JAXON (The Caine Brothers Book 4) (8 page)

“Ready to go?” Lily met him at the front of the garden where he sat on a bench waiting for her.

“You’re done already?” he asked. “How did it go?”

She beamed at him. “It went great. I did like you said and just chatted with them and it worked perfectly.”

“Good.”

“Wow. You stink,” she said, waving her hand in front of her nose.

He grinned. “This was your idea.”

They headed for the car, Lily keeping her distance. “You can’t get in my car smelling like that.”

“It’s just an old truck. Why does it matter?”

“Because that smell will linger way past the time you’re gone.”

“So what am I supposed to do, strip down?”

She raised her brows and bit her bottom lip. He couldn’t tell if that meant he’d shocked her, or if she liked the idea. It sounded good to him, until he reminded himself
sworn off women.

“Or you could just ride in the back.”

“That’s not safe, is it? I think I’d rather sit naked in the cab.”

She rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t have to be naked. Just shirt and shorts.”

He stripped off his shirt. “Works for me.”

“Whoa,” she said, holding out a hand to stop him. “Just sit in the back.”

“Nope,” he said, undoing the button and zipper on his shorts. “It’s a long drive back to the estate. I’m not sitting in the back the whole way. It’ll be lonely and unsafe.”

She made a pained sighing sound, then said, “Fine. Put your stinky shoes and clothes in the tool box in the back. Keep your skivvies on.”

“What if I’m not wearing any?”

“I…” The look on her face suggested first surprise and confusion, then evolved into a sexy consideration of the fact he might be commando under his shorts. Unfortunately, that made his cock twitch. He ignored it.

“I’m kidding. I’m wearing underwear.”

She harrumphed at him then headed for the driver’s side as he stripped out of his shoes and shorts, dumping everything into the big silver tool box thing in the back of her truck.

He climbed into the cab next to her, wearing only his socks and boxers. She glanced at him, her eyes roaming his body, before swallowing hard and turning away. He chuckled, but her eyes on him and his obvious effect on her caused unwelcome backlash as his cock inflated.

She started the truck and pulled into traffic. She sat rigid, staring a determined hole into the windshield, refusing to look at him. They sat in tense silence halfway back to the estate. During that time, he tried not to imagine what she was thinking. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore.

“You’re ignoring me,” he said. “It’s kind of awkward.”

“I’m not ignoring you. I’m concentrating on driving.”

He snorted. “Right. It’s an intense job.”

“You’re mostly naked. I’m respecting your privacy.”

“Couldn’t keep your eyes off my nakedness last night.”

“Oh my God,” she mumbled.

“You say that a lot.”

“I’m at a loss for other words. I thought you’d sworn off women?”

“I have.”

“Except for last night.”

“It was an interruption. I’m back to it now.”

“But you’re flirting with me.”

“You’re different.” The words popped out of his mouth before he could stop them. Before he knew what he meant. How was she different? He’d ended up at a place where all women seemed interchangeable, so he’d sworn off them. No sex for a while. No going through women like they were disposable. But Lily wasn’t the kind of woman he normally got exposed to, setting her apart.

She finally took her eyes off the road and glanced at him, confusion knitting her brows. “How am I different?”

“Well…” Anything he said at that point could be taken the wrong way. If he told her she was different simply because they’d met outside of his celebrity life, that would sound dismissive. If he said she was different because he admired her commitment and passion, she’d just say if he’d taken the time to get to know any of the women he’d met on the road, he might learn something different and interesting about them, too. Clearly, he was the issue. He felt like an asshole. “You make me think—about the things you’re committed to, but also about myself. How can I be a better person?”

It sounded like a cheesy, opportunistic pickup line, but her expression softened. “Good,” she said as they pulled into the driveway.

He climbed out of the truck and collected his shoes and clothes, wondering what she meant by that sly smile. “So what’s on the agenda for the evening?”

“If you’re still game after everything else we did today, it’s dumpster night.”

“Care to elaborate?”

Her expression brightened even an August day in Texas. “Nope. You have to experience it to understand. But you might want to just save those clothes. Dumpster night can get dirty.”

He waggled his brows. “I’m game for dirty.”

She snorted as she headed for the door. “I’m sure you are.”

In the foyer they stood for an awkward, silent moment, not sure what to say or how to go to their separate wings of the house. Jaxon still only wore his boxers and carried the rest of his clothes in a wad under his arm. He shifted from one foot to the other, not ready for their day together to be over.

“Okay,” she said, breaking the silence. “So, meet back here at midnight. You might want to nap because we’ll be up late.”

“Midnight?”

At midnight, Jaxon left his room and headed back to the foyer. He’d showered, dug around in the fridge for something to eat—Lily hadn’t cooked dinner so he figured they were on their own—and taken a short nap. He hadn’t fallen asleep easily. Instead, he’d laid there with tangled thoughts about food and hungry people, Lily’s fiery hair and passion, and music and his absent muse, all filling his head in that drowsy place between awake and asleep.

Despite Lily suggesting he wear the same smelly clothes, they were too ripe, so Jaxon had thrown on jeans and a t-shirt.

Lily stood in the foyer waiting for him as he descended the stairs. She wore dark jeans and a tight black t-shirt that emphasized her breasts and slender waist, and did nothing to discourage his libido. She’d pulled her hair back into a messy bun. She looked so good his first instinct was to drag her upstairs and sex her up until neither of them could stand upright.

But he crushed that impulse.
Celibate.

“Ready?” she asked, handing him a cup of coffee she’d been holding

“As I’ll ever be.”

As they climbed in the truck, Jaxon noticed the back full of coolers and crates held down by bungee cords.

“What’s with all this?” he asked, gesturing to the stuff.

“You’ll see.”

Her smile teased at something, but he had the feeling he might not like it. They drove with the air conditioner chugging to keep up with the heat outside, and the radio turned up. Jaxon sipped his coffee and watched the dark scenery drift by, but then the song on the radio changed and suddenly he was thrown back into his world. His band and his voice blasted from the speakers.

They looked at each other, frozen in that weird moment, but then Jaxon broke out and sang along Karaoke style. He belted the lyrics and drummed on the dashboard. He didn’t care how good or bad it sounded, he didn’t care about production values or audience satisfaction or singing the right notes or anything he usually worried about when on stage. This wasn’t stage. This was why he’d got into music in the first place, because it fed his soul. It made him happy, and by the way Lily laughed and sang along, it made her happy, too.

By the time he finished the song, Lily had pulled them into the parking lot of a FreshMart grocery store. The dark windows of the store revealed it to be closed, and the tall, bright pole-lights cast haunting shadows in the empty parking lot.

He almost asked why they were there, but she continued to drive past the lot and around the back of the store, parking just outside a covered area full of dumpsters. A bar and tire spikes blocked entrance by car, but anyone could just walk inside.

Which, by the way Lily climbed out of the truck, was exactly what she planned to do.

“Let’s haul the coolers and crates inside and get to work.”

“Excuse me?”

“We have a half hour here before we have to meet some of the other divers at PicMart.”

“Divers?”

They both collected empty crates and coolers and hauled them inside the well-lit space. Lily dropped hers near the first dumpster, then opened the lid and peered inside.

“Dumpster divers. Grocery stores throw away unexpired or nearly expired or just expired food that’s still edible, so we go around and collect it for use by people who need it. This is a fairly new store. We haven’t been here yet, but I scouted it a week or so ago to check out their dumpster set-up. Tonight’s the first night diving here.”

“You said there are other divers?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t they come, too?”

“Because we don’t know if there’s security or if anyone will call the police, so we want to keep exposure to a minimum until we know. Give me a boost?”

He crouched so she could step up on his knee and get a look inside.

“Oh, wow,” she said, leaning head-first into the dumpster. “Look at this.”

She reached around behind her with several packages of tri-tip steak in her hand. Jaxon took them from her. They looked good to him. One had maybe a tiny bit of brown around the edges, but the expiration date on all of them was tomorrow.

“These are still good. They’re even still kind of cold,” he said.

“They probably tossed them not long ago,” she said, shaking her head.

“Why are they in the garbage?”

She balanced her belly on the edge of the dumpster and looked back at him. “Now you understand. Look in here.”

Jaxon was tall enough to see over the edge into the dumpster without a boost. That it was full of bags of trash didn’t surprise him, but a lot of the bags were full of food. He turned and surveyed the garage-like space. He counted five more dumpsters. “Are all the others like this one?”

“Go look. I’m going to collect. Would you pull one of the coolers over here for me to step on?”

He did as she asked and set a cooler where she could stand on it and lean in to work. Then Jaxon went and opened each of the other five dumpsters. One was empty, two were full of bags of gross garbage—nothing edible in there. But the other two looked like the store had swept half the food off their shelves into carts, wheeled them out to the dumpster, and shoveled it all in.

“Jesus,” he said.

“What? Did you say something?” Lily asked, her arms full of packages of bread.

“I said, who the fuck throws away this much food?”

She snorted. “Every grocery store and restaurant and household in the country. Okay, not all households, but we all waste a lot of food. Some grocery stores are better than others about donating.”

“There’s a lot of wilted and rotten produce in here, but there’s a lot of food that still looks good, too.”

“Yep. Like this,” she said, stepping off her cooler. She picked up an eighteen-pack of eggs and walked over to join him at his dumpster. “See this? They’re still cool, so probably got tossed after the store closed. There are three broken eggs in here. That means there are still fifteen good eggs. The expiration date is a week away. So these fifteen eggs get wasted.”

Jaxon was stunned. “I had no idea stores did this kind of thing.”

Lily shrugged. “We live in a wasteful culture that wants uber-fresh all the time. That means super-cautious expiration dates and lots of unused food. America literally wastes up to fifty percent of the food it produces. Fifty percent! That’s so much squandered time, energy, fuel, labor, and actual food. It makes me really angry, especially when I know how many people just in Houston are hungry.”

“So you and the rest of the divers collect all this food and do what with it?”

“Each of us keeps what we can use, then we donate the rest to shelters and other places.”

“What if there’s too much for you to collect?”

“It goes to the landfill.”

“Jeez.”

“I know. I try not to think about that part or I get rage-y. Let’s get to work.”

They spent an hour—twice what Lily had budgeted for them—clearing food from the dumpsters and sorting what could still be used. In the end, they had a small pile of meat—some chicken and more beef—more eggs, packages of fruits and vegetables, vacuum-sealed specialty cheeses, bacon. All were either just expired or not expired yet.

Jaxon picked up a bag of limes. A couple were squishy and barely moldy. The rest were fine. “Most of these are still good. All those bananas are just a little brown.”

“I know. Welcome to my world.”

He shook his head as he helped her fill up the coolers and crates, then load it all into the truck. “There’s no space left for the other places you wanted to go.”

She crinkled her brow and frowned. “And we didn’t even get it all,” she said, pointing to the leftovers that didn’t fit in their boxes. “Dammit. This is even worse than other stores. You finish loading the truck. I’m going to clean up the rest of this.”

Jaxon rearranged all the coolers and crates in the back and bungee-corded them all in, but just as he finished, Lily brought a garbage bag full of some of the leftover food and squeezed it in under one of the bungees.

They climbed in the truck again. “I’m going to call the others,” Lily said. “We don’t have any more space in the truck. I’ll let them know we’re done for the night.”

“So what are we going to do with all this food?”

“Tomorrow we’ll sort it and what we don’t keep we’ll donate.”

When they got back to the estate, they unloaded everything from the truck and shoved it into an extra fridge and freezer Lily had in the mud room. By the time they’d finished, it was nearing three in the morning.

Lily closed the freezer door and leaned back against it with a long sigh. “I love dumpster night. I always feel like I’ve pulled off something big and important and stuck it to the man.”

Jaxon laughed. “You have.”

“This is so much food. I don’t even know what to do with it all.”

Strands of hair had fallen from her bun and framed her face like a fiery halo, dirt smudged her face and arms, and her eyes sparkled with purpose. She had to be the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.