his eyes. “Hangry is a real thing, you know.”
“I know. I’ve had friends with hangry problems. I’m just glad I don’t have that issue.”
After dinner, they went back to the old apartment, which was starting to look barren. “We should move the furniture tomorrow,” she said. “I think I can get a couple of guys from work to help.”
“That would be amazing. I think we can do all the boxes, it’s just the big furniture that we’ll need help with.”
“Then I’ll make some calls tonight.” She plopped down on the couch and pulled her phone out, scrolling through the numbers. “Hey, Jeremy? Are you off tomorrow?”
Jackson watched her as she spoke to the man on the other end of the line. “My new husband and I need help moving. There’s pizza involved!”
“Great. Yeah, we’ll be at my old apartment at ten. Pizza when the big stuff is moved.” She paused. “Sure, another truck would be great. We’re just moving within the apartment complex, but we’ll take all the help we can get. Thank you!”
Sydney grinned at Jackson. “Jeremy is bringing his kid brother who is in high school and out of school for the summer. He said he’d do anything for free food.”
Jackson grinned. “Sounds like me at that age. Do you think that’s enough?”
“I think so. I don’t have a ton of stuff, and what I have isn’t super heavy. The washer-dryers belong to the apartment complex, so those we won’t be moving.”
“Then we’re probably set!” He looked at her for a moment. He’d gotten some strange vibes from her phone call. “Who’s Jeremy?”
“Oh, he’s this guy at work. We dated when I first started at the park, but he was too into himself, so I moved on.” She’d never thought much about Jeremy since then. He was the past, and she liked to focus on the future.
“How long did you date?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. A couple of months probably?”
He frowned. For some reason, he didn’t like the idea of her with anyone else. “Who broke things off?”
“I did.” She moved closer to him on the couch. “Are you jealous?”
“How can I be jealous of a guy I’ve never met and a girl I met yesterday?”
“No clue. Are you?”
“Maybe a little. I guess it seems weird that someone else once dated my wife.” He had no idea why he was jealous, but the ugly green monster was sitting on his shoulder.
“I can see that. But trust me, we were never anything but casual, and it ended amicably. Jeremy is the kind of guy who goes through women like other men go through underwear.”
“Oh, so he changed once a month like I do?”
Sydney wrinkled her
nose. “Sick.”
“Probably.” He got up and stretched. “I’m going to fill a few more boxes tonight.”
“Now you’re trying to make me look bad. Fine, I’ll do more, but I’m not going to like it.”
By the time they went to bed, most of what still needed to be packed was just the closet full of clothes. “I can’t believe we’ve done this much in one day,” he said, looking around at the blank walls.
“I’m pretty proud of us.” She sauntered over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I think we make a pretty good team.”
“I know we do.” He leaned down and kissed her softly. “The best team.”
When she went to sleep that night, she still had a smile on her lips. They did make a good team. How long would it take to go from that to happily ever after? She wasn’t sure, but she wanted to get there.
By one the following afternoon, all of the furniture was in the new apartment, and they were sitting in it, having the pizza Sydney had ordered. Jeremy was there with his little brother, Max, both of them eating slice after slice and washing it down the Sprite Sydney had picked up. “We really appreciate all the help today, guys. I wasn’t looking forward to carrying my half of that bed or the television.”
Max looked at Sydney. “Aren’t you the girl Jer used to date?”
“We went out a few times,” Sydney said, not wanting to discuss the topic with her new husband there.
“I thought he was going to marry you.”
Sydney sat up straight, shaking her head. Why now? “Why on earth would you think that?”
“Well, because Jer really liked you. Lots more than the other girls he dated.”
“I really liked him too. I still do. He’s a good friend to me.” She carefully emphasized the word friend for Jackson’s sake.
Jackson shook his head. “I guess the better man won, huh?”
Jeremy laughed. “Sure did. I’m not sure I would have liked being married to Syd. She’s a picket-fence-and-kiddos kind of girl, despite being a park ranger. I’m more of a wander-around-free-and-see-who-I-see kind of guy.” Despite his words, Jeremy looked a bit embarrassed by the topic of conversation.
“Anyone need anything else to drink?” Sydney asked, determined to get off the subject of her and Jeremy marrying.
“Yes!” Max said, holding out his glass.
Sydney noticed that Jackson gave her an odd look as she passed him to get more Sprite, but he didn’t say anything. It was weird that she’d married him as a stranger, and he was now jealous of a man she’d known for years and obviously hadn’t wanted to marry. How had that happened?
As Jeremy and Max left, Sydney thanked them both again. “You two really earned that pizza,” Jackson said, shaking hands with both of them in turn.
“Thanks for the food,” Max said, already turning to get into his brother’s truck. “What’s for lunch?” he asked Jeremy. “You said you’d feed me after we helped them move.”
“You just ate half a pizza!” his brother replied.
“And I could probably eat another half.” Max waved as Jeremy pulled away from the apartment.
“Teenage boys eat everything in sight,” Sydney said after they’d pulled away.
“So Jeremy was going to marry you, was he?”
“Not that I know of. Nothing was ever said about it to me.” She shrugged. “I never would have married him. He’s not…right.”
From what Jackson could see, he thought he was the one who wasn’t right for her. It surprised him that it was bothersome. He wasn’t used to feeling anything like that about other people. “Well, whatever happened, it’s in the past.”
“Yes, it is in the past. Now let’s get this stuff where we want it.” While she cleaned up the mess from the pizza, he started to unpack boxes in the bathroom.
Hours later, they moved the last of the boxes to the new place. “If you want to stay here and unpack, I’ll go back to my old place and clean. I want my deposit back.”
He nodded. “This will be the first time we’ve been separated since we married!”
“Will we survive?” Sydney asked dramatically, the back of her hand to her forehead.
“I sure hope so!” He leaned down and kissed her cheek before she left. “Hurry back.”
“Wait, do you have my number?” she asked. She remembered a story Alexis had told about her and Dirk going back to work and her not even knowing his phone number.
They quickly exchanged numbers and she hurried back to her old apartment. It looked so barren, and she already missed it. She scrubbed out the refrigerator and mopped the floor, doing everything she could to make it spotless.
When she was done, she closed and locked the door. She’d have to take the key by the office in the morning, because it was already after six. She was sure Jackson was back to being hangry.
When she got to the new place, he was there, unpacking yet another box. “Do you want to just order Chinese? There’s a place that will deliver a few blocks from here.”
He nodded. “That sounds good. I’m worn out!”
“Me too. My muscle aches have muscle aches.”
“Does your place have sweet-and-sour chicken?”
She nodded, picking up her phone, where she had the Chinese place on speed dial, along with all the other delivery places in town. After ordering, she sat down, catching Jackson’s hand and pulling him down with her. “I think we both need a break for a little while. We’ve done a lot today.”
“We’re almost done!” He looked around thinking that there was only an hour or so of work left.
“We’ll do it tomorrow.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “If I try to move one more box, I’m going to die.”
He grinned, kissing the top of her head. “Then we’ll take the rest of the night off.” It worried him because he knew that his muscle aches would really set in overnight, and it would be even harder to do the things he needed to do.
“Thank you.” She closed her eyes, needing to rest just for a minute. “Are you going to set up the second bedroom as an office? I don’t have a desk, but we could probably shop for one this week.”
He frowned. “I hate to add to our to-do list that way, but I do need an office. There’s no way I could work otherwise.”
“Then we’ll shop for a desk tomorrow. Any idea what you have in mind?”
He nodded. “The one I had in New York was perfect for what I was doing. We’ll try to find one similar.”
“Sounds good. There are a couple of furniture stores in town.”
The Chinese food arrived then and he got up to pay for it, getting two plates and putting their food onto them. He handed her the plate, and she sighed. “I was hungrier than I realized.”
“I get that way.”
As they ate, she thought about everything Jeremy had said at lunch. Had he been serious about her in a way she hadn’t about him? She hoped that whole discussion didn’t make things at work awkward.
After they ate, she loaded the dishwasher and went into the bedroom to make the bed up. “I’m going to get a long, hot shower to massage my sore muscles, and then I’m going to crash. For a week.”
“I don’t know about a week, but crashing sounds awfully good!” He stood and stretched. “What should I do while you shower?”
“Sleep! Get ready for bed! Read a book. You don’t need to work all the time.”
He nodded, sinking into a chair. He would check his emails and make sure there was nothing pressing that needed to be done before his time off was up. Most of his clients could wait as long as they needed to, but there were one or two that he would give up his time off for.
When Sydney came out of the bathroom, her hair was wet and clinging to the nape of her neck. “I’m going to bed.”
He nodded, satisfied that nothing needed to be attended to immediately. “I’ll shower then and join you.” His exhaustion knew no bounds. He didn’t have to worry about trying to keep his hands off Sydney that night, at least. He wou
ld be too tired to even think about touching her.
When he got into bed, she was curled on her side, already fast asleep. He tucked the covers more carefully around her. “I think I’m as tired as you are,” he whispered, not wanting to wake her. He kissed her cheek and snuggled under the covers. Being married was a lot of work, but he had a feeling, she was worth it.
Chapter 6
Tuesday morning, right after breakfast, they finished the unpacking. When it was finally done, and everything had its place, they went out shopping for a computer desk for Jackson.
“I sure hope we can get this fast, and the rest of our week off will really be off. It would be nice to just spend time together,” Sydney told him. She was no stranger to hard work, but sometimes she just wanted to relax.
They found the desk they wanted, but it was one of those things they had to put together. Sydney frowned. “I had a college professor tell our class that the true test of a marriage is being able to build something together without killing each other.”
He laughed. “Well at least we’ll know in the first week if we should even bother to keep going.”
“I don’t know about that… Maybe I’ll just build the chair and you can build the desk, and neither of us will have to hate the other forever and ever and ever…”
He shook his head, sliding the desk into the back of her truck. “Let’s get some lunch, and then we’ll go build this stuff. Then the rest of our time off can be real time off. You could take me to your park, and you can show me around town.”
“All right. What kind of food are you in the mood for now?”
“I want some Thai curry. Anywhere in town have Thai food?”
“We do, but I burned myself out on Thai a few weeks ago. I had it for every meal for two weeks.”
“Hmm…well, let’s think then. Just American food?”
“That works, I guess. Is there a good place for just plain boring American food?”
“Yeah, we have some fast food places, but we have some real food too. Let’s go to Bonanza.” She hadn’t been there in a while.
Maybe in Moab Page 5
