“It was less, but earlier this year I stepped things up. Now I have a girl. I think you might know her, Heather. She helps me out, packs them for shipping. I used to do it, but with the new shops I need more time to make them, so she does it for me. I have a kind of warehouse slash kitchen over the gift shop in town. My inventory is there, she does the packing there, and when fruit is in season I make my preserves there. She hasn’t been with me very long, but she says she’s going to help with the preserves when I do them. They’re kind of…” I struggled for a word that wouldn’t make me sound like I was bragging and settled on, “exclusive. I only do them when fruit is in season so they aren’t on the shelves all the time. It ratchets up the prices and they don’t stay in stock for long seeing as most people buy them in bulk so they have them all year.”
His face got a strange funny look when I mentioned Heather, but he quickly rearranged it. He sat back while I kept talking, but did it continuing to hold my hand.
“Impressive,” he remarked when I went quiet.
“It’s preserves and blankets,” I replied.
“You live in a cute house, drive a sweet ride, ride a cute bike and wear great clothes. You do all that outta preserves and blankets, over two hundred shops in two countries. Honey, that’s impressive.”
“Okay,” I decided to agree, and he grinned at me.
The waiter came with bread. Raiden unfortunately let my hand go and reached for the basket.
He offered it to me (totally getting better and better, I mean, hot, cool and a gentleman!).
I took a roll as he asked, “Why did you step things up?”
I shrugged, broke my roll to butter it, and explained evasively (because I certainly wasn’t going to tell him the real reason), “I don’t know. Just one day it hit me. My life was kind of narrow. I enjoyed it, but I wanted more.” I spread butter on my bread and looked at him. “To get more, go on vacation, learn to snowboard, you need money. I was doing okay, but I needed to do better. So I worked harder.” I tipped my head to the side. “Now I do better.”
“So your girl, she does all your shipping for you?”
I nodded. “I haven’t been to my place in town in, gosh, I don’t know. Weeks now, at least. She even comes out to the house to pick up the afghans I’ve done and takes them into town. She’s a huge help. Especially with more orders, helping out Grams and all.”
I took a bite of my buttered roll.
Delicious.
I chewed, swallowed and watched Raiden take a sip from his beer. I liked how his throat worked when he did that, so I decided more conversation was in order so I didn’t obsess about how beautiful his throat was, or more accurately what that throat might taste like.
I just didn’t know what conversation to make.
I wanted to ask what he did for a living, but I was too nervous. It seemed pushy and intrusive, regardless of the fact he asked about my business. I just felt that for a man, and a man like him especially, it was something he needed to share in his way at his time.
I also wanted to ask about something else that had been kind of bugging me since he mentioned it. I didn’t think it was a safer topic, but I did think it was the safer of the two.
Still, I went in cautiously.
“Can I ask you something?”
He put his beer down and trained his eyes to me. “Yeah.”
I put my roll on my bread plate and looked at him. “I’m guessing you know Heather and Bodhi since you mentioned them.”
“Small town and two characters like that don’t go unnoticed,” he replied.
I nodded, thinking his statement was a little weird of the not-good variety, but I pushed myself to keep going.
“If I’m not wrong, you were referring to them when you called them potheads.”
“You’re not wrong because they are potheads,” Raiden responded.
They were.
Still.
“That’s kind of, uh…” I cast my mind for a word, couldn’t find one so I went for it, “mean.”
He leaned into me and wrapped his hand around mine that was sitting on the table.
“Pot is legal in Colorado,” he stated and I tilted my head.
“It is?”
He stared at me a second then grinned. “Yeah, baby, it is.”
God, I liked it when he called me baby.
“Don’t you vote?” he asked.
“Well, yeah,” I answered.
“Straight ticket?” he guessed.
“Well, no,” I told him. “But all the referendums freak me out. I used to try to understand them, then one year I voted for one and found out after that I voted the wrong way because they made the language purposefully confusing so you thought you were voting for one thing and you weren’t. I went back and read and reread it and there was no way I knew what I was voting for. That’s dirty business, so I decided that I should vote only on things I totally understood instead of making another mistake like that because, well, you know, these things affect people’s lives and you shouldn’t screw up something that important. As none of the referendums make a lick of sense to me, I concentrate on the candidates and hope they’ll take care of the referendums.”
“Makes sense. Whacked sense but it makes it,” he murmured.
“What does pot being legal have to do with Bodhi and Heather?” I asked, though I had to admit, this was good news and nice to know why the Sherriff didn’t get into Bodhi’s business.
“I voted against legalizing pot,” Raiden declared, and I got it.
“Oh,” I replied.
“I’m good with live and let live, but shit like that bleeds into bigger shit, and no one needs that.”
“I don’t smoke it, but I know both Bodhi and Heather and they’re really nice people. And I’m not sure something like that bleeds. It’s a personal choice and it isn’t like crystal meth or stuff like that that destroys lives.”