Page 30 of Lovesick
Mav said nothing, but his poker face nearly broke. His lack of rebuttal was silent approval. My own astonishment gave me pause. Did Markhavethat kind of money? Mark, who aspired to be a mountain man?
They must have more going on than I thought.
“This is easy work, Mark,” I said. “Website design is more specialized, of course, but the cataloguing and uploading of your records is assistant-level stuff. Why would you pay me that much when you could get people to do it for fifteen dollars an hour?”
“For your flexibility and ... you’d probably need to stay at Adventura. Rent-free, of course. There are so many papers, files, folders, and more that you’d need to ask me about in order to categorize them correctly. I don’t want to send that away, because things could get lost. I need more control over this project than that. Plus, I want to be part of the website development. Trying to do this remotely would only be frustrating. I can’t get anyone who would be willing to move to Adventura in the winter and work for fifteen dollars an hour, even with housing thrown in.”
Ah, the clincher.I silently agreed that being in person was ideal if he truly had that much paperwork, but the idea of living in the wilderness, cut off from civilization, my sisters, and my brand-new nephew, was far from appealing. The Baileys used pillowcases for drapes.
Plus, the chances of befriending mice was too high for comfort.
“How many hours a week?” Mav asked.
I glared at him. He held up two hands as if to say he’d back off. I turned to Mark.
“What sort of schedule?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Until it’s done. Work fourteen hours a day if you want. My only deadline for it is the end of the year. Oh, I also promised investors an online dashboard. I’d like to create one, then link it to the website.”
Could be complicated, depending on how many layers he wanted, but intriguing all the same. That kind of complexity might work in my favor.
Assuming full-time work, self-employment taxes, and a few other considerations ... I quickly calculated the math. It would help offset the cost of today. Laptop, phone, clothes. Those would have to be replaced, not to mention the debt that had followed me home from college.
“And you think I’m going to be okay with her staying with two thirty-year-old men?” Maverick asked, his voice deepening an octave.
I ground my teeth.
Did he remember that I spent four years at college without him?
“Three,” JJ said. “Justin lives there too. He’s our full-time maintenance man and pops in and out.”
Maverick glowered. I could have sworn Mark shoved his heel into JJ’s toes, but neither of their expressions changed.
“You deserve to know,” JJ said to me.
“Snow White would live in her own cabin in the woods.” Mark’s charming grin covered the sudden tension in the room. “I will vouch for Justin, and I think the whole town would vouch for both of us. Plus, Justin’s dating our sister, so he’s not a problem. Lizbeth’s cabin wouldn’t be far from the office—just behind it, in fact. We have walkie-talkies, and if she needed anything, we’d be about fifteen steps away. It has a lock,” Mark added before Maverick could ask, “that we wouldn’t have access to. She’d have all the keys.”
Maverick’s tense shoulders relaxed slightly.
For several moments, no one said a word. The fire popped and hissed in the background. I didn’t dare look at JJ. If Mark didn’t put a weekly cap on my hours, I could potentially speed through this while the Frolicking Moose got sorted out. Not to mention earn some money to get my life back together. It would give me something besides Pinnable—and all my lost books—to focus on for a while.
Right now, my grieving mind desperately needed a focus.
“I want weekly pay,” I said.
“You got it.”
“Since my car is currently swimming with fishes, can I bum rides to come into town?”
“Of course.”
“At least twice a week? I want to come see Shane and help Bethany.”
“I’ll bring you,” JJ said immediately.
Some intensity hadn’t burned off of him yet, and I wished it wasn’t from the fire. But of course it was from the fire, because JJ had sworn himself to bachelorhood—he wasn’t feeling anything toward me.
Filled with even more surreal disbelief, I kept my gaze on Mark. Was this happening? Was I about to agree to this?
