Page 28 of The Falcon and the Foe

They shared a laugh, while I was still connecting the dots.

“When does the season start up for Jay?” Cal asked, and it took me a few seconds to remember Jay was one of Oliver’s sons.

“This Sunday.” Oliver mimicked throwing a football. He patted Cal on the back and continued to walk. “I’ll see you around. Russ,” he turned to me and gave a stiff nod.

“Give my best to the fam,” Cal said, then walked into my office and shut the door. I pulled extra paper plates from my bottom drawer. I think they were from an old birthday party when my team surprised me with a cake, which they wound up eating in the kitchen.

Cal plopped the sandwiches on the plates and sunk into a chair across my desk. He took another bite, which for him constituted shoving as much food into his mouth as possible without choking. “Do you have any Sunkist?” he asked through his sandwich.

“What the hell was that?”

“What?”

I didn’t know where to start. Cal seemed to bring five levels of mess with him at all times. “These sandwiches? Mo? Oliver Garden.”

“Those are all examples of nouns.”

“How are you best friends with everyone in my office where you, as far as I know, don’t work?”

“Well, I do this wild and crazy thing called being nice to people. Did you know that if you smile at people and strike up a conversation with them, they’ll say something back? Do you have a napkin?”

I tossed over a stack of them; he wiped the corners of his mouth.

“I am friendly with my co-workers. I don’t need pointers.”

“You work with great people. I might play racquetball with Sandy this weekend.”

“Sandra Durrell, our Chief People Officer?”

“That’s such a fun title. Chief People Officer,” he repeated in a sing-songy voice. “I was in here once before to give you all the signed paperwork.”

“That was one time.”

He shrugged. “What can I say? People like me. Present company excluded.”

Cal’s social skills might’ve surpassed mine slightly, I supposed. He was a full-on extrovert, which seemed exhausting.

“You shouldn’t be showing up at my work unexpectedly like this.”

“You did that to me.”

“You work at a supermarket!”

He shrugged again. I could feel the familiar frustration crawl up my neck, but Cal’s sweet-natured smile made it hard to stick. And that grilled chicken sandwich in front of me did smell good.

“I also wanted to show off this.” Cal pulled out his phone and showed off the two certificates for First Aid and CPR training.

“You got certified? When?”

“I don’t know where I found the time, but yeah. So now you really are stuck with me.”

I did the math in my hand and had a sneaking feeling he either cut back on his voiceover work or quality time with Josh to dedicate the hours to certification, which made me feel incredibly guilty and incredibly touched at the same time.

But I didn’t want him to know that for some reason. “Well, it’s a good thing you got those in before the camping trip,” I said stiffly.

“That’s not why I came here today.” He read from his notes app. “I have off, so I figured it was easiest to swing by on your lunch break and go over some activity ideas for the camping trip. Because the camping trip can’t be all practicing First Aid. I mean, what if nobody gets injured? What will we do with ourselves? I’ve been reading community boards where other scout leaders post. There’s this amazing hike on the campgrounds. It’s a little long, but from what I hear, the view at the top is worth it.”

“Lookout Trail, right?”

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