He laughed, shaking his head in exasperation. “What Stone was thinking when he let Bea take the job, then you, I’ll never know.” It was better than any of the guys having to do the work, but Bea and Rae, and when Leah was around, seemed to be an odd combination that incited some strange, but funny things. “That hour of the Laffy Taffy jokes was painful,” he commented, shaking off the feeling that she was flirting, or doing something close to it. Probably just wishful thinking on his part, and not something he needed to be scrutinizing.
“I like the idea,” he told her honestly. “Holidays should be a thing around here, y’know. Bring some normalcy to the place.” Halloween seemed to be doing its part to up morale, celebrating Thanksgiving would probably do the same thing. And a decent meal with everything sounded like perfection. “I bet Marchand would go for it too. Sounds exactly like something he’d get behind.” And the rest of leadership. They had chickens, but if they could get a couple wild turkeys that would be even better. He’d never been a hunter before, but he’d probably go, if Marchand needed the help.
Wracking his brain, the only prank he could come up with was the tutu thing. Least that was the only thing he could remember Brandon mentioning to him. “I’ll see if I can make it happen. Just for you,” he told her, giving her a devilish smile, before furrowing his brows together at the way she looked him over. How the hell was he supposed to take that? Especially coupled with earlier. “Means you got good taste,” he told her decisively, his expression smoothing out again and settling back into a half-smile. “I’ll add that to the reasons I like you.” Though it wasn’t helping with any of the developing feelings he had; not that those were even really being addressed. Ignored was more like it.
“That doesn’t make it sound any less sci-fi.” Pregnancy was probably going to be one of those things that he’d honestly never understand, and all the things Rae had said wasn’t making it any less murky to him.
He nodded. “Desperation makes people do stupid things.” He had his own laundry list of things spurred on by desperation. He bent forward, elbows rested on his knees. “You think? How?” he asked. “You think Brandon’s one of ‘em?” He didn’t want to think that Lexi was manipulating his friend, but they did have a history. “I know the blonde one’s been trying to get in good with people, but I guess I just figured Lexi was here…” He’d been less suspicious of her than the rest, but now it sounded like she deserved just as much suspicion as the rest of them.
“I’ve done a lot worse than that to my body, believe me,” he retorted with a dismissive hand gesture. Probably he’d never know exactly for sure what years of drug use had done to him, but he could figure it wasn’t anything good. “But yeah, the poor thing probably deserves a break.”
He couldn’t help being honest, and shaking his head in affirmation. “A little bit, yeah.”