Page 97 of Good Directions

25

SAWYER

“Moved them?”

Anton repeats my words, like I didn’t already just say it twice. I hold my ground, ready to say it a third time if I need to. But something tells me it’s starting to sink in.

“You fucking moved them?”

Or, maybe not.

“Do I need to say it again?” I don’t bother to hold back any kind of attitude. If he’s going to come at me like a raging bull, then I will not hesitate to play matador. “Or have you comprehended the meaning of the words?”

Anton’s face turns hard, eyes going dark, but not in the same way they did last night. No, this is different. Where last night they were filled with desire and fun and adoration, this is the opposite. This is cold, harsh, and unfeeling.

“No, I got that part. What I don’t got is what the fuck you were thinking!”

What the fuck I was thinking? Excuse me?

Indignation rises in me like the waves at high tide, and it takes everything I have not to scream right back at him. One of us has to remain calm though. Or should at least try. And it appears that one is going to be me.

“It was required for the tests I needed to run,” I explain.

“The fuck it was!”

He steps in closer, skirting around the small table where the dominos sit, stopping right in front of me. The lab table between us isn’t more than a couple of feet wide, but right now, it feels like the Grand Canyon. Then again, given our heightened emotions, the safety barrier is probably a good idea.

“And how would you know? Were you here? No, you weren’t,” I counter. “So you don’t know what I was looking at, what my hypothesis was, and why I made the choice that I did. So that I could run the tests that I need, to then hopefully prove it all out.”

“Doesn’t matter if I was here or not.” He sighs heavily, voice strained, yet perfectly even. “You dug up trees.”

“So what?”

“So what? So…what?” A vein appears on the side of his neck, clear even through the second-day scruff he hasn’t had a chance to take care of. Scruff that under another circumstance, I’d be starting to wonder how it would feel against my cheek. “Trees aren’t meant to be disturbed. Something you should know, as a soil expert.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that once or twice,” I sass, unable to help myself. I take a step back, needing to move, to put a little more space between us. “But I also know it’s not impossible. And I needed to test a theory.”

“So you just went ahead and risked killing an entire section of my grove?”

I balk, his accusation stinging deep. The fact that he would think that I would recklessly do such a thing. At this point, he should know me better than that. He should also remember his own directives.

“You told me that I had free rein to do as I needed.”

“Not that free!”

Not that free. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

“Free rein means free rein. Unless somehow Hayes has a different definition of it.”

Anton scoffs. “The Hayes definition doesn’t include putting crops at risk!”

“I didn’t put them at risk!” I exclaim, throwing my arms out wide. “I followed protocol, moved them, and got initial samples I needed. And planned on getting more this afternoon.”

“All behind my back.”

Seriously? What the fuck. He has to be joking. None of this was done behind his back. None of it.

“Behind your back? Anton, you told me I had free rein! Not to mention, I tried to tell you last night. Remember when I said, ‘I did a thing’? Oh wait, maybe you don’t because while you told me you couldn’t wait to hear about it, you never did ask. Maybe because you were too busy fighting with your sister over a damn seating chart.”