Chapter 2

Hudson shoved his phone screen right up in my face.

"The lunches didn't go up. Twenty-five hundred, that's right. But what about the vinegar?"

My mind buzzed for a second, and I honestly wondered if I'd misheard him.

"Vinegar?"

I met the resentment in Hudson's eyes.

There was a tightness in my chest, like I couldn't quite get a breath.

"That's right, vinegar. Six bottles total. I won't even mark it up on you. Cost, ten bucks a bottle, that's all."

I stood there stunned for a couple of seconds. Before this, out of the goodwill between us, I'd let it slide when he raised his prices. When his food quality slipped, I didn't press him on it either.

But it seemed the goodwill I cared about wasn't worth six bottles of vinegar to Hudson.

"Hudson, I've been ordering lunches from you for two years."

"Started at a hundred boxes, now it's up to two hundred and fifty. All I did was ask you to bring six extra bottles of vinegar, and you're really going to nickel-and-dime me over sixty dollars' worth of stuff?"

I drew in a deep breath, more disappointed in him than I could say.

I'd thought he'd pick up on how unhappy I was and let it go. Instead his voice climbed a few notches, and he worked himself up.

"Nickel-and-dime, my foot. That vinegar cost me money too."

"Barbara, you're an educated woman. Even blood brothers settle their accounts straight. You order lunches, I bring you lunches. You want vinegar, I bring the vinegar too."

"What's wrong with charging you cost? You want me to pay for it out of my own pocket?"

The workers were packed in tight around us.

Clint Finch, from the rebar crew, who was on decent terms with Hudson, hurried over to smooth things out.

"Hudson, it's only sixty bucks. You've been working with our site for how long now, and you just added fifty more boxes a day. Your profit's up a good bit. You're really going to fuss over sixty dollars?"

2.

Clint could see I was upset, and shot Hudson a quiet look.

"Our site orders sixty grand of meals from you every month. Let it go, would you."

Hudson wouldn't hear a word of it. He shoved Clint aside, hard, and let his voice loose completely.

"Sixty grand, so what? Mine's a small-margin, high-volume business. You order, I make money. That's just how it works. What, am I supposed to bow down and thank you for it?"

"I'm not running a charity. No way I'm eating the cost."

The sight of Hudson haggling over every cent turned my stomach.

Back when the site was first laid out, this whole area was quiet and deserted.

Hudson used to peddle food off his bicycle cart at the site gate. Not used to the local water and food, and with low blood sugar on top of it, I passed out right at the gate.

It was the bite of food Hudson put to my lips that brought me around.

And from that day on, three meals a day, without fail, I showed up in front of Hudson's bicycle cart.